Ducks.

Specifically, indoor ducks.  Observe this fine specimen of Duckus touristii attractus:

Aren't I the pretty mallard?

(preen preen preen)

More about me later.

The need to write is a powerful thing, an overwhelming urge which is sometimes like the passion you feel for a lover, sometimes like an addiction, and sometimes, lest we take ourselves far too seriously, like the need to find a restroom -- it is urgent and intense and it needs to be addressed, done and over with.  Out with it, and it's over -- it's either put down on paper or preserved in a mishmash of zeroes and ones in a computer program.

I don't think of writing as a talent -- not on my own resume.  For me, it is simply a need. 

 Writing well is a talent.   Oh my, yes.   And I deeply admire those who manage to do so.

But writing in general, good or bad, is mostly an itch that needs to be scratched, an either you have that itch or you don't.  You may scratch that itch with divine elegance, or with the clumsiness of a rhinocerous in high heels, but no one who writes anything on a more or less regular basis can deny the complete, obsessive and overwhelming quality of that need.

Writing also requires inspiration, and when inspiration is not readily forthcoming, neither is the written word, and the lack of both is depressing for the writer, causing further ennui, and helping one spiral down into that black hole known as "writer's block."  Writer's block is what happens when the urge to write is beating on the door, but the muse is hiding under the bed. 

Sometimes, writing is like trying to do gymnastics on Jupiter.

Very often life's demands get in the way: sometimes fatigue, and sometimes it's other things, but sooner or later, we must all sit down at the keyboard and attempt to entertain our faithful readers once again.

Lately, I've honestly been too damn tired to blog.  Oh, I've whipped off my share of comments on Ravelry and on other blogs in the past several weeks, but reading other blogs takes little energy and posting a comment is merely a two-minute word emission.  Not much real energy goes into it -- I think of comment strings as casual conversation.  Pub chat, if you will.  If I'm tired and a Ravelry post is not well crafted, I don't lose much sleep over it.

However, I do think that my good, patient and faithful blog readers deserve much better than a hurried puddle of verbiage, even though that means that sometimes many weeks pass in between posts here at the Asylum.  

So here I am.  Back on the job.

This winter has brought a new complication into our home life.  Dave was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer invasion in his right eyelid, conjunctiva, and the surrounding tissue, and he  went through two surgeries -- one in December, a radical attempt to remove the cancer while still saving the eye, followed by unhappy biopsy results which necessitated a second surgery in January to completely eviscerate the eye socket.  Both surgeries took place in Memphis, at the Hamilton Eye Institute.

Last week, we returned to Memphis for a post-op exam and a follow-up biopsy.  The surgeon wanted to be sure that no cancerous tissue had re-invaded -- when everything is removed from the eye socket, Nature, over a period of time, provides the bone with a covering of skin, and Dr. Wilson wants to be sure the new skin growth is healthy.

This time, instead of staying at the hospital's cancer center or the Holiday Inn Express, we thought we would treat ourselves to Memphis' famous Peabody Hotel, home to the Peabody Ducks.  

Indoor ducks?  I'm on it.

Seriously, the Peabody is a stunning old building, still infused with the aura of a grand old hotel.  The lobby is spectacular, with an amazing ceiling sporting intricate woodwork and painted glass panels from around 1930.

Each time you turn a corner, you see a bellman in an old-fashioned uniform.  In the lobby, you half-expect to see a flapper in a beaded dress rise from a couch or emerge from behind a column.

And, in fact, you do get flappers.  Maybe without the bathtub gin, rolled stockings or beaded dresses, but in fine attire of their own:

The Peabody Ducks.

Here's the story: back in the 1930s, one of the hotel's owners came home from a duck-hunting trip ... and maybe he'd had a bit too much of the moonshine, hm?  

(note to self: define "enough moonshine")

At the time, it was still legal to use ducks with clipped wingfeathers as decoys, so the gentleman thought it would be a grand joke to plonk his live decoys into the lobby's elegant marble fountain.

And that's where they have remained ever since.  Generation after generation of ducks have learned to march, every morning, from their roost on the Peabody roof down to their day job of entertaining the tourists in the hotel lobby.  In the evening, the ducks are led back up to the roof by the hotel's Duckmaster.  

Gotta love that job title.  

And yes, the ducks take the elevator. 

