Bear Number 108
Bear Number 109
Bear Number 110
Bear Number 111Monday, July 6, 2009
Walking the Bear
This morning I realized that sometimes even taking a bad photograph takes time. I wanted to show what I mean by “Walking the Bear” and repeatedly missed the mark.
Occasionally I encounter a day that is filled with projects right from the time I get up. Not that most of the things I do are terribly important at the time, but they have to be done. And so I device shortcuts, tricks that make it possible to multitask. One of my daily musts is walking. Walking to keep the pounds away, to keep cholesterol and blood pressure down, to get out of the house and into a “social environment.” You know what they say about the elderly; they tell us that we need to stay connected. And so my daily schedule usually contains at least one social “event” (event used as psychological term, not as big production); it might be a handshake with the man sitting on his stoop down the street, a few words to the checkout-clerk at the grocery store, a lunch with a friend, a conversation with the garden expert at Home Depot. While some of these are merely tokens, others become friendly exchanges of experiences. The other day a stranger asked if I minded that she sit at the same table with me at my favorite outdoors Barnes & Noble store. We spent at least half an hour discussing travel, art, languages, books, the countries we came from. We told each other how pleasant it had been to meet, and then we parted, made a little richer by the other one’s knowledge, yet unencumbered by the promise to send emails, visit again, or in any way continue the conversation.
But today, I reasoned as I got up, is not a day for leisurely encounters. Too much on my list of things to do. I had to combine walking with something. If I walk to the grocery store I only end up with sore arms, because I have to buy more than I can carry comfortably. Walking along the creek and knitting, I know from experience, is at best clumsy. I might trip. People might stare a hole into me. My ball of yarn might roll down the hill and I would have to pull and pull until a big tangle would pile up in front of me. I’ve given up walking and knitting in public. Only one thing left - walking and knitting in the house. Normally this is a rainy day activity. This morning it was a time saver. I walked for an hour. Knitted one Bear leg and two arms. Ran into the bedroom door twice before I taped it to the wall. Had to make ten minutes of thirteen pace circuits with the telephone propped between neck and ear. Accomplished almost three miles.
I couldn’t resist taking a photo to show the contraption I use to walk and knit. A plastic bag attached to the edge of my t-shirt with a clothespin. It is a lousy picture, one of the ten I had to shoot to cover bag and Bear all at once. Anyway, I saved an hour by walking and knitting and talking on the phone. Unfortunately I just spent this saved hour taking/uploading/editing pictures and writing about the experience. Now off to the garden to water tomatoes and flowers. Maybe I could read two chapters for my book group while I let the hose spray aimlessly into the morning sky.
Occasionally I encounter a day that is filled with projects right from the time I get up. Not that most of the things I do are terribly important at the time, but they have to be done. And so I device shortcuts, tricks that make it possible to multitask. One of my daily musts is walking. Walking to keep the pounds away, to keep cholesterol and blood pressure down, to get out of the house and into a “social environment.” You know what they say about the elderly; they tell us that we need to stay connected. And so my daily schedule usually contains at least one social “event” (event used as psychological term, not as big production); it might be a handshake with the man sitting on his stoop down the street, a few words to the checkout-clerk at the grocery store, a lunch with a friend, a conversation with the garden expert at Home Depot. While some of these are merely tokens, others become friendly exchanges of experiences. The other day a stranger asked if I minded that she sit at the same table with me at my favorite outdoors Barnes & Noble store. We spent at least half an hour discussing travel, art, languages, books, the countries we came from. We told each other how pleasant it had been to meet, and then we parted, made a little richer by the other one’s knowledge, yet unencumbered by the promise to send emails, visit again, or in any way continue the conversation.
But today, I reasoned as I got up, is not a day for leisurely encounters. Too much on my list of things to do. I had to combine walking with something. If I walk to the grocery store I only end up with sore arms, because I have to buy more than I can carry comfortably. Walking along the creek and knitting, I know from experience, is at best clumsy. I might trip. People might stare a hole into me. My ball of yarn might roll down the hill and I would have to pull and pull until a big tangle would pile up in front of me. I’ve given up walking and knitting in public. Only one thing left - walking and knitting in the house. Normally this is a rainy day activity. This morning it was a time saver. I walked for an hour. Knitted one Bear leg and two arms. Ran into the bedroom door twice before I taped it to the wall. Had to make ten minutes of thirteen pace circuits with the telephone propped between neck and ear. Accomplished almost three miles.
