We're Not Dead Yet

Thursday I drove up to Holy Cross Monastery for EfM Mentor training. Our time there was cut bit short by the approaching hurricane so that people who came by train could get home before the system was shut down at noon on Saturday. And the monastery closed the guest house at 2:00 p.m. that afternoon. My neighborhood weathered the storm pretty well, but even now there are many areas that still don't have power restored and others that remain, or are now being, evacuated due to flooding. Irene's effects will be with us for some time to come.

Now that Irene has come and gone and things, at least for me, have pretty much returned to normal, I've had some time to reflect on my time at Holy Cross. I enjoy spending time there. The setting is spectacular, the food excellent, and the hospitality outstanding. I also appreciate this particular mentor training because many of the same people attend every year, and I'm not the only queer person there. As intense as the training can be, it is still very much retreat time, and I come back renewed and ready to start the new year of EfM.

I drove up a little early so I could spend some quiet time at the monastery. For most of the time before training started I sat on the Great Cloister overlooking the Hudson River and worked on one of the prayer shawls. Crochet as meditation. Sometimes I forget how relaxing it can be to just sit and crochet. No TV. No radio. No conversation. Just me, the crochet, the scenery, and my thoughts and prayers.

That afternoon my thoughts drifted to Grace Episcopal Church and the ongoing conversations we've been having about our future. And I had an insight. We need to change the language we've been using in the conversations. We are not dead yet. We're not even DYING. We are STRUGGLING.

How we talk about ourselves affects the way we operate. The parish isn't ready for hospice care just yet. And while I know I need to respect the feelings of those who just wish it were over and the doors closed, I'm not sure they understand that it's more than just turning out the lights and closing the doors. Hospice care involves work. It involves not only taking care of the dying person, it also means taking care of the person's family and friends. And those caring for the patient. It is not a passive process for anyone involved.

So where does the struggle take us? I don't know. I only know that we can't go back to what we once were. Even if the church were full every Sunday and the Sunday School classrooms were bursting at the seams, we still would not be the same church we were in 1950, 1960, 1970, or even 1980. The Church has always been evolving. What we have now looks nothing like the Church of 90, 300, 1000, or 1900. The Church isn't dead yet. It's not even dying. It's just changing as it always has.

As Bishop Curry prayed with us last week: “Dear God what are you calling us to do and be in this new community?”

Knitting, Crocheting and Fluting

Last week I was over at Mom's for lunch. I did a load of laundry. We got caught up. And after lunch we sat at the table and knit. She had two projects going for Grace's Shawl Ministry, one that needed more focus and one that could be done while engaging in conversation. I was working on the shawl with the small square pattern and talked about one or two ideas I had for the next one. Mom pointed out that there was no reason I couldn't have more than one project going at a time.

Mom, you created a monster! By the time I finished the knit shawl I'd also finished the green crocheted shawl and started two others, one knit and one crochet.Once the knit one was finished, I started another knit one with a slightly more complicated pattern that I'd found online. I had to look up a couple of the stitches, but it didn't seem to be too difficult.

Wrong. First, I had to learn a new method of casting on, which took several tries. Then I had to see if I could actually do the new stitches. That actually didn't take very long. However, once I started working the actual shawl things got complicated. The alternating increases and decreases were hard for me to keep track of and end up with the same number of stitches at the end of each row of knitting. Three times I got to the seventh or ninth row and had to tear the whole thing out , and I unknit rows several times. Finally, I realized that I had to go slowly and really focus on what I was doing.

I had a similar problem with the new crocheted shawl I'd started. It isn't a difficult pattern, but I kept finding places where I'd skipped a space or added a block. While it's easier to tear out rows of crochet, it's no less frustrating. Again, I forced myself to slow down.

So this morning I was practicing my flute. I've been using M. A. Reichert's 7 Daily Exercises for Flute. My friend Jonathan recommended them and told me that they should be played slowly and musically. Given the copy I had (which I've since replaced) and the change of key every line or so, slowly is the only way I can play them, although I am improving. I also only play one during a practice session rather than all seven. And they are musical, much more interesting to play than the Taffanel Gaubert exercises. After I finished my Reichert exercise for the day, I moved on to a new Daily Exercise from Fredrick the Great's Flute Book: 100 Daily Exercises for Flute. No, I don't play all 100 daily! Since it was a new exercise, I played it through a couple of times and then began working on it measure by measure. Slowly.

I was having a little trouble with one of the runs and started to get frustrated. That's usually the signal for me to stop what I'm working on and move on to something else or end the practice session for the day. Today it sparked a realization. I get so caught up in the technical aspects of playing the instrument that I forget that the purpose is to make music. Sometimes you have to tell your inner perfectionist to go to his or her room and just play for the joy of it.

And I need to keep reminding myself that the purpose of knitting or crocheting something is to create something beautiful and/or useful. Especially when I'm learning new stitches and patterns. Especially since there are now five projects in my needlework tote.

Mr. Inner Perfectionist, go to your room!

My Rocker

I tried several different ways to photograph the first prayer shawl I made. Spreading it out on the floor didn't work. Hanging it on a hanger seemed too sterile. Laying it out on the bed got it lost on the pattern of the bedspread. Then I tried arranging it on my rocking chair. It not only felt right, it displayed the shawl to its best advantage for a picture. So the rocker became the display stand for taking pictures of the shawls.