The Peabody, of course, makes a show of the daily commute, while the tourists (including myself) line up to take the appropriate photographs during the duck's daily march to and from their fountain duties.

We spent a good bit of time enjoying the lobby and the ducks.  Dave brought his book down from our 1930s-style room and sank into a posh, cozy chair, and I deployed myself on the adjacent couch with my travel project: beaded lace.

Beaded lace for a travel project?  Am I insane?

Well....

For the airplane-riding part?  For the galloping-around-the-Dallas-airport part?  For the hours-in-Starbucks, delayed-connecting-flight part?

Yes, I am certifiably insane, although I must admit to a certain amount of gloating when I devised a turbulence-resistant method for managing beads, cable needles and crochet hooks in the confinements of a steerage-class seat.

But.

For the sitting-in-the-hotel-lobby part of this trip?  

Beaded lace was delightful.

Very soon on this blog:  Dave's surgery resulted in an outpouring of knitterly support, both intangible and in the form of knitted objects.  Just as soon as I can get these items properly photographed, they will be appropriately gushed over.  Stay tuned.

  

Of Course, 

I Didn't Have a Camera.

I usually remember to bring my Real Camera to the Arts Market, looking for a good photo opportunity.   But this month, I forgot.

When I do think in advance  about taking pictures, I try to remember to bring the Real Camera, the one with the Real Camera Company name on it -- the one made for the sole and exclusive purpose of photography.  

Because I rode my dinosaur to school, I have never purposely obtained a cell phone with an embedded camera.  My current cell phone does have a camera function, but only because a camera-free option was not available when last I was forced to "upgrade,"  which is the current euphemism for "mandatory replacement of your existing phone (only four years old), which works just fine."

I am such a fossil, and so entrenched in the perfectly reasonable notion that Phones Do Not Take Pictures, that I actually forgot I had a camera right there in the phone in my pocket, so I missed the Spinning Photo of The Year.

Which was:

Five little girls and one little boy, all about eight to ten years old, dressed in sweaters on a sunny late winter morning, sitting snugly in a row like birds on a wire, making yarn with twigs and handfuls of wool.   

So y'all will just have to use your imaginations and pretend that photo is in this spot:

:: ADORABLE PHOTO ::

Anyway.

Every month, artists, craftspeople, and farmers displaying their goods at the Arts and Farmer's Market arrive at the crack of dawn and often bring their school-age kids with them to help out at their market stalls.  The farmers do this every Saturday, and once a month the Arts Market happens in conjunction with the Farmer's Market   As the day goes on, the younger kids tend to wander the market, going from stall to stall to chat with the sculptors and woodworkers, and, more often than not, because I do spinning demonstration during the market, I end up with a small but enthusiastic audience of little people who are intensely interested in the magic of a wheel and spindle.

This time, I attracted a gaggle of six.  One of them said, "I want to learn!" and the others chimed in that they'd also like to try.  Of course, I couldn't properly give each child a turn at the actual wheel while helping customers and simultaneously teaching six children how to draft wool, but there was something else I could do.  "I want each of you to go find a twig," I said.  " A smooth, sturdy twig, about as big as a pencil.  Not too thin and not too thick."  And off they went.

While they were gone, I measured off a fat handful of roving for each of them, and  when they returned, I explained to them the nature of drafting, and how ancient people made yarn with a wad of wool and just a stick and a lump of clay for a whorl.  Of course, there was no clay to be had at that particular moment, so instead of teaching them to drop-spindle, I took out my pocketknife, made a little notch in each twig, and taught them how to draft: how to draw out the wool and wind it onto a simple twig spindle.  I showed them how to draft and twist the first few inches with their fingers, and how to make a half-hitch to attach that to the stick, and then how to roll the twigs down their thighs while gently tugging at the handful of fluff, just a little at a time.

And do you know that half an hour later -- only half an hour -- in between waiting on my yarn customers and answering questions, no fewer than four of the six kids were producing lumpy but perfectly useful single ply yarn?  And the oldest girl had pulled off about five yards of a smooth, bulky weight single ply like she'd been doing it all her life. 

Smiles all around.  One of the little girls belongs to an organic dairy an hour's drive outside the city, where they graze, herd and milk their own dairy cattle.  If you live in the Baton Rouge area and you haven't tried the milk or butter from Smith's Creamery, you're missing out -- get to the store and buy some right away.  

