Fragments of Kodachrome: "The Greens of Summer"

Please note: This post has been cross-posted at kodachromeknits.blogspot.com and I recommend reading the post "over there" as the photos appear much more clearly. Thanks!

The other day, KnitandTonic wrote about how she never (or rarely) wears any of her finished items. When I read that, I felt really quite sad and disappointed. If her FOs aren't worthy of hitting the street, then whose are? Then many of you wrote into her comments section, noting that you too don't feel that you can wear your knitted garments out in public. Again, I felt that this was really too bad.

Thankfully, many others wrote just the opposite--that you wear yours with pride. Certainly, I feel a real joy, for instance, when I notice that Carrieoke is wearing one of her FOs to work, and that she even takes the time to photograph herself in her office washroom. Or that she even wears them out in the evening. This is the type of moxie I like to see in the knitting community; not shame, but pride in what we do and what we create.

So today, I broke out Orangina and wore her to work. All Day! And not one person looked at me in horror, or as though I were poor, or as though I were a "sad, old woman," or as though I were some freakish, bag lady. In fact, I thought I looked pretty good.

But I have to admit, had someone said, "Did you make that top?", I probably would have felt a mixture of embarrassment and pride, trying to figure out whether or not the question was a compliment or an insult. But just for a second would I care. And then I would get on with feeling good and enjoying what I can make with my own hands, a bit of string, and two good sticks (or in this case, a circ.). Oh, and of course, let's not forget Glampyre's great pattern, as well!

Pattern: Orangina, by Glampyre, XS

Yarn: Rowan 4-Ply Cotton (Ripple), 3 skeins

Needles: US 3 24' circular

Modifications: I cast on for the XS size, minus 18 stitches, so I could make an XSS. I'm not an XSS but as many have pointed out, this pattern knits up a bit loose otherwise. I took much of my modification advice from Domesticat, whose version of Orangina really inspired me to make this top.

And for those of you who feel your knitted items just aren't beautiful enough to wear out of the house, I leave you with this little beauty, found outside my door today. I once thought portulaca plants were ugly, and despaired when my mother would plant them in mass quantities about the yard. Guess what? I now love them and think they're just so pretty.

Just like I've come to feel about my FOs.

So hey, when should we declare the International "Wear-Your-FOs-To-Work" Day?

Where I live now, the temperature rarely ever falls below 0'C (34'F) and it has been, for weeks now, so hot here: it's been in the 40'C (100'F) range for a long, long time. So I'm staring at this picture from time to time, to remind myself of another world I once inhabited.

~Alternative Post Title: "Jesus Was A Pedestrian TOO!"

I'm a walker.

Since living in Paris, France for a year when I was eighteen, where I walked daily for hours on end, I have been a walker. A year later, as an undergraduate, I walked from my first-ever apartment (!) *every single day*, even during many really nasty Canadian-Prairie winter storms, to university. The walk was a 45-minute one, over a frozen lake, almost literally in the middle of the prairie (to look to the left would be to see a grain farm...). Most days, I loved it. I would arrive at campus in the early morning (MacroEconomics at 8:00 am!). I would hustle to my locker where I could quickly ditch my snow suit and my big-ass black Sorel Boots--you know the ones:

(That's right: big-ASS^ boots. Not those embarrassing pink UGG boots that female college students in Texas (in Texas!?!) break out of their closets when it drops to 34 degrees Farenheit so they can pair them with a cute-ass^ skirt, thereby making their anorexic, orange-tanned legs look even more anorexic and freakish.)

Oh right: gratitude was to be part of this post--

A good decade later, I continue to find myself walking everyday, still to a campus. This time it's the heat that I must battle as I make my way. But this time, it's just a 15-minute walk. I love this time of day: it's the time to gather myself, collect my thoughts, watch the daily bird activity and smirk at the crazy-ass squirrels running about.

But in the new place of which I have recently become an inhabitant, it's also become the time for me to rage. Specifically what I want to yell out daily is:

"JESUS TOO WAS A PEDESTRIAN!!"