I've had this rocker since I was 15. I remember when we went to pick it out at the unpainted furniture shop on Route 1 in Westport. I don't remember if I paid for it out of my babysitting money, or if my parents bought it for me. Either way, it sat in my room for many months before I finished it.

Finally, I picked out a stain for it and then began sanding. It's not the most intricate piece of furniture, but the turned pieces took some time to get to the smoothness that felt right. Then I stained it and sealed it.

We had another wooden rocking chair in the house. It had been made for my great-grandparents. We know this because it was signed and dated on the underside of the seat. I decided I wanted to do the same for mine, so at some point in the process I took the wood burner and put my name and the month I finished it on the underside of its seat.

The rocker has been in my home ever since, with the exception of the years I was away at college and graduate school. I've sat in it to read, crochet, pray, look out the window, and now knit, too. The plaid cushion is a relatively recent addition from a day trip I took with my friend Rees about 10 years ago. Most of the time it also has hanging over the back a prayer shawl given to me by my friend Elizabeth, a shawl/lap rug I crocheted, and a red and black alpaca wool poncho from Ecuador. And right now, my craft tote is sitting on it with the completed shawls waiting to go to church next weekend and the shawls I'm currently working on.

In our family we have an expression, "It's a knew-me." It refers to something that has been around for what seems like forever. Sometimes it's something downright ugly, like painting that hung in my grandparents' home for years. Sometimes it's beautiful, like the silver coffee and tea service that belonged to my grandmother's cousin that Mom occasionally used to serve us tea when we came home from grade school. And sometimes it's something like my chair. All of them are familiar, filled with memories, and comforting.

What are the knew-me's in your life?

Prayer Shawls Four and Five

Today I finished two more prayer shawls. The knitted one I've been working on since I finished the last one. The crocheted one I began Thursday night. To the left is the first attempt, and you can see the dropped stitch. When I tried to fix it I created a real mess and ended up tearing out about 25 rows and starting over. It also gave me a chance to correct the pattern. I made a lot of mistakes knitting this shawl, but in the process I learned quite a bit about knitting. I unknit a lot, and I picked up dropped stitches.

I got into a jam when I dropped a stitch shortly after joining the second skein. Fortunately I was visiting Mom, and she helped me get back on track. She also gave me a pair Honey's (my maternal grandmother) metal needles because she thought I might have an easier time because the yarn would slide better on them than on the bamboo needles I was using. Evidently I knit the way I crochet, tightly.

And here's the completed prayer shawl. The block pattern turned out well, if I do say so myself. I kept a tally of the rows, so I would know when to change the knit/purl sequence. Mom also gave me one of Honey's stitch counters. Now I have knitting needles and a counter from one grandmother and crochet hooks from the other.

Learning to knit continues to be an exercise in keeping my inner perfectionist locked in the basement.

I decided I didn't want to do fringe on this one. It's a tedious process. Instead I crocheted an edging on each end. I based it on one I found online, but it was pretty much of an experiment. Another learning process, which involved some tearing out and redoing.

Here's a close up of the edging, and you can also see the block pattern in more detail.

Caron Simply Soft
1 1/3 Skein
Dark Sage
Shawl - Size 13 Needles
Edging - Size K Crochet Hook

One of the things I've found working with the Simply Soft is that the shawls seem narrow. Although, these two that I've knit are within the measurements I've seen for prayer shawls. I'll be looking for patterns that are a bit wider for upcoming projects.

This is the crocheted shawl. It's a Bottom Up Shawl without Point that I found on the Crafty Beaver blog. It worked very quickly.

TLC Essentials Worsted Medium
Dark Thyme
1 1/4 Skein
Size P Crochet Hook
Double Crochet

I'm already working on shawls six, seven, and eight.

Mercury Retrograde

The Lavender Country and Folk Dancers board met today in the Northampton, MA area. Some of us went yesterday to go to the Greenfield contra dance that one of our members called last night. As it turned out, I drove from my friends' home to Greenfield by myself.

About halfway to Greenfield I realized I'd left my cell phone at my friends' house. I had a slight moment of panic. What if I got lost? What if...? It wasn't all that long ago we'd get in the car and drive for hours to get from Point A to Point B without a phone in the car. If we got lost, we found a gas station and asked directions, or at least a map. If the car broke down, we found a pay phone or flagged down a passing motorist. Of course, one of the results of the explosion of cell phone usage is that pay phones have all but disappeared.

Today I got home after the board meeting and discovered that I left my Kindle at my friends' house. A few text messages and they were able to find it, and we figured out how to they were going to get it back to me. At least I had my cell phone!

If you don't know much about astrology, the planet Mercury affects communication, technology, cars, and the like. A planet is in retrograde when it appears to be moving backward through the skies (it's really just on the other side of its orbit). And when a planet is retrograde, it affects things negatively. Especially Mercury. Things in general just seem to go wrong when Mercury is in retrograde, which happens about three times a year.

I hadn't realized Mercury was in retrograde until I saw something on Facebook this evening. Phone. Kindle. And the check engine light coming on in the car just as I got to Bridgeport on the way home.

So it might not be the influence of Mercury, but it sure seems like something or someone is having fun stacking the deck against me this year.