creative.mother.thinking

explaining my life to strangers

Archives for January 2008

secret of the stole, or on being proud and happy

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Some of you might have wondered about the button in the left sidebar that says “SOTS ii – the secret is in the mist“. It is a knit-along where you don’t know the pattern in advance. “Knit-along” means that it’s a group of people who knit the same thing at the same time, usually it’s an online group setting goals like “Everybody will try to finish rows 1 to 70 until January 25th.” (And to avoid confusion I might add that each knitter is making her own stole or sock or whatever.) The group that I am part of is knitting a “mystery stole”, that’s a lace stole where we don’t know yet how it will look when finished. Each Friday we get the next part of the pattern and try to finish that during the week. There are more than 2,000 people in this particular group, and if we finish each part of the stole on time each one of us will have her stole at the beginning of March.

I was a bit nervous when I signed up for this. I was afraid it might turn into something like a nine-week-NaNo where I had to spent every waking minute frantically knitting to catch up. Also I was afraid that I wouldn’t like the pattern. So I decided to give the stole away if I didn’t want it for myself, and I made a firm rule not to freak out over this. If I couldn’t knit it in the designated time I’d just finish it later. No pressure.

Then there was the first part of the pattern. I was quite excited on January 18th, printed it out as soon as it went up, and started knitting immediately after dinner on that same day. And was almost disappointed because – it was so easy. After knitting for 2 1/2 hours on Friday evening the first part was more than halfway done. The pattern is very logical and symmetrical so far and so I had long stretches of knitting where I barely had to glance at the chart. Saturday morning I started knitting again immediately after breakfast (what? obsessive? me?) and had the first part finished after another two hours or so.

I almost contemplated casting on for another lace stole that I want to make on the same day, and working on two of them, but then I had to remind myself of the other four unfinished projects around the house. It seems that knitting lace makes me very happy, even though I hardly will wear lace stoles every day. But knitting lace can also be addictive. Like playing computer games. “Just one more row.”, “I just want to see how this will look…”, “If I knit a mere six rows I will have finished this part of the chart.” Never mind that knitting a row might take anywhere from five minutes to an hour.

Which I found out the hard way when working on the second part of the stole last Friday. Since the pattern seemed so easy to me I decided to knit it while watching the finale of “Angel”. Great move! While I made excellent progress for about two hours I also spent almost an hour knitting back four rows.

So, what does this have to do with being proud and such? Well, I am immensely proud that my stole looks so nice and that it’s so easy for me. But when I looked on the group’s message board and ravelry group I found that there are very few people who think like me. There are people who never have knitted lace, people who had to start over three times already, people who are in tears because they are so frustrated and they find it so hard.

I’m not here to make fun of them. I know how they feel and I’d love to help each and every one of them. Sit next to them and help them correct a mistake four rows down without having to unravel the whole thing. But I can’t, since this is an online group. Instead I have been thinking about why this is so easy for me. I found a couple of reasons: a) I have been knitting for 30 years. b) I have never been afraid to try new techniques. c) I like to challenge myself. d) I have heard that German knitters are considered to be very fast.

I can’t say, I have never thought about knitting as a race, I just do it. When Debra Roby wrote that she is a slow knitter and needs about 30 hours to knit a pair of socks, all I could say was that I know that back in the eighties when I had to take a very slow train to visit my parents I could start and finish a sock (basic, boring, very easy sock) on the train ride. That would be nine hours with time off for eating and such. But, really, I don’t look at the clock when I’m knitting. I just knit until the thing is done.

And then I found that instead of being proud of what I had done and my skills in doing it, again, I had tried to find reasons why it wasn’t a big deal and why, really, there was nothing to be proud of. And this is something I have been doing all my life with everything I do. You know, if I can do it it can’t be hard to do. And I could have done better. There surely would be a flaw or mistake in there somewhere. I’m one of those people who, when you’re admiring something they made, always say, “Yeah, but I made a mistake here. Do you see it?”

Every time I’m starting to be proud of something I think about how this makes all the other people around me feel bad. How I really shouldn’t be standing in the limelight but instead I should be there to help the others getting better. How the things I do are not important in the big scheme. How there is always someone better than me.

This even extends to happiness. Even though I know that this is not true, my inner child is firmly convinced that every time I am happy this will make somebody else unhappy. As if there weren’t enough happiness around for everyone and if I take too much there won’t be enough left. And then people would get angry at me.

