theknittyvritti

reading

 

One myth and three facts:

1. Myth. I've been told that at age four, I picked up a book ("Henrietta and her Ducks", I think), and read it to my mother. Without being taught how to read. I doubt the veracity of this particular story, but am grateful for it, because it suggested that both reading and I were special, and a lifelong connection between me and reading was established.

2. Fact. I read more books that anyone in my first grade class.

3. Fact. I used to read and walk at the same time. Once I walked into a parked car in a driveway while doing this and knocked the wind out of myself and fell down. No one saw me, which was a good thing.

4. Fact. I can read through just about any kind of noise or other distraction.

Sadly, I don't read novels so much anymore. Knitting, computer time, gardening, and Netflix are impinging on my reading time. And maybe fiction has lost some of its necessary appeal since I've been lucky to create a real world that I want to inhabit. Lately, though, I've been thinking about stealing some reading time back.

I'm enjoying this book, "Those Who Save Us" by Jenna Blum a great deal. The plotting is a little pat, but the voice is lovely....and I've appreciated to degree to which I've been drawn by her words into the world she has created. It's a story of a mother and daughter both dealing with their experiences as Germans in Nazi Germany. There's a moral complexity to the book that reminds me of my recent visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. The main museum there is structured as a historical visit through the Nazi years in Germany, and one of the aspects of the Holocaust that it evoked was the way that no one escaped dilemmas about their human goodness or lack of, a major theme of this quietly powerful novel.

 

Of course, the dog, who is a rescue mutt, and I, who was born into a safer time and place, are very grateful for the scale of our dilemmas. To read or to knit, to sleep in the sun or the shade. Not much drama, but I prefer to have my drama in what I read over how I live.

If you're a reader, I'd suggest you check out Karie's blog, and this post by Tiennie, in which she shows off some lovely baby knits and directs you to Shelfari, where you can see what she's been reading. Good ideas for your next book in both places.

And let me know here what you've been reading....but only if you like it.

eye candy, brain food

I bought the first of these books a few months ago, and found myself spending hours just looking at the beautiful stitch patterns, beautifully presented. I got the second some time later, and last week, after picking it up and putting it down more than a few times at the bookstore, I broke down and bought the third. I'm not sorry. These are excruciatingly exquisite books. I want to be Nicky Epstein, but I guess I'll have to settle for letting her work her magic on me. Because she has made my first design possible. Just keep these books next to your bed, peruse them before you go to sleep every night for a month, and you will be designing, too. I'll be busy all week trying to finish a pattern, although I doubt that I will make it by Friday. There is already a glove, but writing it up takes longer than making it, alas.

And I have other writing to do! My presentation this spring was picked up for a book, and the deadline for the first draft is soon. In addition, I'll be writing a proposal for my next set of potential presentations. In professional writing, too, I had a muse--a wonderful supervisor who helped me connect to my long-denied wish to find out what I had to say about my work.

Thankfully, I have a great portable computer, because I will be taking it with me everywhere I go for the rest of the summer. That means my writing will not be interrupting my not-tanning sessions. Chaise, umbrella, laptop, Fresca--that's me this summer. It could be worse.

cruising

It's finally going smoothly!!! Tumbling blocks is on it's way. It's a pleasure to knit, now that the latest set of technical problems have been solved. What fun to see the pattern emerge. And what a relief. I am committed to finishing this project no matter what, so the fun level was not really the point here. But that it finally is fun is a huge relief, especially given my quest to become a more selfish knitter.

While I've been working out the kinks on this one, I've been thinking about an unforgettable essay called  "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", by David Foster Wallace found in a book of the same name. (I find that title comes in handy in many situations--it captures something in it's essence). Wallace agrees to go on a cruise, and has an excruciatingly funny bad experience. His story fits with my expectations of cruising life.

Now my oldest friend loves cruises. She wishes that I shared her sentiments, since she could then go on cruises with me. Not a chance. I can't think of anything less appealing. To me, a cruise ship is just a giant luxury apartment building with too much food and bad entertainment. Sound good? Not really. But some people love it.

Colorwork may be equally controversial. I got a bunch of comments suggesting that I was out of my mind to attempt this project. There have been moments when I thought so, too. But there is nothing as riveting, knitting-wise, as watching a picture emerge from string. I think everyone should try it at least once. However I'm not going on a cruise even if she thinks I should try it. Some experiments just aren't worth finding out what happens.

