the Village Knittiot

There is nothing like a good knitting pattern to help you come to terms with the less than perfect aspects of yourself.

First, let us establish this — I am a perfectionist. There is no way around it. And even though I know in my sometimes rational brain that things cannot be perfect all of the time — that it is against the natural order of the world we live in — I am always surprised by the chaos that seems to erupt around me at fairly regular intervals. Worse, I think I might be one of those people who keeps waiting for things to be calm enough to relax. Thus, I am seldom, if ever, relaxed. Bonus points to anyone who can tell me how to loosen the knots in both my shoulders and get rid of the tic in my left eye without resorting to narcotics and/or alcohol.

Please note, you cannot knit, keep your sanity and expect perfection at the same time. If you do this you will end up crying all over your Lavender Cliffs Rogue Sweater on a Sunday night wondering what you are even good for on this planet if you can’t just relax and figure out some very simple thing like how to get rid of the three stitches you somehow have even though you shouldn’t. You know, something like decreasing one stitch at the beginning of the next three rows.

Yeah, I was clearly doing my best thinking yesterday. The start of Daylight Savings Time always kicks my ass.

Today, the clouds have not exactly parted, because it is miserable, grey and raining here, but I at least am thinking sanely enough to know that the way to get rid of three extra stitches is not to rip back 30 rows of work and make sure you did your decreases correctly.

Saturday I went in search of Sock Yarn. I bought some, but I’m having a hard time being excited about it. It isn’t that I don’t like it. It’s nice stuff. It just isn’t what I want, and I’m finally realizing that I’m never going to find what I want in any of the shops around here. You know why? Because they are completely oblivious to what is going on in the knitting world right now. I was hoping for some Lorna’s Laces or some Cherry Tree Hill or Koigu, even some Opal or Regia. What I found was Patton’s Kroy Socks and a Plymouth cotton/wool/nylon blend.

They aren’t bad, they just don’t make my feet sing with anticipation. It’s more like they’re saying, “Oh. That’s nice.” When what I really want them to be saying is, “That’s it! Stop the sweater, you are making socks!”

What was exciting this weekend?

Well, I bought an umbrella — finally. Having resisted getting one for years, I was ultimately persuaded by a downpour (that threatened to soak my backpack and consequently the Rogue sweater inside of it) and some glow in the dark jelly fish. Don’t know when I’ll need glow in the dark jelly fish, but it sure looks neat. And I felt like I was walking around under water, so there you go.

Also, I went to my first Linux Meetup on Saturday and felt sufficiently geeky. Granted, I have about as much technical know how in my whole brain as most of them have in their baby toenails, but it was a very pleasant experience all around and I am definitely looking forward to going again.

Since several people requested the instructions for making their own Personal Universe Deck, here they are:

Buy yourself a pack of recipe-sized index cards.
Then come up with the following:
On each side of 8 cards write a word that applies to the sense of hearing.
On each side of 8 cards write a word that applies to the sense of sight.
On each side of 8 cards write a word that applies to the sense of taste.
On each side of 8 cards write a word that applies to the sense of smell.
On each side of 8 cards write a word that applies to the sense of touch.
On each side of 5 cards write a word that expresses motion.
On each side of 8 cards write a word that represents abstraction.
On each side of 3 cards, write words that do not fit any of the above categories — “misfits.”

Each word should be specific and significant to you at the time you write it.
Only use compound words if they are completely inseparable in your present Universe.
Do not use different forms of the same word.
Do use words whose sounds mingle in a resonating way.
50 index cards. 100 words.
Your own personal little Universe should fit neatly in your purse or backpack and can be taken with you wherever you go.
If you want some ideas for what to do with the deck, feel free to drop me a comment or an email. I will be happy to write you back with a few thoughts
Or, even better, if you come up with one, definitely let me know.
Explore your Universe in good health, and always remember to give thanks for a wonderful man named Stanley Larson and his shining contribution to the world of writing exercises.

