by Kat | Apr 28, 2021 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
100 years ago, buying something you could make was considered wasteful; now making something you could buy is considered wasteful. I am not convinced this is a step in the right direction. ― Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
I thought this quote was exactly the reminder I needed as I am about to embark on Me-Made May – minus the IG posting frenzy, that is! I am going to do my best to wear only things I have made during the month. But I have plans to do a wee bit of sewing for myself in May as well. My wardrobe is in need of a little refresh after 12 plus months of Pandemic Living! Re-entry is not easy but maybe a couple of new items will help!
On the knitting front, I am almost to the sleeve division on my Marled Purl Strings – just 6 rows to go! I kind of worried that the “purled” rows would not show very much in the marled fabric, and while they are not as dramatic as they are on the single color sweater, I love how it looks and hopefully the body goes as quickly as it did on my first sweater. (at least once I picked it up and actually knit on it!)
Today though is all about learning as I have a full day of classes for MDSW! I will spend the afternoon with Maggie Casey learning about twist and this evening with Dame Judith and some Columbia fiber! I will have a tiny break between the classes and I made a pot of chili on Sunday so I could have something to “zap” and eat! lol
The reading this week has been wonderful! I had FIVE finishes!
The Thunder Before the Storm: The Autobiography of Clyde Bellecourt by Clyde Bellecourt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A friend described this book as having the feel of the author sitting at the dinner table with you, sharing their story. Yes!! That is an excellent way to describe this book. I kn0w little about the plight of Native American’s and this book is an excellent introduction. It is eye-opening and stirs the desire to learn more. I highly recommend!
The Dead and the Living by Sharon Olds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I think writing poetry is hard (if not impossible for most of us) but writing good poetry about hard topics is just amazing. This collection of poems made me stop and think. At times it made me uncomfortable. But the way Olds puts together phrases and uses words to paint an image in the readers mind are brilliant. I highly recommend!
Stag’s Leap: Poems by Sharon Olds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Intimate, poignant poems… Sharon Olds has a gift… the ability to write about hard things and she does so in the most incredible way. She draws you in, shares the raw emotion, and then carries you along – tenderly – with her. I find myself wanting to stop and read everything Olds has ever written. I highly recommend!
A Death In Vienna by Daniel Silva
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Book Four in the Allon series, but Book Three in the trio of Holocaust series. In this story, the history of Allon unfolds and we learn more details about his past… and his parent’s history. Allon is an edgier, more turbulent version of Armande Gamache – and that is not a bad thing, he is complex – he has a sense of justice, and is brilliantly smart! I love watching him put together the puzzle and win! I highly recommend this series!
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Racism in America has to be the ugliest thing on earth. Like many others who have read this book, I had to remind myself it was not a memoir…but a novel. It sheds light on life as a Muslim in America post-911. It is a riveting story and I had a hard time putting it down. The writing is wonderful. I highly recommend!
That is all I have to share today, if you wrote a post to share, please leave your link below!
See you all back here tomorrow with my choice for Poem in Your Pocket Day!
by Kat | Apr 26, 2021 | General, Words
Go outside. Don’t tell anyone and don’t bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice. Don’t try to get anything out of it, because you won’t. Don’t try to make use of it, because you can’t. And that’s the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realise that that is enough to be happy. There’s a whole world out there, right outside your window. You’d be a fool to miss it.” –Charlotte Eriksson
This month was all about giving release a bit of a pause. This word has been so mentally taxing at times that it seemed necessary to step back and give myself a bit of respite. So in the midst of that pause, I allowed April to be about something other than me. Instead I spent my time immersed in memories of my maternal grandfather – Oliver Emil Huxhold. Thoughts of my grandpa are always close to the surface in April because of his love of poetry.
But, this month was a “two-for!” Not only was my grandpa a poetry lover, he was also an avid birder! He knew so many birds (and his bird book library was most impressive!) But when MS curtailed his outdoor time – by the time I was 5 he could no longer manage stairs at all – he began to identify birds by their songs. The best times ever were sitting on his lap listening and learning. His absolute “Holy Grail” of birds was the elusive Purple Martin. My grandparents lived about a block off Lake Macatawa on 11th Street in Holland, MI and sadly, as close as that was it just was not close enough to the water. We tried however, and I remember the spring we got him a Martin House for the back yard. My uncle installed a super long galvanized pole first and then installed the Martin house on top of that – hoping that the added height would help. Alas it did not and my grandpa grumbled plenty over the Sparrow Condo in his back yard! To my knowledge he never saw or heard Purple Martins in his life.
Steve and I headed to Erie to spend 10 days at Presque Isle. And wow. Just wow. I went outside a lot (I did bring my phone, but only to take photos) and I have so much to share with you all about our trip but for now, I’d like to share just one thing…the bittersweet achievement of my grandpa’s Holy Grail with the sightings of so many Purple Martins! I love Presque Isle, but I think my grandpa might have thought he’d “died and gone to heaven” if he could have visited it!
Purple Martin Heaven! (with a little Tree Swallow Annex off to the right side!)
And so in all that “outside” time, I really felt like I had company. My thoughts were full of grandpa and remembering all those memories and being immersed in them was exactly what I needed this month.
And, of course, Carl Sandburg has a poem for us! I think he describes them perfectly.
PURPLE MARTINS
By Carl Sandburg
If we were such and so, the same as these,
maybe we too would be slingers and sliders,
tumbling half over in the water mirrors,
tumbling half over at the horse heads of the sun,
tumbling our purple numbers.
Twirl on, you and your satin blue.
Be water birds, be air birds.
Be these purple tumblers you are.
Dip and get away
From loops into slip-knots,
Write your own ciphers and figure eights.
It is your wooded island here in Lincoln Park.