I couldn’t resist taking a photo to show the contraption I use to walk and knit. A plastic bag attached to the edge of my t-shirt with a clothespin. It is a lousy picture, one of the ten I had to shoot to cover bag and Bear all at once. Anyway, I saved an hour by walking and knitting and talking on the phone. Unfortunately I just spent this saved hour taking/uploading/editing pictures and writing about the experience. Now off to the garden to water tomatoes and flowers. Maybe I could read two chapters for my book group while I let the hose spray aimlessly into the morning sky.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Field of Dreams
Bears Number 104 and 105
Bears Number 106 and 107My new project for the year has been, since early spring, the growing of herbs and tomatoes. I had estimated my monthly cost for herbs from the grocery store at about twenty dollars. Add to this the price for tomatoes, which I eat almost daily, and I thought “doing my own thing” would give me a chance to save money. Beginning in January I started to grow basil, chives, parsley, oregano, and sage in domed planters by the kitchen window, eventually transplanting the seedlings into larger planters and transferring those to my front porch. Tomatoes came to my house as small plants, five of them; a friend brought me two more last month.
I have three things to say about my little garden. First, I love to just walk out in the evening and “snip” some flavor to add to my meal. Secondly, even though friends giggle when I tell them that I harvest one to three cherry tomatoes a day, I am having a great time testing the different varieties. The third thought I have about the project: it costs more than I had hoped. Well, all the gardening books I bought probably raised the price of a tomato to ten dollars. But the fun I have, growing, harvesting, eating, journaling, photographing is worth the money I invested.
And so, because I don't want the Bears to feel neglected, I allowed Numbers 104, 105, 106, and 107 to romp through my “Field of Dreams.”
I have three things to say about my little garden. First, I love to just walk out in the evening and “snip” some flavor to add to my meal. Secondly, even though friends giggle when I tell them that I harvest one to three cherry tomatoes a day, I am having a great time testing the different varieties. The third thought I have about the project: it costs more than I had hoped. Well, all the gardening books I bought probably raised the price of a tomato to ten dollars. But the fun I have, growing, harvesting, eating, journaling, photographing is worth the money I invested.
And so, because I don't want the Bears to feel neglected, I allowed Numbers 104, 105, 106, and 107 to romp through my “Field of Dreams.”
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Doppel-U and an Ode to Joy
Bear 103 The Memory Maker
Looking back, it seems, is a pastime for an older person. Usually the young, filled with hopes and dreams, have little patience for the past. Besides, their pasts are only short distances away. The person in the middle of life, who is either working on fulfilling dreams or decrying the misfortune of not having found them, is too busy to take a look backwards. That leaves the ageing. We not only have the time for travels on roads of “long ago,” we seem to have the desire to reflect on the flowers we found along the perimeters of our journeys.
I am on the road right now, sitting at my desk, glass door wide open to the breeze, knitting needles dictating the rhythm of my thoughts, sunlight filtering through tree branches, a mockingbird singing one hundred verses of longing. A perfect morning.
Something particular stimulated my mind to wander; it was a package that had arrived in the mail yesterday. It came from Germany. A CD that I had stumbled upon as a result of a google search. Amazon.de was willing to ship it to me for a price almost as high as that of the CD itself. I cringed, but defended the cost after listening to one track online. I was drawn into the rhythm, copied the text, practiced saying the words in double my normal speed. I relish the “Ode to Joy” in this new format.
The CD claims to be an interactive rap learning experience. On the cover Doppel-U, the young rapper, appears in front of a statue of the two most famous German writers, Goethe and Schiller. The book accompanying the music encourages children to recite eighteenth century poetry to modern beats.
This morning, as I flip from page to page in the book, I suddenly find myself in a classroom full of twelve-year olds, reciting “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. I play the CD and more poems come to life. They seem to be my friends, as familiar as if I had spoken their words all through my life. I must have known them all by heart a long time ago. I see my language teacher raising her hand to direct the rhythm of the verses. She smiles at me. I am amused. Looking at the combination of modern beat and old poetry I guess one doesn’t have to stay on familiar roads; sometimes new roads lead to the past as well. I must remember that.
Something else I must remember – and my knitting needles click their approval as I continue with my thoughts – a child in the beginning stage of creating memories might also be in the end stage of his or her life. No matter how long or how short the life, a Bear becomes a confidante, a creator of scenes, and scenery. “The Bear and I” images will collect in the child’s mind to make the bad days “bearable” when the road narrows.
I therefore call Bear Number 103 the Memory Maker!
I am on the road right now, sitting at my desk, glass door wide open to the breeze, knitting needles dictating the rhythm of my thoughts, sunlight filtering through tree branches, a mockingbird singing one hundred verses of longing. A perfect morning.