When her mother came to round her up, she was pleasantly astonished that her child had made yarn, and had made it with a stick.  That's the other picture I didn't get to take:  her mother scrutinizing the makeshift spindle and saying, "You made this?  With a stick?"  

When the noon bell rang at St. Joseph's, signalling the official closing time for the market, I had a chorus of "more lessons next time, please?"  And I watched as the kids scattered, running back to their parents' respective market stalls, beaming with pride, holding aloft their little sticks full of yarn.  

"Look!  Real yarn!  Made from sheep!"  

Even the two kids who didn't quite get the hang of it asked to try again at the next market.

I might just have to bring some crayon-bright roving and some beginner spindles next month, hm?

Coming home from that delightful experience made me wonder: wouldn't it be fantastic if every little kid knew how to spin, and knit, and make things with yarn?  I tried to imagine a world full of kids being actively creative with their spare time instead of rotting their brains in front of televisions and video games.  

I dearly love the Arts Market and the Farmer's Market.  I love them for what they do for the community.   On a fine day you can sit in your stall and ply your trade side by side with dozens of other people who also honor the work of their hands and the fruits of the land.  

It's exceptionally rare to see someone in a hurry at the open-air market.  Even the mayor takes time to chat for a few minutes with each of the vendors he encounters.

The very nature of the event forces people to slow down, to linger over mustard greens, rice, yarn, and cheese.  They savor fresh butter, run their fingers along the handles of carved wooden spoons, and buy  a paper bag full of new potatoes.  While they admire turquoise jewelry, pottery, and blueberry jam, they talk to strangers about the weather, and whether or not they should plant their tomatoes and marigolds just yet, because we probably haven't had our last frost.  They purchase handwoven shawls, artichokes, and scores of other items made or grown with pride by the very same people smiling at them from behind displays of yard eggs, green beans, mayhaw jelly, fresh bread and smokehouse sausage.  They ask the vendors how the shawl was woven, and what sort of chickens laid the eggs.  

The most glaring evidence of the modern world is mostly absent at the downtown market.   Signs are handmade, goods are laid out on colorful cloths draped on folding tables, and the vendor's change is kept in belt bags or cigar boxes.  There are no electrical connections, so there are no glaring lighted signs, and while radios or portable boom boxes are not allowed, there is almost always some music provided by an acoustic band or perhaps a wandering street musician.  The only keen evidence of the twenty-first century is the occasional jingle of a cell phone, or a savvy young vendor unfolding her wireless laptop so a tourist can pay for her hand-beaded necklace using Paypal.  As though by unspoken agreement, the laptop is always discreetly tucked away immediately after such a transaction.

You don't see sullen teenagers, resentful husbands and harried-looking women at the market, although you'd see plenty of that if you went to the mall.  Instead, you see relaxed, happy people delighting in the opportunity to buy something from the person who made it -- but there is more to the happiness than that.  

There is a tangible sense of community.  Perhaps there is something in our genes, something ancient and good, wanting to remind us of the way that we are truly designed to live:  in  not-so-big groups, trading goods and skills with one another in a casual setting, buying, haggling or horse-trading for fresh food right off the farm and skillfully made goods directly from the maker.  

What we have, for a little while on Saturday mornings, is a proper hamlet.  Just the right amount of human beings gathered in one place in such a way as to bring out the best in everyone.  

It's a timeless feeling, really.  It is easy to imagine that, perhaps, in another life, I sat with my wares laid out for sale much as I do today, with only a few inconsequential details being different: I was shaded from the sun by a linen cloth instead of a nylon beach umbrella; I wore a tunic and rough boots instead of jeans and Birkenstocks; I plied a hand spindle instead of a modern Ashford wheel.   The other details could be from anyplace, anytime: a bright cloth laid out on the ground, an array of baskets filled with colorful yarns, a bag of coins to make change, and the earliest spring wind in my hair while I spin sheep hair into something useful.

I feel the same about my neighbors:  it is so easy to imagine the Pickle Lady behind her table full of mason jars, wearing a different dress in the shadow of a different tree ... to envision the beekeeper's tupelo honey in clay pots instead of glass jars ... to picture the vendor's children dressed in simple shifts as they chase one another between adults in the crowd. 

