Moving In January 23, 2012

Wheew, friends, it’s been a while.  Winter break just slipped out from under me.  P had a lot of time off this year and we spent most of winter break together – hanging out at home, watching movies, going for walks, cooking, and preparing for the holidays.  Then we spent a week in the Yucatan where we snorkeled, ate, swam, and lounged on the beach.  It was spectacular.

Then I returned home and classes started.  Despite only needing two classes to graduate, I’m registered for 20 credits.  I know, right?  Ridiculous.  Most of them are pre-reqs for a M.Ed./licensure program for which I haven’t yet been accepted (but I should find out in a few weeks).  I was hoping for a relaxed final undergrad semester but instead I’m frantically reading about zoology, cell biology, the history and philosophy of science, among other things.  It’s all excellent material, but I’m burnt out and tired.

And then the Sadness returned.  It hasn’t been as intense or debilitating, but it’s there, all the same.  Although I’m noticing some differences this time on the (no so)merry-go-round.  Whereas I’ve previously assumed that the Sadness’ return signaled a regression in my recovery, I’m beginning to believe that’s not wholly accurate.

I realize that the following analogy is probably crude, especially because I haven’t experienced it, but it’s the imagery that’s been in my mind.    It’s felt (again, give me a little license) like labor – a difficult and painful process in which my internal homeostasis is disturbed in a sort of positive feedback loop to make way for change.

At first the Sadness haunted the background, making me sluggish and grumpy.  Then it increased in intensity until I was having trouble getting through the day.  About that time, in a sort of domino fashion, all sorts of internal changes took place.  Most are a little too unformed and raw to discuss, but one major event has been, what I’m referring to internally, as “embodiment”. 

As a child I learned it’s best to not have a body.  It was repeatedly ignored, abused, and tormented.  I became very adept at just shutting it down.  Nearly all bodily experience could just be flicked “off.”  If I had to go to the bathroom and it was dangerous or inconvenient – I shut it off.  If I was in pain, most of the time I ignored it.  If I was sick – I worked through it. If there was food – I ate until it was gone (despite body signals of hunger or lack thereof).  If there wasn’t food – I didn’t eat.   The list goes on.

But over the past several weeks I’ve become aware that it’s time to “move back in.”  It’s hard to live authentically and wholly when entirely detached from most of the human experience.  It’s also impossible to move forward in the healing process when I can’t tune into what I’m feeling and thus interpret what I need.  It’s been alarming to realize that often I have body demands that I have no idea what they mean.  I’m 30 and I can’t interpret my own feelings and emotions.

The day after I realized this, I awoke to a persuasive image: I experienced “me” as a small shadow living, all folded up, in a small area in the back of my brain.  It was the only safe place.  ”I” (this small shadow) tentatively stretched and extended down my neck and tried to “move in” to my body but I was completely overwhelmed with a powerful sense of terror and lack of safety.  Even though I haven’t been in acute physical danger for fifteen or so years, I still didn’t feel like my own body was a safe place to be.

Frankly, I’m struggling with all this.  I don’t really want to “move back in” but I also know it’s necessary.  As I told M (my therapist) several session ago (I think this has been budding for months) I hate having a body.  This is weird for me to write, to admit.  But I really don’t like the body experience.  It’s burdensome and difficult, it’s demanding, it requires a great deal of care and attention.  It has failures and faults, and so much of it I can’t control.  It feels unwieldy and hard to understand.  It’s vulnerable to far too many dangers.  The body experience is often intense and confusing.  It carries too much trauma, it holds too many memories, and it’s just hard to accept that this mess is mine and I have to take care of it.  I don’t want it – I want to start over.  I want to take this little “shadow me” and move in somewhere – anywhere – else.  Heavens, it sounds like I’m going through puberty all over again.  ha!

Alas.

If there’s one thing I’m really good at it’s accepting process.  I don’t expect instantaneous results.  I know I can move in slowly, and that’s okay.  I know I can get used to all this gradually and that, one day, I’ll feel at home here.

Currently, my little shadow is sitting around my neck and shoulders.  I’m not sure that I’ll ever get used to talking like this – a shadow me! – it feels a little too… weird.  But it works.  And so I’ll work to accept it.  Until then, this acceptance of my neck and shoulders as a “safe place” feels like a sweet, fuzzy cat draped around me and, even I’ll admit, that feels pretty damn good.

Wooly Wonderfulness January 2, 2012

As promised, there’s more stitching to show.

