Kisses

My to-do list is filled with mundane things today. Vacuum, change the sheets, get milk, work on the pattern write-ups. Take a walk, make some calls, send those emails.

I'll do all those things, but I have to knit, too. I need to spend some time with garter stitch and silly little edge picots.

You see, I've been standing by as my best friend Judy navigates the process of placing her dear mother in a nursing facility. I'm reminded of my own family's journey through the same maze, led by my siblings and especially my sister Ellen. I'm full of love and admiration for Judy, and I know her mom loves her more than anything in the whole wide world.

I miss my dear Gig, and I wish peace and comfort for Judy's sweet Louise. Kisses to both of them, and to Judy, too.

(And honey, I'm sorry if this makes you cry. You probably need a good one anyway.)

Being at home

I've been spending almost all of my time at home, for weeks now. First, there was the move that the bookstore was making, and there wasn't going to be a place for me to work until things were settled in the new space, so I brought my office home. That fit the timing for the surgery I was going to have, which meant that I'd need to be home to recuperate.

The surgery (repair to scar tissue left from previous surgeries) went well, but the work did not. I was working on our website as usual, but while I was, the bookstore was making some hard decisions. The website was eliminated, and so was my job.

Losing my job is a subject for another time. What I'm thinking about today is how much I love my home, my tiny space, my little calm place. It was remade by my sister Sarah when she came to be with me for the surgery, and on the final day, just a few hours before she had to leave, we took pictures of the amazing transformation. My mother's dresser, her little overnight case on top; my knitting spot on the couch, the new television. There's much more that you can't see in one photograph.

And there in the middle: the beautiful, beautiful quilt Sarah made for me, which she put the finishing touches on while I was sleeping.

There's no place like home, is there?

It's a process

Today is the fourth anniversary of my surgery, the day I began many long months of recovery and treatment and recovery from treatment. Coincidentally, it's also National Cancer Survivors Day. I've been a bit stubborn about adopting the "survivor" label, but I think it's time. I don't have cancer any more.

It's a process. Cancer is a process. Treatment is a process. Healing is a process. Surviving is a process. The process has been hard on me these past few months, harder than I thought it would be by now. I needed to remember that it's different for everyone, that we're all on our own timeline. I needed to stop and rest, stop plowing ahead.

It took a while for me to realize that for me, healing and surviving isn't simple. It's hard work. Careful management of my lymphedema, the leftover effects from chemotherapy, a seismic shift at my job, and losing my mother — my plate is full. I've been working on it. It's a good process.

So, today is the fourth anniversary of my surgery... I'm looking back, but I'm right here. I'm trying to be right here.

Peace Love & Yarn Bluebird BFL Sock Yarn (Thank you Liz!)

Love came down at Christmas

My sweet mother had a difficult relationship with Christmas. She loved the idea of it, and she loved all our family's traditions — she created many of them, after all. But Christmas also tended to disappoint her sometimes, especially when it wasn't picture-perfect. In a family of nine, things were rarely picture-perfect; we didn't notice, but she did.

When we were growing up our parents created a magical time for us every year, and Gig's creativity and ingenuity were woven through the season — themed Christmas trees, pfeffernüsse cookies, actually-delicious fruit cake, beautiful arrangements of greens and decorations that filled the house, a Christmas morning that was staged as carefully as a Broadway theater set — and often, there were gifts she made herself.

My mother loved to sew. She sewed for most of her life; her mother was a seamstress as well. She made most of my sisters' and my clothes when we were growing up — in the early 1960's she made my sister Sarah and me two beautiful Easter outfits that included reversible linen coats — and she kept at it long after I was grown. When the grandchildren began arriving, starting in 1970, she kept sewing, and she concentrated on Christmas.

Each year seemed to have a theme — I wish I could remember them all. The nightgowns and footie pajamas, stick horses, teddy bears, pillows in the shape of letters for each child, shiny stuffed fish. There might have been dinosaurs, and there must have been others that I just can't remember.

In March, when I came home from Gig's memorial service and that short but amazing visit with my entire family, something began to take shape in my knitter/auntie/crazy-woman brain. What if I were to knit something — some little something — for those nieces and nephews, and their children, the way Gig had sewed for them? Just because I love them. I would be casual about it, and I would knit throughout the year. Things I might want to knit anyway, with yarn I probably already had. My Family Project began.

So I knit things all year long. When I finished, there were seven scarves, five pairs of mitts, and fifteen hats. For my family, and their families and beloveds — for Melody, Sylvester, A'Court, Cynthia, Susan, Ava, Lindsey, Chris, Oliver, Emily, Kylie, Jacob, Amy, Sophie, Sam, Dylan, Will, Rachel, Rebecca, Ben, Angela, another Dylan, Varan, Valerie, Kaiden, Robin, and Matt.

The photo is a link to the Family Project  Flickr page.

On this Christmas morning I am imagining my family, all opening their little packages, smiling as they remember how much Gig loved us, and I hope they know how much I love them. And wherever you are, whoever you're with — and picture-perfect Christmas or not — I hope this day is filled with love that wraps you up in a warm hug.

"Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love divine;

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and angels gave the sign."

Christina Rossetti

Repetitive

String Theory Caper Sock "Oban"

At first, I was going to make just one Multnomah. I needed to knit something that was simple, soothing, and that made sense. Most of all, it had to help me as Annabelle was leaving. I knit and knit, with my little cat by my side. Before long it was finished, and it helped dry my tears.

Sundara Sock "Through the Woods"

Then I needed travel knitting as I went to see my mom, so I worked on some Hedgerow socks for my friend Reya. I'm still working on them. Somewhere in there I worked on an Allegan Cardigan from The Knitter's Book of Wool, but that's another story.