This certainly is a main factor in my life, one that makes me sabotage myself and makes me at least slightly unhappy all the time. And, as everyone knows, people only like you when you’re nice and humble, when you’re not bragging, and don’t make them feel inferior by being so damn superior all the time.

So, well, I changed the pattern and I’m not sure if the change looks good, maybe I should frog it all and do better the next time over. And, really, you could have done the same under the same circumstances as I and so don’t feel bad. You totally could crank out lace if you wanted to. Go you!

Can I have that bit of leftover happiness if you don’t want it? Thanks.

mindful blog-reading

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I don’t know if it can be done but I may have to try. Of course I’m reading too many blogs. In fact I have subscribed to that many that there are a lot of posts on these blogs that I’m not reading at all. Sometimes I just look at them in my feed reader, think, “Oh good, nothing interesting!” and click off to the next one.

I started subscribing to more and more craft blogs, nice pictures and not much text. Beautiful pictures to look at. In an attempt to cope with the sheer quantity of new blog posts every day I have sorted them into folders (you can see that on my blogroll). The distinction between “most favorite” and “very favorite” actually should read “blogs by people whom I really like and regularly comment on” versus “blogs I really like but usually don’t comment on any more because I don’t want to spend the better part of my day tending to my feed reader”.

Since I’m so overwhelmed the mere number of posts per week can be enough to move your blog from “to comment on”- to “not commenting on”-status. There are blogs that I love, bloggers whose comments on other people’s blogs (and mine) I love but I just can’t keep up with them. And so I scan most of their posts, read some, others more deeply, and rarely let them know how I think about any of them.

Of course I have become quite hesitant in adding new blogs to my list, and quite ruthless in throwing blogs out.

I remember when Mad stopped posting in August I felt sad but also relieved a bit. Her posts are so thoughtful and interesting that I felt I wanted to do each of them justice but I couldn’t do that every day. And when she came back I was happy, and even happier when she only posted two or three times a week. Of course, part of the problem is that I tend to like blogs with longer, more thoughtful posts.

Another part of the problem is that almost all of my social life happens through the computer. I have very few real-life friends, most of them live quite a distance away, and over the years with not much contact (because we all live very busy lives) I have the feeling that we have been drifting apart. Having been friends since university is not enough for that friendship to last for decades. Maybe we will get closer again, I don’t know, but for now the people I feel close to – apart from my husband and son – are people that I have never seen in real life. I’m only reading their words.

And while I love to get to know people mainly through their thoughts, something that is very unusual in real life, this kind of friendship does have severe limitations. Writing “((HUGS!!))” is not the same as a real hug. Though right now I’d rather have a virtual hug than none. On the other hand I’m living my life bound to my computer by invisible strands. I think it was Bubandpie who wrote that we maybe are drawn towards these “virtual” friendships because we are on some level not willing to commit to the real thing. On the other hand the feelings of friendship are real, and so is the friendship. It’s only very vulnerable.

As for me, I have the feeling that I really tried to find new friends around me, where I live, and still do try but I didn’t find any. (As for statistics, there were five women I tried to get to know better over the past five years. I suggested going out for coffee to all of them, one of them came to my house once, and that was it.) In this mommyblogger scene, on the other hand, there are so many interesting people writing interesting blogs that I don’t know where to start reading.

I was very relieved when Julie wrote that she is reading here often but never comments because that told me I’m not the only one. And I guess that she’s reading a lot of blogs since I see her comments everywhere and I liked them so much that I go over to her blog on a regular basis, contemplate subscribing, and then shy off. Because how could I read that without wanting to add to the discussion? And how could I add one more “blog to comment on” to my blogroll without feeling drowned in obligations?

So, it is time for the regular weeding of the blogroll. And it’s weird because every time I throw a blog out I’m sad and mostly, a few weeks later, I don’t think about it again. If I do though I will add it back.

So, I’m trying to read blogs mindfully. I won’t be commenting much. In fact, I haven’t commented much these past weeks. I even didn’t comment on De‘s last post which is unheard of. And I didn’t do it because the post wasn’t comment-worthy, I didn’t because I don’t feel like writing much these days. Also I was late as usual. It’s harder to find something to say when there have been a dozen people before you saying something.

