Swirling

My (very late) Rhinebeck report:

This is the only picture I took. We had a wonderful time! I managed to maintain enough energy to make it up and down and around the fairgrounds on both Saturday and Sunday, and the four of us enjoyed our meals at the Eveready Diner and Gigi Trattoria (best calamari ever). There was some consumption of maple sugar cotton candy, but no artichokes. We'll take the cotton candy.

Short but very sweet visits were had with the crew at Spirit Trail, both during the show and back at the motel (oh, those scones Lanea made!). I didn't make many purchases -- a bit of fiber from Botanical Shades, a Grafton corriedale batt, and some pretties from Lavender Trifles -- but I did come home with a beautiful pair of Sheila and Michael Ernst's glass knitting needles. Now to find something worthy of knitting on US 7's...


Back at home, I finally photographed the Honeycomb Hat I made before I left. It's so comfortable and warm that I'm wearing it right now. It's cold today, even indoors.


This is the neckwarmer I'm knitting to match. It's a simple Mistake Rib, round and round, which is all my chemo-brain can handle right now. Chemo brain explains everything if you want it to, and it's as good an excuse as any for being forgetful and distracted!


I like the way the trees outside my house look woven, like a basket. The colors are almost at their peak here, and the wind blowing the leaves on these stormy days gives off an energy that's hard to resist. I'll take some, store it up, and use it later, thank you. It seems that Autumn is whirling and swirling past at a crazy pace -- or is it just me?

It's time to move on to thoughts of the Knitter's Review Fall Retreat -- in just a few weeks I'll be in Williamstown, MA for a weekend with my peeps. Better get started on that class homework!

Time for a break

Waiting Socks, Working

They did their job well during chemo last time -- every time I looked down at my feet I felt better, and they kept me warm, too. Two treatments down, five to go.

That photo will have to represent all the knitting I've been doing. I haven't had time to photograph the three hats in Malabrigo and two in Morehouse Merino that I've completed for this year's Knitters Review Retreat charity project. I don't have a picture of the Honeycomb Hat in The Knitter's Book of Yarn that I made for my own hairless head in a lovely plummy shade of Sundara's Aran Silky Merino. (Hmm, my hat looks almost like Clara's!) I'm trying to finish the second blue Hedgerow sock for one of the Remarkable R's before we leave for Rhinebeck on Friday. She wore the first one last year, so I think it's about time she had the pair, don't you?

Rhinebeck is my goal for the week. I'm working my way towards it in a methodical way. Do this much at work. Get that many hours of sleep. Pace myself with the laundry and the errands. On Friday afternoon I'll be fetched by Judy and the R's, and off we'll go on our yearly adventure. Road trip + yarn and fiber sniffing + good food x four friends = a blissful blast! I hope to get to spend a little time with Jen, Martha, Lanea, Beth, and Purlewe, and I hope I'll run into lots of fellow knitting friends.

It finally occurred to me that I am in dire need of a break from my life. Just a wee one will do for now. My world has been constrained since June, confined to a little corner. I spend all my time tending to the necessary concerns of my health and my spirit, which is as it needs to be. This is my chance to break free for a little while, and it comes at at time when I have some energy and I'm experiencing relatively few side effects.

The chemo cycle starts again next Thursday. At the beginning of all this, when I counted the days on the calendar, I was relieved to find that Rhinebeck and the KR Retreat fall in between treatments. That one-week delay made all the difference! I don't want to mess up the schedule, so I just have to make sure I take really good care of myself, and that my blood counts stay high enough each week (there's only so much I can do about that, but I like to think I am in charge of my bone marrow, you know).

Time to get on with the day, I suppose. There's work to do at the store, and since I'm grateful for every spare bit of energy I have for it, I'm happy to do it!

Two beautiful things

Sunset on the last day of summer.

Warm cat fur.

Randomness (like Sandy, only I don't do it as well):

1. It's now officially my favorite time of the year.
2. Rhinebeck is less than a month away.
3. Judy and the Remarkable R's and I have had our motel reservations since last October. We reserved the same room in the same little place.
4. I am knitting too many things at once. I might have to stop starting new projects.
5. I am constitutionally incapable of that.
6. Saltines and cottage cheese are not stuff to live on. Thank goodness that's over for now.
7. I don't think I have a wish list to take to Rhinebeck. I'm just pleased that I will be there.
8. There are a few people who I can't wait to see.
9. I love Zappos. I ordered three pairs of shoes late yesterday afternoon and they'll arrive today. I'll return the ones I don't want. Almost instant shopping gratification makes me happy.
10. It's time to get a move on if I want to get to work at a decent hour.

No longer waiting

I had been like this little fellow, just at the edge of the waves. I wanted to go in, get started, get my feet wet, but I had to wait. I had the procedure to implant a port in my chest (it's a little disk under my skin, with a line that runs up my jugular vein and under my collarbone -- all the cool kids have them, you know). And then I waited. Again.

My sister Sarah came to help me through the first session of chemo, but it was a week before I could start. That was a terrible week of waiting, and she helped me stay sane. I was all ready, fully-coping with this next big idea. The port was - and still is, at times - uncomfortable and frustrating, so in the end we were glad that I didn't go from the operating room to the chemo room on that Thursday.


My first treatments were a week ago, on Thursday and Friday. On that first day I was a little giddy, not knowing what to expect or feel. I wasn't scared, exactly, or perhaps I was beyond that, but I did know that the only thing to do was to go into that big room and get on with it.

That day turned out to be one of the most amazing and powerful days I've ever had. Once I was there, in my comfortable chair, surrounded by six or eight other women just like me, I relaxed and let the day unfold. I really felt like it was unfolding, too - each next new thing had its place, all the drips and the drugs and the soft talking and the quiet, all the dozing and the reading and the knitting, the short conversations, the passing of time. I remember smiling; it was that big.

When that first day was over, when the last drop had dripped, Rho brought me home and I slept to be ready for the next day, and more of the same. And then when that day was over, Judy brought me home and I lived a lost weekend. What I wonder about chemotherapy after my one encounter with it is this: is it ironic that I am assaulting my body with chemicals, and feeling this way, so I won't get sick again? Or is it just what it is, a means to a good end? From my perspective on the other side of that lost weekend, I'm glad I was there, and glad I am here.



So about the knitting ... I'm still crazy about the Narragansett Bay - Lisa Lloyd - Fine Fleece patterns. These are the socks, in beautiful Foxfire Fibre Fox Sox yarn. The color is called Willow. I'm going to work on the second sock this week and see if I can get it finished.



When the new Knitty came out, I was drawn to the Abby Cowl by Amy Singer. It seemed simple enough, and I knew I had to have some yarn in my stash that would work. A special ball of Qiviut rolled out of its silk bag and right on to my needles. I'm not sure if I have as much yarn as I'll need to make it the full 16", but I can always stop when I run out. I think I'll be warm enough no matter what.


This is the almost-finished pair of socks that I have been calling my Waiting Socks. The yarn is Sundara's Tulip colorway. I cast on on May 27th, and since then they have been my waiting room knitting for every appointment, procedure, test, and treatment. I want to finish them too, so I can wear them to keep my feet warm the next time I am reclining in that comfy chair at the oncologist's office.

I'm sending thanks and love to everyone who has been keeping me in their thoughts and sending juju - the comfort and support I get from all that energy keeps me going. I've been spending this week learning how to navigate this new territory of side effects, changes, expectations, assumptions about my body - new rules, almost. I don't mind, somehow, because at least I'm on my way again, and no longer waiting.