Something particular stimulated my mind to wander; it was a package that had arrived in the mail yesterday. It came from Germany. A CD that I had stumbled upon as a result of a google search. Amazon.de was willing to ship it to me for a price almost as high as that of the CD itself. I cringed, but defended the cost after listening to one track online. I was drawn into the rhythm, copied the text, practiced saying the words in double my normal speed. I relish the “Ode to Joy” in this new format.
The CD claims to be an interactive rap learning experience. On the cover Doppel-U, the young rapper, appears in front of a statue of the two most famous German writers, Goethe and Schiller. The book accompanying the music encourages children to recite eighteenth century poetry to modern beats.
This morning, as I flip from page to page in the book, I suddenly find myself in a classroom full of twelve-year olds, reciting “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. I play the CD and more poems come to life. They seem to be my friends, as familiar as if I had spoken their words all through my life. I must have known them all by heart a long time ago. I see my language teacher raising her hand to direct the rhythm of the verses. She smiles at me. I am amused. Looking at the combination of modern beat and old poetry I guess one doesn’t have to stay on familiar roads; sometimes new roads lead to the past as well. I must remember that.
Something else I must remember – and my knitting needles click their approval as I continue with my thoughts – a child in the beginning stage of creating memories might also be in the end stage of his or her life. No matter how long or how short the life, a Bear becomes a confidante, a creator of scenes, and scenery. “The Bear and I” images will collect in the child’s mind to make the bad days “bearable” when the road narrows.
I therefore call Bear Number 103 the Memory Maker!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Beware of Camel Bottom
Bear Number 102While I am trying to come back fulltime to the Bears for Africa my thoughts still travel in various directions. I think of my stash. Of unfinished projects. One of which is a knitted tote bag. It involves ten skeins of yarn. Ten skeins from seven different countries. The ambassadors of my daughter’s four months trip through the middle of Europe, a slice of North Africa and the tip of Turkey. Two come from Morocco, one brown the other gray. Soft. Easily torn. Spun from the coats of camels. Two skeins traveled from Belarus. A sunflower yellow and a bright green. She explained that they remind her of country houses in Minsk.
“As local as it gets,” she said.
A fluffy two-stranded gray- brown- beige ball arrived from Prague. The yarn from Lithuania is similar in texture but stronger in tone. The label is printed in a mix of German and English words, telling me that the yarn is made in Italy. My daughter’s comment accompanies its soft texture.
“The dark blue one is from Vilnius; it reminded me of the sea and since Lithuania is a Baltic country it seemed appropriate.”
Ah, but there are two from Vilnius. The second one is a large, grey, unruly skein, bought from a farmer. Homespun. An opportunity she couldn’t resist. The label on the light blue yarn from Gdansk looks German; no domestic yarn sold in Polish shops, it seems. And the pink yarn from Istanbul is actually a cotton blend with European influence. I asked about the Ukraine and Slovakia. We found a pale blue-gray ball of thinly spun wool in a forgotten package. Bought in L’viv. Or L’vov, as it used to be called. But what about Slovakia?
“I was sure a little mountain village would have yarn, but I couldn’t find any,” she answered.
I took photographs of these foreign treasures, and labeled them with the countries of origin. I imagined color sequences. That’s when I first thought of knitting a bag. It would be a shoulder bag, lined with cotton, probably zippered or closed with a button. After looking at several patterns online I realized how difficult it would be to combine the varying weights of yarn into a smooth surface. There was only one answer. Felting. In the old days felting was the unwanted result of inexperienced washing of wool fabric, but in recent years it has gained art status, because only wool can be felted; acrylic yarn does not respond much to hot water and prolonged agitation.
I did felt the bag. Imagine my disappointment when the bottom thinned and holes appeared. Was it because the Camel yarn was too loosely spun? Maybe the fiber was too short? Or I just didn’t make a good decision in agitating the bag in my washing machine in hot water. Whatever the reason, the camel yarn bottom has to be reinforced, which means the bag is waiting for further action. In the meantime I photographed it with “make-believe” flowers, paper cutouts to stand in for the flowers I will crochet from the yarn of Belarus and Istanbul. The bag imitates a landscape with brown and green for the land, blue for the sea, and light blue for the sky. It is, perhaps a utopian landscape foiled by the unpredictability of a Camel bottom.