Mad recently asked if we had any blogging rules. I seem to be in about the same spot as she (as her? sometimes English grammar eludes me). Here are mine:

  • The computer gets turned off in the evenings at about seven o’clock. It can only be turned on again in case of dire emergencies such as “but I haven’t posted in a week and a half!”
  • I won’t open a blog post unless I am in a situation where I can read it.
  • When I want to comment on a blog post I have to do it right away. When this isn’t possible I can mark it as unread only twice. After that it is done.
  • No blog reading before breakfast. (That’s the one I’m breaking very often.)
  • On weekends I get to read blogs and write posts on one day only. On the other day time has to be spent with my real-life family. Even if this means sitting next to them knitting while they watch soccer.
  • I am under no obligation to read everything.
  • When I’m away, I’m away. I don’t have to catch up on my blog reading afterwards.
  • The world won’t end when I haven’t posted in a while.
  • When I’m sitting in front of my computer and a real person enters the room I will either say, “Not now, I will be getting to you when this is finished.” and then get up from the computer to talk to that person within the next twenty minutes. Or I will turn around and focus my attention on said person.
  • When I spend an afternoon in front of the computer on weekends and such I will get up and look what the other family members are doing on a regular basis. Like every thirty minutes or so. For this I will set a timer. After it rings I won’t continue to sit in front of the computer for more than five minutes.

These are mostly blog reading rules. I also have a set of rules for blogging. Such as not showing pictures of my son, keeping him anonymous, only writing things about people that I wouldn’t mind them reading. Well, not much, anyway, I still haven’t told my parents about this and I didn’t give any student the url. And I have a mission statement! See.

Do you think there is such a thing as mindful blog-reading? My husband says that he couldn’t even keep up with all of the four blogs he was reading. He certainly is a mindful blog reader because I think he never forgets anything anybody ever wrote. While I, insatiable as ever, attempt mindfulness with about a hundred blogs. I’m really thankful that not everybody is posting every day, though.

December Just Posts

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justpostdec2007

Now, this is the just post anniversary. A year ago there was the first social justice roundtable where before there had been nothing. In fact, that social wedding was the reason that I found this particular corner of the blogosphere. De wrote about that wedding, she posted a picture of her own wedding day and the lyrics to “One”, and that moved me to seek out Mad and Jen who came up with this idea. And I promised to write something about social justice once a month at least. A promise that I kept, mostly, with the exception of March. (And this month you won’t find my post on the list because I forgot to nominate it. But that’s the beauty of being one of the hosts, I can point you towards it now: “Healing the World“.)

Since it has been a year of talking and writing about social justice, we decided to go a little further, to have a baby and to ask people to volunteer. I have to admit that I was a bit reluctant at first. I’m always reluctant to commit my time or energy to something new. But then I did want to do something. And I realized that it didn’t have to be something really big. Just small and doable would be enough.

My first thought was forcing my students to do regular performances at the local retirement home. But my heart wasn’t really in it. Also, the students wouldn’t have liked it. But then I allowed myself to think even smaller. And I found something totally unspectacular. Something I already have started doing, actually. I’m committing to knitting a pair of socks or a hat, preferably both each month for “Frühchenstricken“, that’s a German project to knit for preemies.

Just last week I found a similar American project for those who, like me, might be interested in doing a bit of social volunteer work while sitting on their own sofas watching TV. And then there’s “project snuggle“:

Project Snuggle- A project of knitted bears for police to take to child victims of domestic violence. Simple, really yet so very absent in the world of charitable knitting.

I would totally support this if it weren’t crazy to ship hand-knit stuffed animals half-way around the world.

Knitting for preemies warms my heart. At first I thought it was all about the fun of knitting doll-sized tiny socks. They are so cute! And almost instant gratification. But then I found that I also liked it because I was born too early myself. And at a time when my mother wasn’t even allowed to touch me for weeks. Now that I am a mother myself it rips my heart to hear her tale of how she stood in front of the window, looking at me every day for four weeks until she was allowed to take me home.

When I posted about this project the first time, thinking that it wasn’t really making a difference if I knit six pairs of socks or not, Sofia wrote a comment saying that her own daughter had been a preemie and how it warmed her heart to see that someone, a total stranger had taken the time to knit something for her daughter. And I thought back to the time my son was born, and though he wasn’t premature, I also wondered who had knit the horribly striped booties that he wore in the hospital. And while they were indeed very ugly I also knew that they were made out of love. Not for a child or grandchild but for some baby that person had never seen.

And that sentiment, love for human beings that we have never seen, is what brought forth the just posts and now the baby shower.