This.  This thing of warmth and beauty.  Last time I put it on the scale, it weighed in at 3+ lbs of wooly warmth.  I really, really wanted to finish it before the end of 2011 (Happy New Year, btw!!) but the blanket is a now a behemoth and the knitting is a bit strenuous.  It wasn’t fun anymore, so I took a break and I’ll tackle those borders a little more slowly this time.  One finished, three to go.

P spoiled me with 100% silk yarn (So unbearably wonderful) for both my birthday and Christmas!  A skein of the birthday yarn was immediately slotted for a growing leaves cowl.  As much as I love all sorts of wools, even baby alpaca and merino irritate my skin, especially my neck.  Oh, I still wear them, but this silk isn’t irritating in the least.

It’s just about finished.  Once it’s done it’s headed for a brilliant blue iDye wash.  I’m hoping the straw colored yarn will come out a handsome green.  We’ll see.

For the Christmas silk, P found 10 (!) skeins of affordable orange silk from a de-stashing woman on et*sy (Isn’t he thoughtful??).  I have enough of this to make something substantial.  I think I need to knit a lovely shawl.  I couldn’t find anything on Ravelry that quite suited my fancy, so I’m going to pick up some stitch pattern books from the library and create my own.

Several months ago I finished the linen washcloth/facetowel travel set.  And then I promptly put the washcloth through the dryer.  Now I have a facecloth and mini-washcloth set.  No matter.  It’ll still get plenty of use!

A friend gave kindly me a gift certificate to my favorite LYS for my birthday.  And then the shop had a holiday 50% off sale for selected merchandise.  I promptly headed over and scooped up these three gorgeous skeins of blue, aran weight, merino wool.  After the sale and the gift certificate, each skein cost me for $1 (normal retail of $13/ea)!  I can’t decide if it wants to become a big, delicious, squishy scarf or a couple of baby sweaters.  Any thoughts?

I still have several blog posts that need to go up – a Christmas recap and my One Little Word for 2012.  We leave early Tuesday morning for a week vacation to the Yucatan, so I’ll try to squeeze them in tomorrow.  If not, I’ll see you in mid-January!

Learning to let go December 30, 2011

It’s been four months now since I sent the last letter and my mother slipped, uncontested, out of my life.  Since that time I’ve started my final year of my undergraduate career, P and I celebrated our third anniversary, I turned 30 years old, and several major holidays have come and gone.  A new year is right around the corner – a year that will probably mark my first whole year without a mother.

It was as if she was waiting, waiting for permission to be done mothering.  Once it was granted she ran, ran far far away.  Last I heard she was in Mississippi.  Or was it Missouri?

A childhood narcissism wells up within me.  Doesn’t she miss me?  How can she live without me?  But, I forget.  I only lived with her for fourteen years, most of which she doesn’t seem to remember.  I haven’t lived with her for sixteen years now and her life has long since taken on its’ own rhythm.

At first she called once in a while, wanting to see me.  Then, over the years, that dwindled to a slow stream of cards punctuating some, but not all, major holidays.  It was probably no trouble at all to drop those, too.  Knowing her, she’s grateful to keep what she would have spent on cards and postage.

But it’s still hard and it still hurts.  Somedays I get a knot in stomach when I check the mail.  Other days I compulsively check an old email account that my mother may still know.  M tells me that hope is the last thing to die.  But letting go of the hope that she’ll “come around” will make accepting myself easier.  After a childhood spent subsisting on hope that someday it all might get better, it’s hard to kill what’s left.  Unfortunately, that hope is holding me in a pattern of childhood pining for a future that will never come

Here’s how I picture it: if my heart were a house, there’s a little girl, sitting on a window bench in a dark room upstairs.  On the sill is an oil lamp she’s been carefully tending the last 30 years, hoping the light will inspire her mother to come back to her.

Because doesn’t my mother miss me?  Afterall, P assures me I’m a pretty great person to have around.  Sure, sometimes I’m ornery and stubborn, but not always.  I can be fun, creative, interesting.  Why doesn’t she want me?

But then I wonder – do I actually miss her?  And the sobering, heartbreaking truth is that I don’t.  Holidays have felt lighter without the obligation to call her for an incredibly stressful conversation.  I don’t miss her haunting, shadowing presence – like an overgrown little kid that wants to crawl into my lap and suffocate me with her overgrown, untended needs.  All that I miss is an idealized version of what she represents: a mother.  And she’ll never be the mother than I need.  For reasons that extend far beyond me, she can’t.

My mother is not well.  My mother is not well.  My mother is not well.

