After the reckoning, a plan

It's hard to believe that it's almost August! Before long the summer will be over, and life will begin to calm down a little bit. It's time to look ahead to cooler weather, to sweater wearing (and more sweater knitting), to Rhinebeck and the KR Retreat. I need to keep my eye on these prizes, so that the rest of my brain can concentrate on what is at hand: intense work, longer hours, and a tired, tired self, for another month at least.

Then I will be able to unwind, breathe deeply, and best of all, stop having to think so hard! Sometimes I remind myself of the Scarecrow in "Wizard of Oz", with his furrowed brow and finger to his temple. I really don't spend every waking or sleeping hour in a tight knot, unable to take a breath and enjoy my life. I do exist outside of work. But in the summer, when it seems that everyone else is taking time off, or at least has a little more free time, my life is so full that I must schedule time to relax.

I know that many people do just that all the time, that it's not so unusual. But I know myself well. I'll "forget" to take time for myself, and give it all to my job, unless I make a conscious effort to add that time to my plan for the day. They make fun of me at work when I say that I'm going to go home early, because they all know that I'll be found wandering around an hour or so later, in a stupor, reciting purchase order numbers and cursing the inventory system.

So these thoughts, and the reckoning I made the other day, and the fact that I am tired of being cranky, and what Purlewe had to say on the subject (her definitions are the best!) are leading me in the direction I want to go. All my unfinished and half-started knitting projects, and the closed watercolor palette and dusty brushes, are telling me to stop and choose something. Anything. Settle down, go deeper, find a focus. Knit because yarn through fingers and over needles feels so good and satisfying. Paint because touching the loaded brush to the paper releases joyous, beautiful color. Proceed, Jane.

I signed up for the KR Retreat the minute Clara posted this week's newsletter. I know what time away, doing something I love with other people who love it too, means for my soul. I can't go paint watercolors in Italy this year, or even get to South Carolina for an Art by the Sea retreat, but I can paint right here in my own back yard. (hmm, I might do that today). I can do this new knitting thing in Virginia in November, too, and all the planning and imagining and anticipating will carry me over any rough roads that might be ahead.

And who knows -- I might even dust off and oil up the wheel, my sweet old Ashford. It's been whispering its own version of a Siren Song. I've also been thinking about Why I Don't Spin. Yes, I do know I think too much. My friend K, who just started knitting again after a long break, says he knows that if he starts spinning again right now he won't want to do anything else. He learned to spin at my house, so I know he's right. He's an amazing knitter and spinner, but if he has to choose one thing at this moment in his life, knitting is the right one. I am trying to apply that thinking to my own situation. I want to do some of everything, but I know it's just impossible. Here I go.

And I have blueberries for fuel.

A reckoning, sort of

I received the beautiful knitting basket I ordered from the KR Boutique. It is perfect, just perfect. Delicate, yet sturdy, the way a good basket is meant to be. All the little details, from the wheat-colored embroidered lining down to the matching zippered pouch that was concealed inside the zippered pocket of said lining, made me giddy. What to put in this delightful thing? Knitters don't become faint in the presence of inspiration; we take action.

I was inspired forced to sort through some of my other baskets and their overflow, and I am shocked at what I found. Well, not so much shocked. I know me. So I spent an hour or so untangling little messes, muttering, discovering long-lost needles and patterns, and -- here, I knew it was bad, but this bad? -- making a pile of knitting. I can't even call them WIP's. It was a pile of knitting, plain and simple. I had to face it.

It included, in no particular order:

• Branching Out Scarf, 40% completed (and in danger of being abandoned because I'm just not feeling the love)
• The Fabulous Manos Wildflower Cabled Pullover, 25% completed (if it weren't hot as blazes, I'd be working on it) (and it lives in my other favorite knitting basket, the Lantern Moon old-timey, new-fangled one that folds up)
• Washcloth, simple bias garter pattern, 50% completed
• Something circular in blue alpaca, frogged immediately
• Amazing Twining Lace Scarf, 25% completed (I am feeling the love, so it goes right into the new basket)
• Mistake Rib scarf in the yarn I bought in Italy, 50% completed (definitely a mistake, to be frogged)
• Go With the Flow Socks, 70% completed (and usually in the bag I take to work)
• Waving Lace Socks for my friend Virginia, 25% completed (I think that's about as far as they'll get, since she deserves so much better than the mess I was making of these socks)
• A fingerless mitt in Mt. Colors Bearfoot, 95% completed (I want to re-knit the tops because they're too long) (and that means I need to find the second one)
• Another washcloth, an experiment in attaching a lace border, frogged
• Berry-colored socks in some weird pattern that I made up on an trip to visit my mother, who was ill, frogged to eradicate the bad memories
• An inch of something in Elann Baby Cashmere, also begun on a trip to visit my mom, but discarded when nothing went right, frogged
• At least three more socks in the early stages (we're talking cuffs and maybe an inch more)(*sigh*)
• Braids Cardigan in Elann Highland Wool, 40% completed (and waiting patiently for my Manos obsession to subside)

What is going on here? As I said, I know me. I start things when I'm antsy. I'm looking for ways to soothe, or solve, or settle. I cast on, knit until the world calms down, and I'm fine. Or, I knit until I am frustrated and wild-headed; I wasn't going to be fine in the first place. The result: a pile of knitting.

Either way, all these bits and tangled and sometimes beautiful things are Jane. One day I'll tell you a sweet story about my mother and her "Janes" but it will have to wait until I have knitted or written my way out of this bloggy shyness.

Here is my recipe for a good kind of solitude: It's a dark, foggy, humid, hot day, but my AC is on; I have the day off; I have exactly two errands to do; I rented a bunch of episodes of "Prime Suspect"; I have blueberries; I have endless knitting possibilities (see above).

A Fine Day

It's been a relaxing, knitting, blog-fiddling, peach-mango smoothie-drinking kind of day. And it's Sunday, to boot! (You may have noticed a recurring theme here at Not Plain Jane).

The temperature is tolerable with the windows open, and there's even a breeze. I'm almost ashamed to complain about keeping the AC on, because I'm so grateful to have it at all, but too many days without fresh air makes me nuts. I do love to turn it off and throw the windows open.

Besides, Herself enjoys a good nap on the sill, and I like to oblige. She's not setting foot out the door again till the ground is frozen and the deer ticks have retreated, so I do what I can.

Knitting progress is slow, but steady. I've been working away on the Amazing Twining Lace Scarf, which still has me all tangled up in its beguiling symmetry. The pattern just makes so much sense. Isn't that Amazing?

"The song that is irresistible"

I tried to resist the Siren Song of the Amazing Twining Lace Scarf, really I did. I thought, "I'll just cast on and knit a few rows to see if I like how it looks."

We all know where that leads, don't we? We think we'll just swatch a little. We'll test the yarn. We might as well choose the needles while we're at it. We leap overboard.

It's so seductive, this geometry of lace. With each row the pattern builds, twines, and wraps its little tendrils around my knitting fingers. I am caught. Completely ensnared. I tell myself that I won't forget the mostly-finished sock, that I promise to knit a few rows at work. If I can knit just a bit more on this scarf, just to see what happens next, I promise I'll be good, I swear I'll get up and switch the laundry, brush the cat, call the sister.

I am so weak. I'm going back to knitting now.