So, without further ado here is this month’s list. I’m really humbled by all the people who have committed to do volunteer work, and if you have too and your post is not on this list, please leave it in the comments.

Laura at Twenty Five Days to Make a Difference
Lawyer Mama with Christmas in Omaha
Magpie with 13 Ways to Help
Painted Maypole with God loves Fags
Reluctant Memsahib with it’s the corruption that’s the problem
Victoria with Give
The Chick with AIDS facts you should know
Jeff with Bless the invisible children
Mir on blogher with Dutch Diplomats, a Korean Adoptee, and the Unthinkable
Suzanne Reisman on Blogher with Dec. 17 is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers and When Will We See Some Female Geeks?
Chatoyance with Books will fly through the air for children
Jenn with full circle
Sin with 28
Frieda with What I would pray for, if I prayed
Hearts in SanFran with Only the good die young
HearthTalks with Putting it in perspective
Liz with AIDS: No longer your friendly neighborhood appetite suppressant
Chani with Sanuk is not a four letter word
Veronica with Give
Jen with it’s coming on christmas, two little girls, two little girls, pt 2
Lost White Kenyan Chick with Electioneering and corruption
Laloca with Joseph Heller couldn’t’ve come up with this
City Girl with thinking out loud
Ida with Gay and Homeless: The numbers to back it up
Quaker Dave with There are no words
Denguy with Everyone should eat
Jangari with Intervening into the intervention
Emily with Lazy mother’s guide to saving the planet
The Individual Voice with Christmas in Iraq and Afganistan
Babylune with it’s series of posts culminating with the generous december group writing project
MauiGirl with No more death penalty in New Jersey
Reya with What’s important
The Psycho Therapist with If you can’t find money to kill people

Baby Shower Gifts
Jenn with Let’s change the world, shall we?
Omaha Mama with Giving more and Teaching to Give Back
Andrea with Enough, again.
CCE with A words: Altruism and Asceticism
De with Oh baby,I can help
Sage with Birthing in chains
Karen with Baby shower treats
Alejna with Gifts and thanks
Jennifer with New Year’s resolving
Reality Testing with Project Snuggle in conjunction with Flutter’s original idea in 2006 there once was a girl
Aliki with Newton’s third law
Painted Maypole with Unto us a child is born
Sin with Win-win
The Psycho Therapist with On giving to organizations

Those who listened
TIV: The Individual Voice
Crazymumma
LawyerMama
Painted Maypole
Chani
Jennifer
Mayberry Mom
Pundit Mom
Susanne
Hel
Mad
Jen

And as always you should also check out what Jen, Mad, and Hel are writing this month.

look what I made!

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As you probably have noticed I didn’t feel much like blogging these past, ahem, weeks. While I do have half a dozen or so posts in my head, unfortunately I didn’t sit down and actually wrote them. So I plan to slowly write them one after the other. This one is about all the things I knit since September or so. I wanted to show you all the things that I made, and then I never did, and now it almost feels ridiculous. Also I’m still waiting for me to embroider the eyes on Carlos Santana, the elephant. If I ever do it it probably will take all of ten minutes, including finding a suitable yarn for it (the biggest obstacle). My son loves it even without eyes but I was reluctant to show you a blind elephant as finished. But then …

So here are my finished “objects” in chronological order:

Jaywalkers

Jaywalker socks for my husband. I started them on our train ride to Paris. I had to knit about three and a half of them to get them right. (No, my husband only has the usual two feet.) They’re still a bit too big…

vinnlands.JPG

Vinnland socks, again for my husband. Those on the other hand are too tight. I love this pattern. I made my usual short row toe and heel, though, because I can’t get the hang of wrap stitches. I have learned a different way to do short rows which I like better. (Of course I found that out only after I had knitted the toe the first time and it was full of holes. What can I say, I’m an expert at ripping things, obviously.)

Then I made a pair of dashing, fingerless mittens for my mother which I forgot to photograph. That was no fun, again, I made about six of them until I was left with a pair that seemed right. Oh, and she says, she doesn’t like them, and so I will have to frog them and re-make them. But she only told me after I had given her a matching hat (Le Slouch by Wendy Bernhard) for Christmas. And she loves it. Phew.

(That’s me wearing the hat, not my mother.)

