the Village Knittiot

With some serious effort I have managed to carve ten minutes out of my day for a quick post and update. First and foremost, I am alive. Second, hablo espanol muy bueno. Yo estudioso trabajamente. No me gusta mi profesora porque ella es antipatica, pero es inteligente y interesante. Yo aprendo y practico. Mis companeros de clase son muy perezosos. No son inteligentes. No me gusta mis companeros de clase tambien. Which is to say, I am speaking very good Spanish. I am studying hard. I do not like my teacher because she is unpleasant, but she is intelligent and interesting. I am learning and practicing. My classmates are very lazy and not very smart. I also do not like them. I can actually say a lot more than that, and I’m enjoying running around sounding like a little kid learning to talk. And if it sounds like I don’t like my class, well, in some ways, I don’t. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that the profesor is a former high-school teacher who sometimes treats us like we are high-school students. For example, she suddenly decided to go around the room and look at everyone’s vocabulary. She informed me that I would be getting a 0 for not writing my vocabulary in my class notebook. I explained to her that I write all my vocabulary on flashcards, which she has been telling us from day one are muy, muy, muy importante. I showed her my stack of 400+ cards. She gave me a 0 anyway. I have not gotten less than a 95 on anything I have done in her class, but I got a 0 because I don’t take notes precisely the way she thinks she told us to, which as a good listener, I don’t believe she has. The rest of the lazy class is in agreement with me on this. Also, in the course outline, where we are told exactly what our grade will be based on, in no section of the thing does it say anything about notes being taken in a precise manner. I am clearly having a hard time getting over that one. I just hate that kind of arbitrary shit — especially when I am working my ass off. Also, I feel old. And I’m starting to sound old. If these people are the future of this country, you should all consider getting out now.

On the knitting front, I started a new lacy shawl with some hand-dyed merino lace-weight I picked up at a little shop in Albany while we were there last weekend looking at schools. Here is a picture that doesn’t even remotely do justice to the beautiful colors in the yarn.

Okay, way over my ten minutes here…

I have been wanting to do a 100 things about me for some time, but have been waiting for the right inspiration to give me a proverbial kick in the pants — or, if you prefer a Wile E. Coyote metaphor, an Acme anvil to the head. As I mentioned, I am reading Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life at the moment and am enjoying it immensely. So, I decided to do an encyclopedic version of the standard 100 Things About me post. And since, as you know, I am a bit, shall we say, verbose, I will spare you an insanely long post and give it to you one letter at a time.

A

absentee father: I always thought this was such an odd description. It makes it seem nicer somehow, like there is an excuse. I am absent from school because I am sick. Or like you can still do something in your absence — like with an absentee ballot. It’s as if the father is absent for some completely understandable reason. And while I understand that there were indeed reasons that my father left, I think “abandoned” is a much more appropriate word as it portrays the kind of cowardice inherent in having a child and then choosing to have nothing to do with it.

alice: I love this name. In my head, it sounds simultaneously simple, mysterious and insightful. When I finally realized that I had fallen in love with Mr. Knittiot (The second time around there was no halo and glorious light, embarrassingly enough I had to have it pointed out to me by my best friend — what did I know, I’d never fallen in love before. I was happily headed for spinsterhood.) I had this sudden image of us years and years from then with a child — our child, in point of fact — reading to her from her very own copy of Alice in Wonderland. Never mind that Mr. K owns several dozen different version of the book, this was hers. And in this vision, which was only flashes of a second, I knew it was hers because he had purchased her a wonderful old used copy for her birthday. Also, friends of ours have a tiny, petite and serious cat named Alice who hides from me whenever I am at her house. It is also the name of my Grandma Alice who is not really my grandma, but is one of the people throughout my life who has been kind enough to let me adopt her as one. Grandma Alice bakes homemade bread, chicken soup from scratch and the best darn rhubarb strawberry pie (more rhubarb than strawberries for extra tartness) you will ever taste. She used to bake me a pie whenever I asked for one, or sometimes just because she was thinking of me, and I would eat it for every meal until it was gone. It usually only lasted a couple of days.

apple: I like to eat apples in the fall — especially ones that I have picked myself. I don’t know why, but they taste better if you pick them yourself. My favorite are the crisp, tart kind that make your cheek muscles ache a little bit as your whole face sort of goes into an involuntary pucker. I don’t like sweet apples or ones that are mushy. I hated apples when I was a kid. I think because all the apples I ever had as a kid were those disgusting, flavorless, mealy Washington apples that come in big bags and were always served with school hot lunches. They had a slightly chemical taste to them and not much else.

auntie: I have always called my aunt (pronounced awnt) “auntie Robin.” I can call her Robin, and I can call her my aunt occassionally, but I cannot call her aunt Robin, because she is my auntie Robin. Also, I don’t know if awnt vs. aaant is a regional thing, but I can’t say aaaant. It has always been awnt.