It makes me wonder: is our current economic crisis really a crisis after all?  Or just a harsh correction, a reminder that we got in this situation by wanting too much, carrying too large of a load, and buying things we simply do not need with money we haven't even earned yet?   Is it a crisis, or an opportunity to save ourselves?  Is the current crash simply a warning from Fate to simplify our lives?

In speaking to the other market vendors, I find it enlightening that most of us produce some, if not all, of our own food, clothing, and entertainment.  Most of us are self-employed.  Most of us are self-sufficient to a much greater extent than average, and most of us are multi-skilled.  So most of us aren't grievously worried about being completely destroyed by an economic meltdown because most of us do not depend entirely upon the ready-made, and most of us have no desire to accrue debt for mass-produced consumer goods -- while it's bad enough that you need to make a loan to buy something substantial like a home or farm, it's financially suicidal to dig yourself a hole to buy a closetful of fancy shoes and a three-thousand-dollar designer purse (and a tacky purse at that).  If you lose your job, you just might be able to renegotiate your home loan with your bank, because the home has value.  The same thing won't happen with your credit card company when you can't pay for a houseful of consumer goods. 

It intrigues me to think that the parents of kids who can amuse themselves with wool and sticks don't feel compelled to put themselves in precarious financial circumstances to buy video games and supersized televisions.   Yes, of course, they are worried about the economy, because it will affect the volume of their sales and it will affect their home and business loans, but they are not worried about losing their job and being unable to pay the debt on tens of thousands of dollars worth of plastic and electronic junk ... simply because they didn't buy it in the first place.  

Unfortunately, a great many other people did dive deeply into debt for many, many things besides necessities like a home or business loan, college tuition or reliable transportation, so they have much more at stake when rumours of layoffs arise at their workplace.  

Readers ... please share your own thoughts.  Do you think that wanting less, wasting less and being more self sufficient can help the economy in the long run?  Or at least help you personally during tough times?

Knit Happens.

And this is what happens for Covenant House in New Orleans when it does.  Here, deployed on the floor of my shop, are the dozens of hats, scarves and gloves donated for Covenant House in memory of Gail McHugh.  Sincere and heartfelt thanks go out to the many knitters who made this possible, and please give yourselves a round of applause:

I didn't have enough unoccupied space on the floor of my little shop to spread everything out so the items could be viewed individually, but do know that each and every item was deeply appreciated by Covenant House and that dozens of homeless teens will be warmed and cheered during our erratic winter months.  The Asylum plans to do this Christmas garment drive again next year, but remember that I accept donations for Covenant House year-round.  

I am so amazed and humbled by the exquisite detail that went into so many hats -- so many were true works of art -- and I am overwhelmed at the generosity of certain individuals who made about two dozen hats each.  Again, thank you.

Remember, every time you bring in a handknit garment for community knitting, you get 20% off that day's purchase (except for spinning wheels and looms, as the manufacturers won't let me do that).

Here's a peek at a few things around the shop.  In the entry room, we have hand-dyed sock yarns from Morandia, Wool In the Woods, and St. Paul's Catholic School, as well as Sockotta, needle sets, feathery "Birdman" yarn on closeout and consignment items, including Christmas stockings from Knitivity, and a shrug from Jules LeBlanc:

The shop is tiny, so I'm taking advantage of doors for needle display and I am hanging hanks of hemp yarn from chain suspended from the ceiling:

In the main wool room, we have yarn and patterns from Lily Chin, Mission Falls 1824 wool and cotton, and more needles on that door, as well as some miscelaneous designer closeouts in baskets...

Also featured are hand-dyed mohair yarn from the Knitting Asylum, smashing rovings from Creatively Dyed Yarns, and bin after bin of rovings, locks and batts, both in natural sheep colors and in a spectrum of distinctly non-sheepish colors, some hand-dyed right here at the Knitting Asylum and some dyed by other artists:

In between the yarns and rovings are spinning wheels and small looms, of course. That's an Ashford Tabby Loom and an Ashford Traveler tucked among the bins and shelves (I am still working on the Louet dealership process).  There are alpaca yarns and rovings directly from the source in South America, and a selection of knitting and spinning tools and accessories, from dye and niddy-noddies to ball winders and drop spindles:

Space is tight, so even the floor earns its keep holding baskets of ready-to-spin English Leicester, Corriedale, merino, Romney and alpaca roving...