Sundara FSM "Beach Pebbles"

And then... I didn't know what to do when my mother died. One day, when my sisters and I were discussing ways we could "represent" our mom at the memorial service, we talked about her favorite colors. She loved blues and purples and the color that Crayola calls Periwinkle. We decided to wear a color that Gig would like, so it came to me — another Multnomah. I had the right yarn (it was already being made into this, but I frogged it without hesitation) and I had enough time (about ten days).

I loved every minute that I spent knitting. Again, it soothed me, gave me focus, and helped me to feel like I was doing something. On the day of the memorial, it felt so good to wear the little shawl that I'd made, along with my mother's pearl necklace.

I'm very grateful for Sundara and her artful colors. More than once — many times — she has created a color that becomes part of my story. My mother would have loved this Beach Pebbles Multnomah, too.

What am I working on now? I needed a project to take with me on my journey to the service and the wonderful visit I had with my family. It begins with an M and ends with an H...

Losses

Annabelle (1996-2011)

Cat Ghosts

I

Years after

in a kitchen of another country

you're still hungry

II

In the heat of the day

your shadow comes back

to lie on your stone

— W. S. Merwin

Gloria Cochran (1924-2011) in 1983, laughing

My mother lived a long and, I think, rewarding life. I always knew she loved me with all her heart, as she did all her family: children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and many others. In fact, we were her heart.

The last time I saw her, just a couple of weeks before she passed away on March 9th, she looked into my eyes, smiled, and poured all that love right back into my heart.

I am missing my little Annabelle, and we are missing our dear Gig.

Too much

Hydrangea Neck Warmer in Gobi

Too much winter makes me cranky. Snow on snow, colder and colder. The days may be growing longer, but they just begin to feel endless. A cold has kept me home for a couple of days, though, and I've been knitting and making soup and trying to pull myself out of the pit I seem to be in. I think I see the way out, but I still have a climb ahead of me.

Simple Baktus in Cormo/Mohair

Watching Annabelle as she fades is hard, but I don't really realize it until something in her behavior changes. She likes the idea of eating more than her body wants food. I open a fresh can, offering her whatever she wants, just in case she does want to eat. She peers at it, sometimes taking a bite, sometimes not. She knows best, and I'm trying to listen to her.

Of course I don't want her to go, but I am determined not to keep her here longer than she needs to be. I don't want to think about daily life without my little sentinel, but I must. I've accompanied many beloved pets to the end of their lives, and yet I don't feel prepared for it now. I look at Annabelle and think that I'm so grateful to her, to this little soul more than any other, for watching over me when I was sick.

This little buff tabby has been a good lesson for me, with her affectionate distance and obvious sense of her own self. She's always been this way; the minute I saw her contemplating me from across the room in the ARF adoption center, I knew she had been sent to me.

Until it's time for her to go, I'll be keeping her as close as she will allow, and listening.

Embracing opportunity

Summer's last flower

Time is flying! Summer ended this week, and I realized that I'm ready for a new start, a new season, new, new, new. Summer exhausts me, but Autumn energizes me. Time flies, but it is ripe for change, and (in my head, at least) I'm ready to embrace new things.

One thing I'm doing has until now been out of my comfort zone. At the gentle urging of one of my customers, I went to the monthly meeting of a new group — The Coalition for Women's Cancers at Southampton Hospital. It's a big name for a small but growing group of women who have or had or care about any cancers that affect women, not just breast cancer. I'm looking forward to being a part of this new community.

The CWC is having its first fundraiser this Thursday, and I've spent part of the weekend putting together some knitted things to donate to the raffle. A pair of Hedgerow socks, my Busy Bee and  Baktus scarves, and something I whipped up yesterday:

They're a pair of Maine Morning Mitts in some vintage Sundara Worsted (Briar Rose, picked up at the KR Retreat Stash Lounge a couple of years ago — thanks, Rosi!). Mitts always look so silly when they aren't filled with hands, don't they? Sort of like pantyhose without legs.

My monumental achievement for the weekend, though, was the finishing, washing, and blocking of my Arabian Nights sweater. To accomplish this I had to do two things that those who know my house and housekeeping "skills" will laugh at: wash all the dishes that were marinating in the sink so I could soak the sweater, and clear off my counter so I could arrange it there to dry. It's almost dry (I'm waiting on the sleeves) and then I can wear it and get somebody to take a picture and everything!

Summer's last waves

P. S. Our customer M, who I wrote about in February, died on September 10th. His wife told us that one of the last things he did was go to the beach, just a couple of days before he died. He'd been in the store many times during the summer, still reading, still exploring. I'll always remember our small, quiet conversations which helped me get through my own treatment, and I'm grateful to have shared a little of his journey with him. Rest well, Mike, and thank you.

Waving

It's been a typical summer day. Blue sky, waves of heat, cicadas singing. It rained a little bit, and there was a thunderstorm somewhere, but most of the day has been just like this. I was on my way to the farm stand on the back road to get some blueberries, and the fields of corn were so beautiful that I had to stop. Though there wasn't any place to take a photo from a higher vantage point, I can tell you that I think there's something perfectly wonderful about a corn field, spreading out across acres, tassels waving in the breeze.

In another part of my world, today has not been typical. Barry Fraser, a blog friend and a wonderful writer, died yesterday. Reya has written a beautiful post (thank you, Sister), and others have as well, so I'll let their words speak for me. I'm deeply grateful to have encountered Barry when I was on my own cancer journey, and I'm also grateful to be one of the fortunate ones. I'll be here to wave him into the next world. I  just hope that my life and the way I live it honors him in some small way.