The thing about Spanish: is that it really gets you thinking about your own native language. Or at least that is what learning a new language has always done for me. Over the course of my life I have studied Japanese, French, German, Greek and Spanish and it is always the same. When I am trying to piece together words in a cohesive fashion, in a way that would make at least a modicum of sense to someone who actually speaks whatever language I am clumsily attempting to use, it forces a person to think about language in the most concrete and basic of terms. I really like that kind of thinking — the kind that starts at the center with a very simple structure and then ripples out to the edges only to get increasingly complex.

The other thing I am always struck by is the very imprecise nature of the English language — the room for ambiguity, misunderstanding, multiple meanings. But I think there is an element of ambiguity to all langages, because language is always contextual. And the context is cultural, experiential and internal. You cannot learn a language in a vacuum. It has no meaning. The second there is language, you have already begun to populate the vacuum and define it, and thus it ceases to be one. Language defines, but even if we agree that a word means something, the context of your life will shade that meaning with your own perspective, as will mine. We are talking about the same thing, but also we are not. How is it we manage to communicate anything between ourselves?

And I suppose that is the beauty of being in this world right now. It is so imperfectly stunning. And it is what makes writing so amazing, because I tell the story I need to tell and you hear the story you need to hear and even if it shares some of the most basic elements, it enters your internal kingdom and undergoes a transformation. Language is living and dynamic. Anyone who denies this is practicing the worst kind of self-delusion.

Other miscellany: socks are the devil. I finished my first sock and I was thrilled. It was pretty. It was also pretty tight on my foot, but a little stretching out and we were all good. I started on the second sock and even though I looked at it as I was getting close to the end and thought to myself, gee, that looks awfully small, I was still surprised when I tried it on and it didn’t fit. I belong to the school of knitting that believes imperfection requires ripping everything out to the beginning and starting all over again. This is also known as the School of Insane Logic (we like the way insane and logic do and don’t fit together all at once). I am fairly certain that if I had been knitting both socks together at once, I would not have run into this problem. This leads me to believe that perhaps knitting both socks on two circulars may indeed be the way to go. I plan to take a few weeks to think about how I want to handle my sock problem before I go about ripping into them. ***added later: I tried them on again and it seems that with a little blocking and stretching the second sock does indeed fit, it just needs to be convinced to loosen up a little bit. Uptight socks are notoriously difficult.

More Miscellany: I have been reading a lot, which sort of surprises me, because with my schedule I thought I would be pretty wiped out. But, as I have experienced time and time again, the busier I am, the more productive and energetic I feel. And there is nothing to get me sucked into reading like studying a new langauge.

First, I finally finished The Unconsoled (again — finally) and I am so glad I decided to reread it. Even though it was still dense and at times hard to wade through, I found that I wasn’t as resistant to the narrative style since I knew what to expect. I just allowed myself to float along with it rather than attempt to cram it into the structure my brain thought it should follow. Second, I had a much more sympathetic understanding of the main character this time through — especially at the end when he was having a discussion with another character who I believe was supposed to be him years earlier, back at the beginning of his career. It was like having the chance to say to yourself all those things you needed to hear from someone else all that time ago. It was a bitter sweet and confusing swirl. And it is one of those books that is satisfying even in its open endedness. You don’t need the openness to be closed off, because it is what makes the most sense. Now that is skilled narration. I heart Ishiguro.

I am also reading Anne LaMott’s most recent book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, which I think is very interesting. I am always fascinated by people who seem to have found an authentic spiritual experience in the midst of a Christian context. (You know, when it is really about grace and radical acceptance, and not some twisted and hateful social and political agenda that uses Jesus as an excuse to be a racist, homophobic, sexist, unkind and unloving fuck head who votes.) The first book I read by Anne LaMott was Bird by Bird — a very well-known book on writing — and I laughed and cried and related to every single word in that book until I thought I was going to pass out from the sheer joy of knowing that I wasn’t alone in so many of my struggles, both with writing and life. I have read a lot of her stuff since then and there is something authentic and totally lacking in self-righteousness about it. But I think she worries about being lumped in with the rabid Christianity of the right wing, so on some level it seems like she feels the need to point out at every turn that she isn’t a right-winger, she’s a left-winger all the way, without exception. This often disrupts the narrative flow. But her signature willingness to display the whole messy truth of her guts and her life is there, and if nothing else, it is worth it for that. I like that kind of honesty, even if it is hard or embarrassing or uncomfortably familiar.

I have also been making my way through Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I highly recommend this book, which is exactly what it sounds like - snippets of an ordinary life in Encyclopedia format. It is very original and the author’s voice is perfect for this medium. All these little bits and pieces that have you wanting more of the story. Also, it gets you thinking about your own life. Perhaps it is time for me to get started on an Encyclopedic version of the “100 things about me” post…