That's an Ashford Joy in the center of the photo ... I do love that wheel.

The day I took these photos, it was dark and relentlessly rainy, so the lighting wasn't good enough to show off  my fantastic yarns from Knitivity, and stitch markers and sock yarns from local artists, but tomorrow promises to be sunny, clear and cold, so we'll have another photo shoot for a close-up look at the wonderful yarns from Knitivity, Darn Pretty Needles, and some other special items around the shop.  

Proof...

... that we really can (and do) use wool in South Louisiana.  Granted, most of the time we only make it to "near snow" conditions, meaning temperatures above freezing accompanied by rain, sometimes sleet, and snow flurries on occasion, which is still good enough reason to dig out the woolies.   If we do get any accumulation, it is usually less than an inch,  falls during the night, and melts as the day goes by and the temperature rises into the high 30s or 40s.

But a couple of weeks before  Christmas, we got four inches of clean, wet snow, and by nightfall there was still plenty of unmelted snow on the north side of many rooftops and in the north corners of many yards and alleys.

Records were set everywhere in this part of Louisiana for measurable snow early in December, and New Orleans got an inch.  Amite, in Tangipahoa Parish, whose most famous daughter is Britney Speirs, got a whole eight inches of snow, and that is more inches of snow than the length of Ms. Speirs longest skirt, so I hope she wasn't home yet to visit her mama for Christmas, because she would have frozen her tookas off. 

Anyway, any accumulation of snow is uncommon enough here that it warrants photography, and the construction of snowmen, and the kids get a snow day off from school because ... well, because it's likely to be the only snow day this year, and also because snow is sufficiently unusual that the city doesn't even have any sort of road salt trucks -- I don't think we even have any road salt at all -- so keeping the kids home from school helps reduce weather-related traffic problems to some extent. 

Hurricane debris was beautified by the white stuff (that's the trunk and root ball of a massive, fallen water oak in the background in this photo of our back yard):

Here, a mom and her kiddo build a little snowman at the apartments near the Knitting Asylum.  It was starting to snow pretty hard when I took this shot. I love the umbrella:

And, thanks to the college kids who rent the house next door to ours, this big boy showed up in the field across the street from our house.  At over six feet tall, he represents the accumulated work of several snowman engineers (I understand that beer was involved in the construction process):

The snow doubly surprised me, because Dave and I had just driven home from Memphis the night before, working our way through a cold front featuring hammering rain, spectacular lightning, and tornado-spawning conditions serious enough to cause me to abort my plan to drive straight through from Memphis to Baton Rouge. Ordinarily that's a manageable drive in one day, and it takes a lot for me to get off the road.  Just ask my family: I have been known to drive in hail, thick fog and tropical storms. Oh, and also snow and ice. But I draw the line at driving in a tornado.    

So, when I contacted the friends who were feeding our cats while we were away and asked them to take care of the kitties for an extra night, I could relax enough to get off the road to seek shelter, and that's what we did.  We found a Super 8 motel in Grenada, Mississippi, dried off, and fell into bed.

It rained hard and thundered all night, and the following morning it was grey and much colder. After a hot shower and a waffle breakfast at the motel, we resumed our trip home.  And if any of you are ever unexpectedly stuck overnight in Grenada, Mississippi for any reason whatsoever?  Stay at the Super 8.  It's very reasonable and super clean, the night manager is ridiculously nice, and they have a killer waffle breakfast, which is helpful on a frosty morning.  

The state of Mississippi is obviously named for the mighty river that runs along most of its western border. "Mississippi" comes from (if I remember correctly) either the Choctaw or Tunica Indian word "meseschabe"  (pronounced "mess - uh - sha - bee) and minor variations on that set of syllables, depending on which tribe you hail from at what point along the river's entire length, but all of them mean "Father of Waters," "Great Water" or "Big Water" in many American Indian languages.

 

Also, "Interstate 55" is Choctaw (or maybe Chickasaw) for "The white man's endless path through the pine trees." I am absolutely certain of that.

The Interstate highway through Mississippi is hundreds of miles long, and passing through the city of Jackson is a major milestone for the traveller.  Jackson is roughly the halfway point in the state, and Jackson is a good-sized city.   You can see buildings, traffic signals, and a large number of cars as actual proof that you have arrived in a new location, and that you are not simply driving on a treadmill set between two rows of pines where someone occasionally changes the signs when you aren't paying attention .

