How to Inspire a Mockingbird

Every spring a vocally dominant mockingbird takes up residence in my neighborhood. While I sometimes complain about three a m concerts, generally I am thrilled by the variety of musical patterns the birds produce. This year, however, I am haunted by the stunted expression of the songster who sits somewhere on a tree in back of my house. He arrived a week ago; I welcomed him with a smile. It must be spring. But wow, this bird has a major problem. He can’t sing. Is he incapable? Or just lazy?

I lie in bed listening to him repeat three syllables. Three syllables! Tui tui twee! Tui tui twee! And sometimes he gets stuck on the third syllable. Tui tui tw! Isn’t a mockingbird supposed to copy other birds? How can you mock with “tw.” I feel sorry for him, but then, he hasn’t yet tested my compassion in the darkness of the night. At seven in the morning, when he begins to practice, I am awake and busy putting together my schedule for the day; I register vague sadness over his lack of song, but quickly proceed to think of yarn, oatmeal, and seedlings.

Today I am intrigued by the word “variegated.” Soon after I brush my teeth I go to my computer and look up its exact meaning. Wiktionary says: “Streaked, spotted, or otherwise marked with a variety of color.” Merriam Webster sees it as: “Having discreet markings of different colors.”

I’ve always loved variegated yarns. Some are unpredictable since their markings change at irregular intervals. Others are less daring in their two-tone repetitions. Some produce bright splashes of color while some crawl along in subtle tonal shifts. Their names make me think of poetry. Aspen. Painted Desert. Watercolor. Camouflage. Peruvian Print .

Variegated yarns are wonderful for teddy bears. Paired with solid colors they produce in my brain the image of cotton candy, the sound of ocean waves, the solitude of a walk along the seashore in autumn. Lately I’ve gathered as many “variegates” as I could find in my big bucket of yarn balls, and knitted the shells of twelve bears. There will be more. I have to set an example for the mockingbird.

After breakfast I reach for my gardening gloves and head outdoors. “Variety is the spice of life,” I say out loud in the direction of the pine tree. I often use clichés when I am philosophical. “Tui tui twee will not make you king of the hill. Put some color into your song! Variegate!*

*Variegate - according to Webster’s College Dictionary’s second choice: to make interesting by variety.

Bears 141 to 150

Tomorrow I am going to Stitches West at the Santa Clara Convention Center to deliver twenty teddy bears to Amy Berman, the founder of the Mother Bear Project. It has been two years since I bought the pattern at the Mother Bear Booth and knitted my first bear. I’ve given up counting stitches, counting rows, counting yarn balls bought and stuffing hauled home. But I’ve not given up counting bears – I’ve finished 160 since I began on February 24, 2008.

Most of the first one hundred bears I named for friends and family members who sponsored them; after that I no longer asked for donations and I named them after artists in various fields, and after some of my heroes. I’ve picked names from “Baby Names from around the World” and I have blindly pointed at names on my computer screen. This time I chose first names of Olympians – since I finished the last group while watching the Olympics. Apolo, Lindsey, Joannie, Shaun, Nodar - and some that are less familiar – Samir, Errol, Muhammad, Michi. I tried to have a little United Nations of names – athletes from. China, Russia, Ethiopia, Germany, USA, Canada, Jamaica, Pakistan, Georgia, Morocco etc. And, as always, I’ve knitted my best wishes and most hopeful thoughts into each bear.

There are times when sitting in the safety of my home, knitting, seems like a very small contribution to the survival of the children of the world. I should be a doctor. I should wipe the tears of a child in distress. I should bandage a broken leg in Haiti. But then I get an email from Amy. She sends a photograph of three little boys from South Africa. The tallest one carries a baby bottle and two teddy bears. I imagine that he is his brothers’ keeper. I see that one of the bears was knitted by me. The photograph moves me to tears. Poverty always makes me sad. And yet, there is strength in the posture of the oldest boy. And trust in the faces of the younger ones.
Suddenly I feel a connection. A grandmotherly connection. The bear’s name is Zuleika.

Bears 151 to 160

What a Mess!

Mangosalad! What came first? The taste? Smell? Color? Word? Stash of yarn? I really don’t know. Shortly before I shipped Bears 101 to 140 to Minneapolis, I saw flashes of hot pink and bright green before my eyes. I lingered over an orange. Tried to remember what color a papaya is on the inside. I sorted out some brightly colored yarns. It might have been a mango salad that established itself in my mind. It might have been a color combination for the next Bear. At any rate Mangosalad became my battle cry after the box filled with Bears had arrived safely at Mother Bear’s house.

Three days ago sunshine woke me to a perfect day for action. Four Bears were almost finished; I rushed to the store to buy fruit, came home and assembled fruit, yarn, and Bears on the kitchen table.

“What a mess,” I said out loud, staring at the unorganized pile of props. Then I went outside to check the lighting. High noon – a terrible time to take photographs. But I started anyway by lining up my ingredients on the porch table. The first batch of pictures was awful. Bears cast tall shadows against the background. Brown poster board underneath a platter of fruit made the scene too solid, too dark. Fruit and yarn didn’t relate to each other at all. I deleted the images, tried to organize my thoughts. What am I trying to see? What am I trying to say?

A bowl of yarn reminds me of a bowl of fruit.

I like the cheery lightness of a fruit salad.

The Bears remind me of a mango salad.

I want these Bears to be ambassadors of happiness

Hey, I like mango salad.

And here you have it…… The Incredible Lightness of Mangosalad Dreams!

The Incredible Lightness of Mangosalad Dreams

A bowl of yarn reminds me of a bowl of fruit.

I like the cheery lightness of a fruit salad.

The Bears remind me of a mango salad.
I want these Bears to be ambassadors of happiness.

Hey! I like mango salad!
And here you have it ..... the Incredible Lightness of Mangosalad Dreams!

Pink Bears - Number 126 to 140 - One by One

Bear Number 140

Bear Number 139

Bear Number 138

Bear Number 137

Bear Number 136

Bear Number 135

Bear Number 134

Bear Number 133

Bear Number 132

Bear Number 131

Bear Number 130

Bear 129

Bear Number 128

Bear Number 127

Bear Number 126

Pigging out on PINK

A compulsive personality must feed its habits. When the doctor disallowed my pizza binges, the economy clipped my ink and photo paper buying wings, and time constraints cut down on my internet surfing hours, I had to find another way to express my enthusiasm for ordinary pleasures. I started to pig out on PINK. How many Bears would I be able to knit in two shades of pink and a few skeins of white yarn? Without repeating? I think the answer is that this could go on forever. But I have only knitted fifteen pink and white Bears with skirts that proclaim, “Look at this! It’s a girl Bear!” And I must admit that I have satisfied my craving for pink.

Tomorrow, when I take a load of Bears – forty of them – to the UPS store to be shipped off to Mother Bear, fifteen of them will fly high, shouting singing, praising the color pink. The others will smile - in a non-pink way – quietly – secure in their own colors. And then the last pink Bear knitted – Number 140 - I’ve named her Frances – will say, “I don’t see what the commotion is all about. We are all the same inside.”

I will nod, thinking of all the bags of polyester fiberfill I have bought in the last two years. I will hand the box over to the agent. Pay the shipping fee. And as I walk back to my car I will ponder the colors for Bear number 141. I’ve already bought “Limelight” and “Butterscotch.” Will leftover pink get along with those two? And what face color should I use? Maybe “Chocolate.” Hmmmm – Chocolate!