Storm Warnings

I first read this poem in high school, taking a practice test for my AP Literature class. I think its unexpectedness paired with my need to ANALYZE-THIS-IN-40-MINUTES-GO! indelibly printed it on my mind.

In college, I kept it framed on my wall (that, and the lyrics to "Mystery" by Indigo Girls...yes, yes, melodramatic, I know)...it still fits my optimistic-yet-fatalistic-with-a-dash-of-melancholy inner self.

I later read more Rich poetry (and, yes, it is rich/Rich on many levels) and always find her profound and a bit inscrutable. Just the way poetry should be.

Storm Warnings

by Adrienne Rich

The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky

And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.

Between foreseeing and averting change
Lies all the mastery of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter.
Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters.

I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture.
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.

Thanks to Laura of What She Read for this blog hop!

Which character from William Shakespeare's plays has most dramatically or lastingly shaped your thinking and actions? Why?

Thanks to Laura for posting this thought-provoking question. Many thoughts flew through my mind...Hamlet...Juliet...Portia...Desdemona...Hero...Horatio...Ophelia...all of whom I've loved and thought about over the years. And when my mind, like a whirring slot machine, clicked into place, even I was surprised by what it settled on:

King Lear.

It's been years since I read Lear, but I read it intensely in both high school and college. Poor Lear, foolish Lear, foolhardy Lear, too-powerful-to-see-his-own-power-until-it's-too-late Lear, who gives up the love of a good, true daughter because the selfish, shallow daughters stoke the fires of his vanity, and because Cordelia stings his pride.

As I ponder this, I also realize that Lear is the tragedy of a parent, and so it speaks to me in the place I am in my life: the parent of two young children. Lear's children turn on him, and what parent doesn't fear that down to the core? And his own foolish, selfish actions cause him to permanently damage his relationship with the remaining child, the one who continues to love him against all reason.

That fine, scary balance of love, influence, and coercion that all parents walk...the eternal question of nature vs. nurture...and the unspeakable tragedy of the loss of a child, either through death or emotional distance--this is why Lear speaks to me, why I can't think of that poor, misguided, blind, blinded man without tears.

Slippermania 2011!!!

It has been a positive slipper-fest this past month. I am on pair # 5 since February, and still going strong. Clogs and French Presses abound. First, M wore through his first pair of clogs and waited patiently through me finishing a sweater for him. When I started to murmur about other projects him-intended, he stated (gently, but firmly): "All I want you to knit for me are slippers. I don't want anything else until I get new slippers. Please please please PLEASE make me new slippers." He then waggled his toes through the holes in his old slippers' soles.

Right. Duly noted.

The kids helped me pick colors for him: bright green and navy blue. Pair #1.

Then, my school's scholarship auction rolled around. I made one pair of clogs, size men's 10-ish, and one pair of French Press slippers, size women's 8.5-ish. (Sadly, because--as usual--I was up against a deadline, I neglected to photograph these and now feel too weird about asking my colleagues for pictures of their feet.)

I also decided to donate a pair each of custom slippers to the auction. Interestingly, the custom pairs were more the rage and brought in more cha-ching. So, enter pair 4, clogs in Husky purple and gold (just the soles, but finished product to come):

And pair 5: French Presses in beautiful navy blue (in progress):

It's been percolating that I'd like to do a toe-to-toe comparison of how various so-called "workhorse" brands of 100% wool match up when they become French Press Slippers.

During my slipper-felting career I've used: Patons Classic Wool, Cascade 220, Stitch Nation, and Wool of the Andes. I know there are other wools out there that people swear by, like Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted, Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool, and Valley Yarns Northampton.

So...here's the plan:

I will knit at least 5-6 pairs of slippers in these wools and chronicle the experience.

Here's where you come in.

Do you need some slippers?

If so, leave a comment with your shoe size and color preference. Send the link to friends, foes, strangers. First six commenters win. It may take a while, but I'll get there. And having the intentionality of you in my mind will help.

Names: family and otherwise

This week's Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish is: Fictional Characters and Literary Figures You'd Name Your Children After...

Well.

My child-bearing days are likely over--unless by typing this I have somehow tempted The Universe into a big ol' "we'll just see about that," in which case I leave my options wide open--but I will, I hope, continue to name pets, plants, cars, and bicycles for many years to come.

And I already have one daughter named after (depending on which day you catch me): Elinor Dashwood, my favorite Austen heroine, or Elanor Gamgee, my favorite baby hobbit, or Eleanor of Aquitaine, my favorite bloodthirsty queen, or Eleanor Roosevelt, my favorite knitting first lady, or Eleanor Rigby, my favorite sad and lonely person (where do they all come from?). So the precedent has been set.