Still, I'm going to put this project away for a while. PrincessPea inspired me to stop and think about what it makes sense to work on right now. She's not just organized, she's also the person who introduced me to the Selfish Knitting group, after all. I should be finishing Myrtle, to wear this summer. I also want to knock out a little black lacy cover up for one dress before summer gets too far along. Still, I may steal a few moments for this sweater. Selfishly, yes, I mean selfishly, I'd love to see what a full repeat of the pattern looks like.

On second thought, maybe I do need to take a cruise. All that time, nothing much to do. Steward, which way is the knitting deck?

   

tolstoy

Tolstoy opened his novel War and Peace with the famous epitaph, "All happy families are the same, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". He was explaining why happy families did not make great literature--there just wasn't much to say about them. Well, after thirty years of doing therapy, I'm not so sure that there are all that many different ways to make yourself unhappy, or for that matter, that happiness has to be such a boring state of affairs.

I do know, though, that it's not so easy for me to think of what to say about my relationship with Thermal anymore. It's going well. The pattern is still very understandable. Umm. Umm. That's about it. Fortunately, I think I'm going to finish it soon, so there's not even any deadline stress. I guess this does make for bad blogging, just like it would make for a pretty boring therapy session, and not even a very good fairy tale. No dramatic tension here.

It does, however make for great knitting. Call me boring, but I'll take a non-dysfunctional relationship with my projects any time.

africa third and final installment

In my next post, I will get back to my knitting. But I've been waking up at 3 a.m., and this morning, I am thinking about one more aspect of my Africa trip. The animals at Kruger Park have it pretty good. But our encounter with our driver, as well as two books I read while I was there really made me think about how well they are treated in comparison to the people.

Operations Man is a history buff. He brought along a short history of colonial South Africa, and taught me about the years of European exploitation of the people of South Africa.  Although apartheid is over,the problems are far from solved, and they are confusing and uncomfortable to bump up against.

We had a driver, J., at the game park. He was a bright young man from a village just outside the park. The village just got electricity three years ago. When J. wants to watch TV, he stands looking in the window of a neighbor's house, and must watch whatever they are watching. To use the internet, he takes a long drive and pays the equivalent of a few dollars for fifteen minutes at an internet cafe.

When he goes to work, J. puts on a spiffy uniform and drives affluent South Africans, Europeans and Americans around, pointing out animals and plants. It can be very intimate, especially if there are few passengers over many rides. We learned that J. makes three thousand dollars a year, and that he has some responsibility to care for his siblings.It's a large family--J.'s father has two wives and nine children. He wants to be an industrial psychologist, but he can't save money to go to school. He lives on a pittance and tips.

By the end of the trip, I wanted to send him to school myself--after all, a year would cost about as much as my four days at the reserve. And we both knew it. If that wasn't uncomfortable enough, when we got home, he actually e-mailed us asking if we could help him out (financially), an action that would of course cost him his job if his employers found out (they won't). Now my charitable giving is exclusively aimed at helping people who don't have basics get them, but somehow it's much more comfortable giving through an institution and trusting them to make good use of the resources, or in a situation where you can gauge whether your attempts to help are working, as when I take on a very low fee patient. Heartbreaking and morally uncomfortable stuff.

The other book I read while I was in Africa, Dave Eggers' "What is the What", helped put my driver's actions into context. You must read it. If you don't believe me, swing over to Amazon.com and be convinced by over one hundred other people who read this book. Eggers became close with a man named Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost boys of Sudan. Valentino was sent from a refuge camp in Ethiopia where he spent most of his childhood to Atlanta, to begin a new life along with many other Sudanese young people. The book tells the story of the destruction of Valentino's village and family life, the effects of the war in Sudan on its people, and the struggles of the Sudanese who tried to make new lives in this country. Eggers' extraordinary gift for prose is grafted onto a remarkable story.

One of the things that Valentino talks about is the confusion about what it is OK to ask for in his situation. To get anywhere, he desperately needs help from more advantaged people. He is a hardworking man (like the driver, who works every day for six weeks, from 4:30 a.m. to 8 at night, then has two weeks off), and he's not looking for a free ride. In fact,he's returned to the Sudan to build a school complex in his home village. (you can get more info about all this by googling him and going to the website--including info on how you can help). Maybe being in such an undeniably horrible situation brought him onto the radar screen of those who can help in a way that will not happen to the underpaid, undersupported inhabitants of more peaceful countries. Valentino's life story has more pain in it than most of us will ever experience, and he's a young man, but he had the great good fortune of meeting a number of people along the way, most notably Eggers, who are helping him achieve his dreams.

Although it can't be me, I hope that J. finds a way too.