Finally I made something for me, my first lace stole (It’s the hanami stole. When I saw it I knew I wanted to make it and now I’m hooked on lace stoles. I’m planning two more already.):

hanami stole

hanami ruffle

hanami total

And a hat for me to go with my crocheted scarf:

red hat

(I’m not very happy with this picture but I’m pressed for time here, sorry.)

And finally, Carlos Santana, the elephant who still has to get his eyes:

pink elephant

What I’m knitting right now (but not all at once of course) is: a pair of mittens for my husband, a pair of socks for myself, still the brown cardigan (sigh!), a scarf for my husband (with sock yarn, a true labor of love), and I made a swatch for the secret of the stole II- knit-along (the button is in my left sidebar). And a scarf with the Vinnland-pattern for myself.

healing the world

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For a year now I have been writing about something related to social justice at least once a month. Because I made a promise one year ago when the just post roundtable was started. This in itself is proof that this roundtable brings people in motion because otherwise I probably would have spent all my time blogging about my to-do-lists or something equally important to the world.

On the other hand it feels a bit strange, sitting here in front of my computer, writing nice little posts about social things. Armchair activism, so to speak. And it feels like it doesn’t make much of a difference. Sometimes.

I haven’t been the only one thinking about this and so we, that is Jen, and Mad, and Hel, and me, have decided to try something new for the first anniversary of the roundtable. Something that involves actual doing instead of mere writing. But don’t fear nobody is supposed to get out and heal all the world’s suffering all by herself. What we ask for is something small, something doable, something that feels right for each of us.

So, when I thought about my “social post of the month” this month I couldn’t come up with anything. So I almost skipped it. And then I read something that made me think and I remembered something else, and this is what I want to write about.

When I attended a singing workshop back in May one of the teachers asked all of us where we wanted to go with our music. After everybody had said something it was the turn of the two other teachers to respond to that, and Joey Blake said that he wanted to sing to heal the world. He used much more words than that but that was the essence of it for me.

My first reaction was, “Haha, funny, as if you could heal the world through your singing.” But it stuck with me and I thought about it. I still am. And then I remembered how I had felt after the concert the teachers had given the day before. And I wondered.

And then, last week, I read something by Tara Jon Manning that pointed me in the same direction: In her book “Mindful Knitting: Inviting Contemplative Practice to the Craft” she writes about “enlightened society”:

Enlightened society is an idea of a world built upon generosity and kindness where everyone mindfully contributes to the support and well-being of everyone else. Fundamental to this notion, […], is the recognition of the potential within all human beings to wake up to their own basic goodness and contribute to the world. When we make the connection between our own basic goodness within and the magic of the basic goodness without, it touches us and makes our hearts soft and tender. As you awaken to your own basic goodness, you begin to se it everywhere – in everyone, everything, and every moment of the world. […] And as you may have already seen in yourself, once you have made that awakening within yourself, you can’t help but let it spill out into the world.

So, in order to make the world more full of generosity and kindness it’s best to start with oneself. And that doesn’t mean that you have to become all Mother Theresa-like overnight. It isn’t like reaching a goal where you (or I) suddenly turn into that magnificent, better version of yourself. It’s a practice. Loving kindness starts with you.

I really believe that we are all connected, and that our thoughts and deeds influence each other. And so each one of us can change the world a little bit at a time. Of course it seems futile from time to time. And sometimes we can’t do it and then we are not kind or generous. But then there’s the next moment and another chance and then we surprise ourselves.

No, I don’t know how that translates into world peace and into fresh water and enough to eat for everyone, but for now it is the only thing I can do and I sincerely believe that it makes a difference. Maybe it’s only a small difference. But then, you all know how one person can make a difference to a small group. Sometimes even the presence of somebody makes a difference. And the world is comprised of small groups of people. Quite a few of them these days, that’s true, but small groups nonetheless. And we should never forget that all the people who really made a difference were after all human beings like us.

May we be safe and protected and free from inner and outer harm
May we be happy and contented
May we be healthy and whole to whatever degree possible
May you experience ease of well-being …

May our planet and the whole universe be safe and protected and free from harm
May our planet and the whole universe be happy and contented
May our planet and the whole universe be healthy and whole
May our planet and the whole universe experience ease of well-being…

(from “Coming to our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness” (Jon Kabat-Zinn))

And as I quote from this book and re-read the title I realize where that thought comes from. You know, “Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness”. Duh.

A happy new year to all of you, and please, don’t forget to send me your own posts and nominations for the next just post roundtables until the 7th of January.