Aside from Jackson, nearly all of the rest of Mississippi is a long, Zen drive through rolling hills and millions upon millions of pine trees.  You see signs urging you to turn left or right toward Duck Hill, Enid, Yazoo City, Itta Bena, Pearl, Calling Panther, Love, Sweatman, or Coffeeville (and coffee would not be a bad idea at all by the time you get that far), but you see no actual proof that there really is such a town nearby. There is only a green sign, and a swath of black asphalt curving off into the trees.  

You pass exits for the birthplaces of Eudora Welty and Elvis Presley, and eventually, as you get closer to Memphis, you cross the Tallahatchie River that Billy Joe McAllister jumped off a bridge into, except I don't think it was the Interstate he jumped off ... because first, it's not all that high above the river at that point and second, I'm not sure that particular stretch of interstate highway was actually finished when Bobbie Gentry wrote the song.  Likely he dove off a bridge closer to the Alabama border.

Once in a while, you pass a roadside rest station.  On this point, I have to chalk up a few points for the people in charge of Mississippi: they have charming, hotel-like welcome stations offering free coffee when you cross the state line.  The other rest station bathrooms along the way are super-clean. Considering how long Mississippi is, and how much coffee is involved in getting through it, that is a critical detail.  

Everything in Mississippi seems to be named after an Indian tribe, a long-dead President, or something (or someone) in the Bible.  You simply cannot drive the entire length of Mississippi without the Bible sneaking into your conversation at some point, even if you aren't particularly religious.  There are so many Biblical place names on the road signs -- Mount Zion, etc. -- that you end up playing Bible Trivia with your road companion, even if you had no intention of doing such a thing.

This was the conversation Dave and I had as we passed the exit for the town of Ebenezer:

"Besides Scrooge ... Ebenezer is a Biblical name, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Who was Ebenezer, anyway?  A priest ... a judge?"

"Um ... I think it's a whole book in the Bible."

"You're thinking of Ezekiel.  Or maybe Ezra."

"Well ... there's Better than Ezra, and Ezra Pound."

"Ezra Pound wasn't even from Mississippi."

"Eudora Welty was.  There's an exit for her house."

"Oh, wait ... wasn't Ebenezer a Philistine ... or a Hittite?  Or maybe he smote somebody, or begat somebody?"

We looked it up when we got home.  

Just so you know:  Ebenezer is a rock.

The drive through Mississippi generated a lot of similar conversations, and they served as a welcome distraction.   We were making a road trip to Memphis so Dave could visit an oncologist specializing in cancers of the eye.  Dave was recently diagnosed with squamous cell sarcoma, and that's what has kept me away from the blog.  

Our road trip the day before it snowed was followed by a plane hop to Memphis for surgery on December 30th, and we must make yet another trip later this month for a final surgery.  David, most unfortunately, will lose an eye, but that will provide a near guarantee that the cancer will not spread into his brain.  I am still at the point where I am angry at the Universe that my husband has had to suffer so much with his health when so many hateful, evil and criminal people strut around in peak health, but at the same time I am also deeply grateful for everyone who is sending their prayers and good wishes Dave's way.

Next post: Tomorrow, hopefully -- photos from the shop.

Arts Market Update:

I will be at the Arts Market (corner 5th and Main, in the parking lot adjacent to the Farmer's Market in downtown Baton Rouge, LA) from 8:00 am until noon tomorrow (Saturday the 13th) with handspun yarns and spinning demonstration.  

New yarn: a wool/hemp worsted in natural, and also dyed in shades of onion-skin yellow, denim blue, and black. This is a fantastic yarn for bags, totes, etc.

I will be back at the Knitting Asylum shop by 2:00pm (perhaps a bit earlier if the Traffic Goddess smiles upon me).

And, when I return here, there will be an update on life in general, and snow in particular.

Yarn Therapy at the

Knitting Asylum

Tonight we are having the first monthly Knit Night at the Knitting Asylum.  I'm calling it Yarn Therapy, and it's going to be the first Thursday of every month from 5:30-8:30.