About a year ago (a little less than a year, really) I started writing a book. I hadn’t intended to start a book, I was just writing, and well, there was all of this stuff and it was the best stuff I had written to date, and so I decided it would be a book. Shortly after I realized that I was writing a *book* everything sort of came to a crashing halt. I would sit down to write and all I could muster up was crying and frustration and wailing and gnashing of teeth. No words. No writing.

I suffered along through this for awhile, thinking that things would get better. I would figure it out. But I didn’t. I stopped writing. Writing was about panic and self-flagellation. It was not fun. So I stopped.

I taught myself to knit and I lived for the calming certainty that each stitch was always followed by another stitch. There was little danger in getting lost, and if I ever did, there was always something there to tell me where I was supposed to be. This is not to say that knitting didn’t have it’s own tense moments — moments where I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to make it do what it was supposed to do and I would feel compelled to remind the knitting that I could just open the window and throw it down to the dirty street and let let the cars drive over it. It was impressively unmoved. Not in a calloused way, it just didn’t take it personally that I was a perfectionist. I could be a perfectionist all I wanted, and it would just continue to be what it was. That was comforting. It was not like the Damn Book who wanted me to be a writer. And not just any writer, but also a good one.

I still thought about the *book* a lot. And I thought about writing. And reading. I did very little of either. I just sat in my den in the evenings and I knit. The simple version of the story would have you believe that I just got up one day and decided to remind myself about why it is that I write, and I started writing. But the more complicated real life story involves irritatingly dramatic things like depression and anxiety, therapy, and lots of baby steps, stops and starts, and more tumbly days (at least in the beginning) than not.

The good news, is that I have been writing again. I’m not working on the *book* at this point, and when I do get myself back to what I wrote there (as I undobutedly will), it is highly improbable that I will refer to it as a book. Instead, I’ll probably just say, I am writing. And when people ask me what I am writing, I will just say “Stuff.” Because ultimately, that’s all it ever is.

I mentioned at some point recently that I have been practicing a lot, poking at various exercises aimed to keep my fingers nimble. To this end I have been looking back over my favorite writing exercises and realized that I still come back almost exclusively to two places. The first being the book Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. My Auntie gave me this book when I was a mere 16 years old. I devoured and swooned and nodded my way in agreement through the entire book, and almost that many years later still do the same (I think I’m on my third copy of the book at this point). It is not only full of good exercises, but always has some timely advice like:

When you write, don’t say, “I’m going to write a poem.” That attitude will freeze you right away. Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say, “I am free to write the worst junk in the world.” You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination.

The second thing I go back to is something that was given to me by my favorite college professor. He was a short, round man who loved T.S. Eliot and Emily Dickinson. In class, when he got excited about whatever book or author he was talking about, he would sometimes do this little hop. Just this little cross between a jump and a skip, right there in front of the class. I liked the idea that your job was so inspiring you felt the need to hop with excitement. He taught my American Literature class one semester, and I was reminded me all over again who I am. I abandonded other pursuits in favor of what I loved, and I got my degree in English literature.

My junior year I took his creative writing course and on the first day he handed out a sheet of paper instructing us to make a Personal Universe Deck. It was created in a series of steps, with certain rules and guidelines that, once followed, resulted in a deck of index cards with 100 words that made up your personal Universe as it existed at that time. We were required to have our PUD with us at all times, and they were often involved in ICWEs (In Class Writing Exercises). What can I say, the man loved strange acronyms. And he loved language. It is still the best writing class I have ever had, better than anything I had in grad school.

I made my most current Personal Universe Deck about two weeks ago, and it has been with me everywhere I go since then. And instead of only ever having my knitting with me, I am once again carrying my notebook everywhere I go. I am learning to understand that my writing also doesn’t take it personally that I am a perfectionist. And I’m working on finding comfort in that. As Natalie says,

Art lives in the Big World. One poem or story doesn’t matter one way or the other. It’s the process of writing and life that matters.