In fact, I'm about ready to carry an immense placard with this written on it. You see, where I'm living now--the American Southwest*--the vehicle (the monster truck or the immense SUV*) reigns supreme and pedestrians are of the lowest order. So each day, as I begin to make my peaceful journey to work, I inevitably find myself at some point nearly run down by said truck or SUV. (Often, I must look something like the character of Fin from The Station Agent , diving into the bushes to escape near-death from an SUV.)

And the thing that really gets me (besides the conspicuous consumption and out-right waste of these nasty entities) is that, as the vehicle roars by, kicking dust* up in my face, I notice this:

Now, I have nothing against one's right to bear one's religious identity on one's monster-machine* (that is killing mother-earth daily); but, if for no other reason than the plain fact that *JESUS WALKED THIS EARTH TOO*, would you, dear polluting-machine-driving-Christian, please mind not trying to run me off the road each day???

Rage/Gratitude: it's walking a fine line each day here. To reestablish myself today, once sitting down to work, I read some poetry by Robert Sullivan, an Aboriginal writer. I'll share some with y'all* now, just in case today, you've had to suffer the same fate as I:



I touch your cloak of cedars here
stroke your face and body
press feet onto your belly
[...]



Earth is still mother here still cools my feet amid wild flowers
heels pressing boardwalk into beaver territory, kilometres of path
for heels to drum
and trees singing green tongued choruses
licking air licking birds licking the singing molecules of creation
[...]
we are earth people with an eye to sky [...]

to sounds of leaves
whose roots draw sound

round throats that orbit
green tongues recycled in the ground

Rondo. Rondo earth. Rondo.
Listen. Rhythm. Listen.

You can be a [place]
for ceremonies.
-- Robert Sullivan (in Towards a Transcultural Future: Literature and Human Rights, 223-24)


EDIT after posting:
*OKAY, it must be sooooo obvious: Texas, to be exact.
^How many times can one use ASS as a descriptor? I must get my thesaurus down next time--

**FINAL EDIT**: Many photos were taken this morning of ORANGINA's progress and my participation in PROJECT SPECTRUM; my partner is uploading them this afternoon and so, FOR SURE, there will be KNITTING CONTENT on this blog either tonight or tomorrow morning. Again, promises...promises...

So sings Joni Mitchell in her bittersweet melodly, "All I Want," on her spectacular 1971 album, Blue,an album she says she made when she was "emotionally transparent." Like the album, "All I Want" spills out the highs and lows, the-out-of-control and out-of-this-world experiences of being in love, of living in love, and of losing love. It's a song which understandably (for us knitters, anyways) comes climaxing (?!) to her outright declaration at the close: "I want to knit you a sweater." A dangerous declaration, to be sure. (If you're not sure why it's dangerous to declare, just search about on the knit-blogland for the "boyfriend sweater curse." To help you get started, you could check the archives at MindofWinter...)

Indeed, the first track on the album, "All I Want," has been spinning in my mind all afternoon as I write and try to see the day through. To quote Steve Stolder's review, the entire album, Blue, is nothing less than "astonishingly open and gracious" as it covers the cycles and rhythms of our relationships. Dear Joni, "emotionally transparent," gets straight to the complicated, messed-up and joyful emotions which occur when we choose to share our lives with others: think of the line in "Carey": "Oh you're a mean old daddy but I like you, I like you." Think of the heartbreaking line in "A Case of You": "You're my holy wine--so bitter and so sweet." Or, to go back again to "All I Want": "I hate you some, I love you some."

Heck, why don't I just give you (most) of "All I Want" right here given that I don't have my photos handy to give you "real" knitting content [which will come *very soon* as I make good progress on "Orangina," on Nancy Bush's "Friday Harbor Socks," and on Knitty's "Kate." Indeed, I promise that this blog will soon come alive with knitting content, knitting photos, knitting links, and as a result, there will be less of the 'personal' here for you all. But until then...)

But until then, I get to be a DJ tonight, and as that DJ, I'd say in a smooth, sexy voice as the record begins to spin, "Tonight, this one's going out from Louisa to Guido..."


"I am on a lonely road and I am traveling.
[....]

I want to be strong I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the living
Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive
Do you want - do you want - do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chance
On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on

All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause - life is our cause
[....]

I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
Hmm, Hmm, Hmm, Hmm,
[....]"