I can't believe how fast the past month has gone by and how very little time I have had to blog while getting this shop set up, but there is an enormous process of applying for wholesale accounts, and waiting for things to be shipped, and sussing out how to fit everything I want to offer into less than 600 square feet of space, or about the size of a small one-bedroom apartment.  

I am about half-stocked but new merchandise is coming every day.   I have a good selection of hand spindles, wheels, fibers, carders, and roving ... knitting yarns from Lily Chin, Knitivity, Wool in the Woods, Sockotta, and a variety of closeouts, as well as bamboo needles, small weaving looms, and (so far) a modest supply of knitting books and some crochet items, as well as my own handspun yarn and hand-dyed batts and roving.  Something for everyone who makes things with string ....

An update will follow after Knit Night!

(And yes, there will be pictures.)

Coming Down 

From The Ceiling

I can finally set my feet on the ground long enough to make a blog post.  I have slapped myself, pinched myself, and woken up several times since Tuesday, carefully checking the newspaper each day to make sure that I didn't dream it, and that it is real.

Here is a photo of my husband, Dave, in the voting booth, helping to make history happen:

How often do you get to see that?  History in action, one citizen at a time.

Forty-five years before he cast that vote, Dave and I, unbeknownst to either of us, had stood only a block or so apart from each other for another historic event.

When I was a wee small child,  my hometown of New Orleans had the tremendous honor of receiving a visit from President John F. Kennedy.  There was a motorcade to escort the President's car through the city, and vast crowds of people -- people of all colors -- lined the streets to catch a glimpse of JFK.

Today, my mother recalls that the air was charged with excitement that spring day, just sparkling with hope and happiness; that joy was as tangible as the scent of sweet olive and jasmine on the breeze, and she says that you could actually feel the energy and sense of expectation flowing from one person to another as everyone waited for the President to pass by.

I was old enough to dress myself and go to the bathroom unattended, but still too little to be in kindergarten.  I was too young to truly understand who the President was, but I understood that he was very, very important.  More important than a movie star, the mayor, or even Elvis Presley. I had the vague notion that he was the Boss of America, and I knew that we lived in New Orleans, and that New Orleans was just a very tiny part of  a huge place called America,  so if someone was the Boss of America, then he was very important indeed.

My mother recalls explaining, in the simple way you explain things to a small child, that President Kennedy was very important because he would be the person who would finally make black people and white people equal, so that black kids and white kids could go to school together, and so that black people could vote and ride the bus and get good jobs just like everyone else.   My mother told me that President Kennedy would be remembered forever and ever, by everyone around the whole world, because he would see to it that this great thing would be done.

My mother lifted me into her arms so I could see everything, and we waited.  I had a blue balloon, and I watched it bob up and down as I tugged on the string.  

 

And suddenly, the motorcade was upon us, led by a police escort with flashing lights and wailing sirens.  My mother, of course, remembers every detail, but all I remember is a whole bunch of convertibles going by, and various people in fancy attire waving at the crowd, and then a great cheer swept along the street as the President's car approached.

"Wave!  Wave at the President!" my Dad called out, and I did.  I waved the way small children do, furiously pumping both of my arms at the handsome man passing by in the big, fancy, black car.   I probably also yelled "Yay!" at the top of my lungs, which was my default volume setting at that age.  

And then he was gone.  

Forty-five years later, in possession of a full understanding of what it means for someone to be President of the United States, and comprehending the critical importance of the civil rights movement, it thrills me to think that I actually, for a moment, breathed the same air as JFK. And I am grateful that I remember that moment. Even though I viewed that event through the eyes of a small child, I can still say that I was there.  I saw JFK, live and in person.  I waved and yelled.  I had a balloon, lifted into the air both by helium and elation.

I probably remember that moment because I caught the buzz of the crowd, because I picked up on the excitement and joy in the hearts of the people who surrounded us: young and old, black and white, people from all walks of life.   I was so little that I don't remember what I got for my birthday or for Christmas that year, but the energy generated by all those people and by my parents and grandmother was sufficient to record a video clip of that event in my brain, where it remains to this day, bright and clear.

In my life, I have missed exceedingly few opportunities to vote, although I can think of a few School Board elections and tax referendums I didn't bother with.  I have always voted for President, the Senate and Congress.  I was entering high school when the United States exited Vietnam, and I remember watching Richard Nixon resign from office.  I worked for democratic Congresswoman Lindy Boggs after school when I was a teenager, I planted yard signs for Jimmy Carter in 1976, and the very instant I turned eighteen, I rode the bus to City Hall and registered to vote.

