(The postcard and others like it can be purchased from Mother Bear Project on their website. The photograph of the little boy was taken and is copyrighted by Mwana Bermudes)
My favorite part of the 100 Bears for Africa adventure is the thought process. Bears become members of a group. Color schemes develop. Stories unfold.
But one of the problems is the coordination of knitting, photographing, writing. Sometimes I am ahead of my knitting self with a new story and get impatient with these slow fingers. “Knit faster,” I demand, “knit faster so I can unleash my new ideas.”
Sometimes my photographing self lags behind. I stand by the window and order the sun to poke through the gray blanket of clouds. How can I have a Bella Fonti Beach Party without sunshine?
Unfortunately there are also times when, no matter how cute the Bear, how appropriate the photograph, my writing self has absolutely nothing clever to say.
This brings up another point: expectations. I understand that I can’t expect perfection from a picture in which the props are household utensils, old toys, dime store purchases, and earthquake preparedness canned goods. After spending two days assembling the beach party I finally get a few shots of it, and what do I see? Wrinkles in the background. Warped edges. By the time I have taped the plastic tablecloth/beach scenery a bit tighter to the wall, the sun is behind a cloud again. I pace, I knit, I wait. The laundry is done. I get hangers for my clothes. Oops, I missed a two-minute sunburst. It’s April, silly. Relax. Let the sun play its tricks on you. Get the lint.
The lint? Yes, people make art with dryer lint. I save mine now, if it is a color other than gray. Periodically the sun rushes me to the kitchen table where the beach party is waiting to be photographed. I forget about dryer lint, but think of the Mother Bear Project postcard with the little boy who wears an interesting hat. A good color combination for a Bear. I bought two of the hat colors the other day; I already had chocolate for the body and black and wheat for a couple of stripes; all I needed was a particular orangy red and a green that teeters on the edge between olive and lime. I found it. “Red Heart” calls the colors “Carrot” and “Guacamole.” Now my mind wanders off into food, recipes, dinner plates.
While I sit at the computer uploading the beach party photographs I open the list for future Bear ideas and enter “Dishing up Carrots and Guacamole.”
The beach party pictures don’t meet my approval. Darn it, the sunlight was too intense. There are bright blobs on the sky. A white line runs through the palm trees.
I delete and retake. Twice. The dishing idea is growing. I drink a cup of coffee; knit the foot for Bear forty-five; stare at the little postcard boy’s hat. Then I get up and pull a platter from the kitchen cupboard, hunt for an old, lacy curtain remnant, load the platter with yarn and needles, add the postcard, run to the door. The front porch is dreaming in filtered sunlight. I dish up a perfect meal. Even the plastic tablecloth showing through the lace doesn’t bother me. It adds a slight hint of background color to the design. I shoot from every angle.
Afterwards I remember that my photographing and writing selves were supposed to be involved with steel drums and a beach party. And a name for the band. I frown. My domestic self lifts blue lint from the trap in the dryer and folds the new blue bath towel.
When I go back to the kitchen to take a last photograph of the beach scene, my imaginary shrink follows me and whispers, “Creativity does not run on a schedule.” Then he touches Samy the frog with the tip of his finger, turns him slightly to the left. “I’m hiding the head of the safety pin,” he says. ‘You don’t want people to see it glistening in the sun, do you?”