Bear number 102 appreciates the commotion, slipping into the baggy photo session to show off his beautiful colors. He makes me smile while I carry the unfinished tote back to the “waiting room” and continue to knit Bears.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Knitting in Public
All of us, I’m sure, wonder about the workings of our minds sometimes. Mine has been in a state of mixed emotions, unsorted projects, and unfinished tasks lately. This morning I decided to celebrate its ambiguity instead of chastising its neglect. I laid my unfinished Bears on the kitchen table, raised my coffee cup and toasted the un-armed, the half-sewn, the faceless, and those still attached to a ball of yarn, their growth depending on two bamboo sticks.
I would have given my mind a “thumbs up” except I couldn’t imagine it nodding approval to the mess. Then I thought of yesterday’s four and a half hours “Knitting in Public” and the boost it gave me to bring order into my knitted entanglements. If I can sit on a folding chair on a busy sidewalk, cars backing into parking spaces behind me, joggers, cyclists, dogs, absentminded cell phone enthusiasts almost brushing against me, and amplified musicians competing with car noises and conversations, I can certainly spend today FINISHING a few Bears.
I still wonder what makes my mind shift so easily from one state to another. Yesterday morning I sighed when I passed the pile of unfinished Bears in the back room. Today I am stuffing heads and embroidering faces. Is there a trick to motivation? Did being surrounded by other knitters make me want to be more organized? I certainly had a good time visiting with old acquaintances and meeting the women and men who sat alongside me, but what I had hoped for did not happen. The “Public” in general did not slow its pace. Did not stop and ask questions about knitting, about the Mother Bear Project, about Africa, about those who are the recipients of the Bears. Occasionally a child cast an interested look toward the Bears in the stroller, one even tugged on her mother’s arm. But the “Public” is in a hurry. No time for an unplanned event. A deadline has to be met. Things need to be done.
The mind is an interesting part of the self. Curious at times. Confused maybe. Slow to respond. Suddenly enthusiastic again.
“Will one completed Bear make a difference?” it asks.
“Yes,” is the simple answer, coming from somewhere beyond doubt. “Yes! And you are the only one that can motivate the fingers to act.”
I am happy to report that the fingers are, right now, racing toward the kitchen table.
"World Wide Knit in Public Day at "Green Planet Yarn"Friday, June 12, 2009
World Wide Knit in Public Day
Bear 101Tomorrow, Saturday, June 13, 2009, is World Wide Knit in Public Day. In 2008 I celebrated the event by knitting on the train, on my way to San Francisco and the Frida Kahlo Exhibit. Two days later an ambulance took me to the hospital with chest pains and a doctor implanted a stent into my right coronary artery to allow sufficient blood to flow to my heart. I went from zero to ten pills in a day.
A year has passed. I dropped my blog, but finished my 100 Bears for Africa project. I took a cruise to Alaska, a trip to Guernsey in the Channel Islands, a train to a snowy Truckee, and buses to various other locations in California. I suffered a few anxiety attacks dealing with chest pains that turned out not to be heart-related. For the most part my confidence in life’s routine has returned, but I still mourn my independence – always making sure I have my medication with me and sometimes worrying what it would be like not to have access to my daily pills.
Since my “big scare” I have knitted less and walked more, though gradually the desire to knit teddy bears for Africa returned. Several of them are waiting to be photographed; several are in a state of “almost finished” and some just found sponsors in my “Exploring Literature” group. Thank you, friends!
I have dedicated Saturday, June 13, 2009 to the Mother Bear Project. In the above photograph Bear Number 101 practices being my “poster child” for the World Wide Knit in Public Day. He is the first of my next 100 Bears. And tomorrow I will be sitting in front of the Green Planet Yarn Shop in Campbell, knitting Bears, enjoying the company of many others with busy fingers and creative minds.
A year has passed. I dropped my blog, but finished my 100 Bears for Africa project. I took a cruise to Alaska, a trip to Guernsey in the Channel Islands, a train to a snowy Truckee, and buses to various other locations in California. I suffered a few anxiety attacks dealing with chest pains that turned out not to be heart-related. For the most part my confidence in life’s routine has returned, but I still mourn my independence – always making sure I have my medication with me and sometimes worrying what it would be like not to have access to my daily pills.
Since my “big scare” I have knitted less and walked more, though gradually the desire to knit teddy bears for Africa returned. Several of them are waiting to be photographed; several are in a state of “almost finished” and some just found sponsors in my “Exploring Literature” group. Thank you, friends!
I have dedicated Saturday, June 13, 2009 to the Mother Bear Project. In the above photograph Bear Number 101 practices being my “poster child” for the World Wide Knit in Public Day. He is the first of my next 100 Bears. And tomorrow I will be sitting in front of the Green Planet Yarn Shop in Campbell, knitting Bears, enjoying the company of many others with busy fingers and creative minds.
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