I have done a lot of voting in my life, and I have campaigned for more than a few candidates. Sometimes I actively campaigned for someone I liked well enough to believe that he or she might make some sort of a difference in the world, but there were also many times I went to the polls and held my nose to pick the least stinky offering in the dogpile.  Most often, I have voted for "anybody else" just because I despised the incumbent so much that I would have voted for a cardboard box, or Gumby, or a Cotswold sheep.  Only once before -- when I voted for Bill Clinton -- has the President of my choice been elected.

Not this time.

This time, my husband and I campaigned for someone we deeply believed in.  We went to the local campaign headquarters and made phone calls with a real sense that we were doing something for the common good, and not just to see the incompetent incumbent get ousted.

We put signs in our front yard for Obama, and for Mary Landrieu, the Democratic candidate for Senate, but as happened to so many other Obama supporters in our area, some hateful, childish excuse of a hominid stole the signs from our yard in a fit of impotent rage.

So we made replacement signs:

A week later, someone stole these signs, too (probably the same nutcase), but by then it was to late -- Obama had been elected.

Some of you who are not Americans may not understand the heated and adversarial nature of our political arena, and the fact that we call it an "arena" is telling.   Most Americans treat an election as "us versus them," or "our side versus their side" -- not unlike a college football game. 

Very much like college football games, grudges are held, insults are hurled and team colors are waved in the air.  The normal course of things in America is to treat your political challenger like an enemy, rather than as an opponent.  I have often been guilty of this myself, because for the last twenty-four years of my life, I have been put on the defensive simply for being who I am, with my party constantly being lambasted by the sort of people who use the word that describes my political leanings -- "liberal" -- as a venomous curse instead of a simple adjective to describe those persons who support personal liberty, unconditional equality for all people, individual privacy, quality public education, religious freedom, social responsibility, a clean environment and military reticence.

As though those are bad things.  

Le sigh.

This time, I got to vote for someone who truly espoused the things I believe in myself.  But the sense of purpose and meaning was far greater than that.  This time, it wasn't simply someone I agreed with. It was someone who, with an agenda of inspiration and hope, had the opportunity to punch through the closely guarded circle of power and make profound changes in this world, and that was an infectious idea indeed.

This time,  I woke up on election day barely able to contain myself.  I simply couldn't wait to go and vote.  I was prepared for long lines, and I brought my knitting along to while away the time.

And when it was my turn, I held my breath and looked at the ballot like I was witnessing a miracle.  There was Barack Obama's name on the ticket, an African-American man holding the very real possibility of becoming President of the United States.  

My mind filled with a fleeting parade of images:  I remembered the "whites only" signs on public bathrooms and at the laundromat.  I remembered the "colored entrance" signs at various businesses, and black maids in white uniforms riding on the back of the bus.  I recalled the ghosts of the "white" and "colored" lettering above the water fountains at Woolworth's -- after the Civil Rights Act was passed, the words were scraped off the tile wall, but a faint trace of the lettering remained there for many years afterward.

And I remembered my mother standing up and offering her seat, at the front of a very crowded bus, to an ancient black woman who struggled up the bus steps with her cane.  I remembered the ugly words white people yelled at that woman, and at my mother.  I remembered my mother clutching my hand and telling me not to look at them, that they were just hateful and ignorant, and I remember my mother helping that elderly lady get off the bus when we arrived downtown.

When I pushed the button to cast my vote, for the very first time in my life, I was filled with awe and wonder, filled with the sharp awareness that I was actually participating in history -- not only the history of my country, but the history of the world.  It was the strangest feeling -- gravity mixed with a surge of joy, sobriety mingled with enchantment.

Maybe it was just the tears running down my face, but when I pushed that button, I swear that I saw sparks, as though I, and millions of others, had waved a magic wand.

I think we did.   We made history.

I can say that I was here for it, and that I remember it, that we participated in it, and that we watched while the rest of the world erupted in joy.

And I know that the janitorial smell of the grade-school gymnasium where we vote, the feeling of the autumn sunshine on my face, and the magnificent feeling of pushing that button will remain with me for the rest of my days.