1. Laura, as in Ingalls Wilder. I also have two lovely friends named Laura, plus a much beloved cousin, so this name is a natural fit in my life. (The name Almanzo, however, does not make the cut.)
2. Max, of Where the Wild Things Are. Who wouldn't wish for an imaginative, boisterous, amazing boy such as this?
3. Rita, as in the lovely Meter Maid.
4. Meg, Margaret, Megatron--Miss Murry of Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet (and many other companion books) who guided me through quite the ugly duckling phase myself. Although why she and Calvin named one of their daughters Polyhymnia is quite beyond me.
5. Claire, of the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon. Though the books' quality has ebbed as the series has worn on, and on, and on...Claire in Outlander is a feisty, sexy, smart heroine we all can love and hope to emulate.
6. Edward. Or Jacob? I can't decide. (JUST KIDDING!)
7. Neville, as in Longbottom, as in the unsung hero of the Harry Potter books. He's one who, though not ordained by any prophecy with overwhelming responsibility (though he COULD have been), chooses love, good, and Herbology despite daunting odds. Neville is The Boy Who Chose. And can't you see a cat named Neville?
8. Penny, as in Lane and also as in the love of Dr. Horrible's life.
9. Pearl, as in Prynne-Dimmesdale, the girl who took what life handed her [mother] and lived to fight another day--in Europe, far away from those nasty Puritans.
10. Bryony. Bryony is one of the brave piglets in Mr. and Mrs. Pig's Evening Out, by Mary Rayner, the first book I ever read--really read, not just memorized--a book that is quite possibly (I'm just realizing) the headwaters of my Anglophilia and love for sunny texts with dark shadows.

Duh! Ask The Blog...

Once upon a time, I was into cross-stitch.

Now, I have absolutely nothing against this lovely pixelated craft. Like all crafts, it can be used for good, or for evil. I have several cute items that I cross-stitched over the years and I love them dearly, especially for the memories that are embedded into them. I have the "Life is a Chair of Bowlies" one I finished the year I was a newlywed. I have "Bloom Where You're Planted" which is so pretty and just needs to be framed. I have one I started in high school that is all different quilt blocks and it took on even greater meaning when I worked on it during a time of great grief when I was in my twenties.

Lately, I've noticed a resurgence of cross-stitch, done in a tongue-in-cheek ironic fashion. (Warning: some links on this site NSFW.)

That said, the only thing I'm ever going to build one stitch at a time now is a sweater.

In addition, I've been resolving to de-clutter my life. And when I went through my craft bins stored in our sadly-non-Harry-Potter-esque cupboard under the stairs, I found an unfinished cross-stitch, taken up in a fit of "I'm on maternity leave, I have so much time!" insanity.

It's a sampler intended for a baby's room...and the baby I intended it for is now...

Eight.

I've posted it on Facebook as a freebie. Needles, floss, and a 95% finished sampler! C'mon, people!

No. Takers.

I've posted it on Craigslist in my community.

Again. No. Takers.

So, as a last-ditch effort before this goes to Goodwill: It contains love, care, and intention in every stitch. If you have a baby or if there is a baby coming into your life, or if you've ever seen a baby, consider picking this up where I left off. It's not that it's not cute, and sweet, and perfect. It's just that I want it to go to a baby it's meant for, and I know if I put it out to the universe (e.g. Blogland) it will find a home.

Any takers? I will pay shipping. Frame included.

(PS: the message around the border says: "I see the moon and the moon sees me. God bless the moon and God bless me." It's a nursery rhyme.)

My Scarlet Letter

A prompt posted by my friend Laurie over at That's What She Read. Do pay her a visit. (Of course, she already has a bajillion visitors and commenters whilst I doodle with my thoughts about knitting and unfinished posts...but still going to plug her because she's Just That Good.)

Discuss a work of literary merit that you hated when you were made to read it in school or university. Why did you dislike it?

A

In tenth grade, I met Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mrs. S, my chain-smoking, desk-jumping, craziness-cultivating (and we loved her for it) honors English teacher slapped the book down upon our desks and said, "Dive in." Unfortunately, for many of us, the pool had no water.

I dreaded every chapter of this book, and finished it only begrudgingly, happy to move on to shallower waters, leaving Mr. Hawthorne and his horrific heroine behind. I got a glimpse of his nasty magic again in college, reading "Rappaccini's Daughter" for a American lit survey course. Hmm...themes: Control of women? Women are deadly and evil? Men should control women AT ALL COSTS? Should have sent me back to SL, but, alas...

Then, years later, I got a job as AN ENGLISH TEACHER. And, lo and behold, was assigned to teach 10th grade honors American Literature. And, you guessed it--Hester Prynne was on the menu.

I spent no small amount of time reading about SL. And I realized what I wasn't mature enough to see at age 15--that I blamed the book because I didn't understand it. I didn't have the skills, or, perhaps (sorry Mrs. S), the guidance to feel my way through Hester and Dimmesdale's maze. When my reading and thinking skills met their first big wall, they couldn't scale it, and so I hated the wall.

I've taught the book seven or eight times now and grow to appreciate it more and more--not as a heart-pounding page turner (because that it is most emphatically not) but as a morality tale, a fable, a parable, a uniquely American mixed-up and self-questioning text, full of ambiguity and paradox.

My students get angry at Hawthorne for playing God. I say--get angry at the Puritans; they started it. They rail against the injustice of a tale without a happy ending. I say--isn't it? And because I can argue both sides, and because of the cracks that I see open in each student's personal wall--I love this book.

The coziest of candles

Is that what I think it is?

Why, yes! A garter stitch candle.

Saves the trouble of knitting a candle cozy, I guess. (If willie warmers exist, why not candle cozies, I ask you?)

With regret, I did not purchase said item. I know the black black hole that is impulse shopping at Target, and I resisted the urge.

That said, if I go back, and they're still there, I may get one for my newly cleaned-out yarn storage area (AKA the cupboard under the stairs).

Comes complete with benevolent god:

Yes, that is Barry Manilow. Yes, there is a long story involved. Leave a comment if you want to hear it!