Everybody knows this belongs to you.
Five fat geese
Eat grass on a sod bank
And never count your slinging ciphers,
your sliding figure eights.
A man on a green paint iron bench,
Slouches his feet and sniffs in a book,
And looks at you and your loops and slip-knots,
And looks at you and your sheaths of satin blue,
And slouches again and sniffs in the book,
And mumbles: It is an idle and a doctrinaire exploit.
Go on tumbling half over in the water mirrors.
Go on tumbling half over at the horse heads of the sun.
Be water birds, be air birds.
Be these purple tumblers you are.
We sat and watched the martins “tumble” around us as time just faded away and I began to understand my grandfather’s love of these beautiful birds and perhaps leaving a “Holy Grail” item for the next generation to achieve is the perfect thing to do…
I want to thank Carolyn for hosting us – make sure you stop and see what everyone else did with their word this month.
Thank you for reading and if you want to see my journey with release, you will find it here.
I will be back on Wednesday with some knitting and reading! (and I promise to get caught up with all your blogs soon!!)
by Kat | Apr 22, 2021 | General, Poetry
Sometimes poetry is witty and clever…I think my grandfather’s favorite poet, Carl Sandburg, hits this brilliantly with his poem Fog. When my grandfather would recite this poem to me I could see exactly what Sandburg meant in the clever way he uses a cat to describe fog. (Don’t ask me about Sandburg’s other poetry though because I have tried to read it but none of it grabbed me like hearing my grandfather recite Fog from memory.)
But recently a poem landed in my email just when the winds were racing around my neighborhood. It is witty, brilliant, it made me chuckle…and it made me look at things from that rascally wind’s perspective!
Bonus moments occur when I keep thinking about the poem and I read it again and again. This poem by Gwendolyn Bennett is just incredible (as is she!) A Black woman – a writer and and educator who was born in Texas in 1902 must have at times felt like the wind was raging around her… and perhaps, just maybe, she felt like the wind around her students!
Wind
Gwendolyn Bennett
The wind was a care-free soul
That broke the chains of earth,
And stood for a moment across the land
With the wild halloo of his mirth
He little cared that he ripped up trees,
That houses fell at his hand,
That his step broke the calm of the breast of the seas,
That his feet stirred clouds of sand.
But when he had had his little joke,
Had shouted and laughed and sung,
When the trees were scarred, their branches broke,
And their foliage aching hung,
He crept to his cave with a healthy tread,
with rain-filled eyes and low-bowed head.
This poem is in the public domain.
Please make sure you stop by and see what Kym, Bonny, and Sarah have to share with you today!
See you back here on Monday with an update on my word! I hope you are having a great week and your weekend will be full of fun things!
by Kat | Apr 21, 2021 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
My favorite place to vacation is anyplace by the ocean [lake]. — Nina Arianda
I am pretty sure that if Nina Arianda had see any of the Great Lakes she would absolutely wanted to vacation there. This week I have a “change of scenery” as we are visiting Erie and more specifically, Presque Isle – which just might be my favorite place on earth and even on a grey day the views are just glorious!
If only letting go of COVID fears was as easy as changing the scenery. I am two weeks past my second vaccine, but the idea of immersing myself back into “pre-COVID life” is still such a scary thought. I read this article in the NYTimes and I am working on rethinking risks and overcoming my COVID fears, but it is not easy. What about you? How are you doing post vaccine? How are you re-entering life? Do you have a plan? I really want to know… I think a good discussion around this would be a wonderful start – so please tell me your thoughts!
While I have no knitting photos this week, you are not missing anything. There is hardly any change from last week’s images, lol. I am at the slow going portion of Purl Strings. Lots of counting, seed stitching, and so much more increasing to do. I have knit about 3 inches of the cuff of Sock One, but I have a good bit of knitting yet before I get to the heel.
However, there is so much to do outdoors here (with practically no COVID fears!) I have been walking and walking and walking and watching all the birds. So.many.birds! We have discovered new trails and have seen so many new things. Each day is just a bit greener than the day before! It is crazy but today there is snow in the forecast so I just might get some knitting time in!
While the reading was minimal this week, I did have one finish.
The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fascinating story about a part of history that I knew nothing about. The writing style very much reminded me of Leif Anger or Kent Haruf. I listened and the cast of narrators were wonderful. I loved how the characters each were woven into the story… together but separately. If you want to learn more about labor in the early 1900’s in America, this book is an excellent place to start. I highly recommend it!
That is all I have for today, as always – if you wrote a post to share please leave you link below and thank you!
by Kat | Apr 15, 2021 | General, Poetry
This week we are all sharing thoughts on ‘new beginnings’ and poetry. One would think this would be an easy topic because there are so.many.poems about beginning.
At first I thought that I’d share the poem that took my hand and began my love of poetry. It is a lovely poem by Derek Walcott called Love After Love. Kym shared it on her blog a few years ago during April. I printed it out and it is on the board by my desk. I read it often. It is an excellent poem to read to yourself or better yet, listen to Tom Hiddleston read it here.
And as excellent as that poem is, I thought to myself that I should read more poems and find another that speaks to me about another beginning. Thanks to Sylvia Plath I did not have to look far. I found her poem, Morning Song and thought this is the most excellent beginning… the birth of a child. Ms. Plath reminded me of those all those feelings when I brought my Rachel home from the hospital 32 years ago. Honestly, it was such a scary thought… I was responsible for this tiny little baby! A new beginning for both of us!
Morning Song
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
Sylvia Plath, “Morning Song” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1960, 1965, 1971, 1981 by the Estate of Sylvia Plath.
Please go and see what Kym, Bonny, and Sarah are sharing today!
I will be back next week for Unraveled Wednesday!