Ah Joni, be our guide as we skip, dance, stumble, fall, rise up, and get through it all with love, joy, and hope in our hearts...Hmmm, hmmm.... And heck, I'd make Guido a sweater anyday-- Now back to that writing.

"Estrella" by Joni Mitchell (jonimitchell.com)

"Most people are other people."

This is just one of the many enigmatic statements made by Oscar Wilde. But unlike some of his other witticisms, Wilde actually goes on to explain this one: "Most people are other people" because "their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

But this isn't a bad thing, is it? In talking with my partner today, I was struck by how sure some people are of the people who have influenced them, or those people after whom they have consciously chosen to pattern themselves. These people have sought out mentors to follow, public figures to emulate, right down to details of dress and drink. A fabulous idea--to imitate those whom you admire.

Hours after this morning conversation with my SO on his influences--on "his ancestors, not his relatives" (Ellison)--I came across the above Wilde quotation in Amartya Sen's study, Identity and Violence. Quoting Wilde, Sen opens his work by suggesting that "many of the conflicts and barbarities in the world are sustained through the illusion of a unique and choiceless identity":

"The art of constructing hatred takes the form of invoking the magical power of some allegedly predominant identity that drowns other affiliations, and in a conveniently bellicose form can also overpower any human sympathy or natural kindness that we may normally have. The result can be homespun elemental violence, or globally artful violence and terrorism" (xv).

The way out of this hatred and violence? For Sen, "the prospects of peace in the contemporary world may well lie in the recognition of the plurality of our affiliations [...], rather than making [ourselves] into inmates rigidly incarcerated in little containers. What we need, above all, is a clear-headed understanding of the importance of the freedom that we can have in determining our priorities"--and our identities (xvii).

For peace and tolerance to exist, we must let go of the unified self--of the demand that each of us attains and maintains a knowable, unchangeable identity. We must open ourselves up to all sorts of possibilities. Like my SO, we must have the freedom, the desire, the support, the encouragement, *and the knowledge* that we can model ourselves after any one we choose--and that we can (and should) choose many models, sometimes even contradictory ones. We must not force people into categories and cubbyholes. For, as Sen reminds us, "with suitable instigation, a fostered sense of identity with one group of people can be made into a powerful weapon to brutalize another" (xv).

Obviously, beginning a blog of my creative life is far from as serious an endeavour and a study of Sen's. But in introducing myself to the blog community, I want to announce and be aware of allowing myself to be many identities at once, and to be aware of keeping myself open to all sorts of identities from others. I do not want to close down opportunities and affiliations, but to foster them with all types of bloggers. For this is what makes the knitting/crafting/blogging community one that I wanted to join for so long: its diversity and its openness. We really don't see much tolerance in action these days, nor do we see people actively trying to connect with others in order to make this a better communal world. So I chose finally to join in with my own blog because, after watching for so long, I continued daily to be awed by the real community of diverse identities that has been welcomed, nurtured, and maintained here.

To close then this introductory post, I end with one last thought: Today, I was struck by the realization that, unlike my SO, I would be hard-pressed to list assuredly those who have influenced me (for the good) and those whom I have chosen to imitate out of admiration. I think this might be a problem... To rectify that problem, I want to list here and openly acknowledge those bloggers whom I have watched and admired from afar for a long time, and to note that I have decided to blog mainly because of the inspiration, encouragement, support and comfort you all have silently provided me. Because there are so many (and because this post has already been so *freakin'* long!), I begin today with just a few. Others will be listed and thanked in the coming days.

So to begin, I want to thank and name these bloggers as inspiration:


a bird in the hand
amelia raitte
crazy aunt purl
dogsstealyarn
domesticat
figandplum
grumperina
kerrie's placee
marnie talks
mindofwinter (whom I've been missing)
needles on fire
see eunny knit
sixandahalf stitches
streetsandyos
strikker
the brown sheep
wee wonderfuls (& thrift craft)
whispering pine
wish jar journal
yaiAnn knits
yarnstorm


And to those who have already welcomed me to the knitting/crafting community--spiderwomanknits; amanda cathleen (mistressstashenhancer); and reagan (knitwhit), all from blogspirit--thanks for your kind words.

Now I'll leave you with the same question: what other people are you?