I practice these words sometimes.  Mostly I speak them in my head but, once in a while, when I’m feeling strong and brave, I whisper them aloud.  Occasionally, I’ll say them in a normal voice to P or a good friend.  My mother is not mentally stable and we’ve stopped talking.

It’s like getting into a bath that’s too hot, too painful.  It’s a slow settling, a gradual acclimation and acceptance.  That’s how I feel about those words, about that reality.

M tells me that denial and rationalization can work together to build walls so strong nothing can break through – not the cries of a child or the threat of severed communication.  My mother is incapable of really listening to me and hearing my side of the story.  She can’t accept what I have to say.  She won’t accept responsibility for what she did to me and what she allowed to happen to me.  She’s not a safe person, and she brings nothing into my life besides stress and anxiety.  Believe me, I’ve tried mightily to find some good I can hold and focus on.  But there’s nothing.  Nothing.

And so that little girl tending that oil lamp is sitting on her hands so she doesn’t do what she’s been doing for thirty years – change the wick and refresh the oil.  She sits in the dimming light waiting for the hope to finally die.

And now for something a little different December 29, 2011

It’s no surprise a lot of knitting goes on around here.  I love knitting because it’s so portable – a few stitches on the bus, before class, while waiting for a doctor – and soon something beautiful arises from those stolen moments.  It took me several years before I was good enough that I actually liked what I made.  Most of my early projects were “frogged” over and over because, in my opinion, they weren’t worthy of existing.

But during break I have time at home which means it’s time to set aside the knitting and pursue the crafts that aren’t as portable.  I love sewing because it’s faster and the possibilities are limitless.  Unfortunately, because I’m less practiced and almost entirely self-taught, I’m not often pleased with the results.  And unlike knitting I can’t just “rip-it, rip-it” and start over.  No sir – once the fabric is cut it’s a done deal, which makes sewing even more intimidating.  But only practice is going to improve my skills, so I’ve spent some hours in front of the machine and here’s what I’ve come up with:

I’ve made two pairs of mittens using this fabulous tutorial.

Here’s P’s pair, made from his favorite sweater that finally got too hole-y to wear.

I lined them with horse print flannel because his name means “lover of horses” which gives us no end of amusement around here.  As a side note – I took scrap pieces of the sweater and needle felted them on the wrong side of the hole-y bits and you’d never know there had been holes if you weren’t looking for them.

I put these in his Christmas stocking and he said that it was one of the best presents he’s ever received – on par with the quilt from his mom and grandma.  :)

Here’s my pair, made from a thick, felted, thrifted sweater and lined with fabric from XL wool/cashmere pants I once found in a garage sale free pile (score!!)

I needled felted on some fall-colored leaves with green yarn for a stem.  I’m not thrilled with the needle felting job – but every little bit of practice helps, right?

You’d never know from looking at them how many times I ripped sections out to sew them again.  sigh.

I’ve been dabbling a bit in making stuffed animals.  Again, the photo hides it well, but my skills are seriously lacking.  It’s cute, but it’s not what I wanted it to be.  Alas – practice, practice.

I do love this little infant-friendly felted wool tail!

I made this little wristlet using this fantastic tutorial.  It came out so cute!  It’s the first time I’ve inserted a zipper, and I’m very pleased with the results.  This cute little bag will be going with me on vacation next week!

It even has three little pockets on the inside.  If I were to make it again, I’d probably make a pocket on the opposite side to hold my phone.

P and I bought new curtains for our front room to replace the old-lady lacy ones that came with the house.  We ended up with linen I*KEA curtains that you cut to your desired length and then use iron-on fusible web to “hem” them.  As a result we ended up with lots of long, narrow scraps of linen.  I used a few of those scraps to make… napkins!

It’s my first time doing fusible applique so I was just playing around a bit.  I cut the flower and leaves freehand and used cookie cutters to outline the rest.

You can tell from the “Minnesota” napkin that there is a reason the instructions tell you to cut out your images in reverse!  Ooops!

I used this tutorial to make this adorable little fabric basket (how did people learn to craft before the internet and people’s generous tutorials??).

I found one slight error in the tutorial – when you cut the fabric for the lining it says to cut a piece 9 1/4″ x 12″.  That was too small for my basket and I had better luck with a lining that was 10 1/4″ x 12″.  Fold along the 12″ side so the 10 1/4″ sides make the opening.

I think this will live on my nightstand to catch all the little bits that land there – earrings, hairbands, etc.

I’ve still got more knitting to show you, so I’ll be back soon!

A Few Stitches December 26, 2011

December was a whirlwind of knitting and crafting.  I entirely lost track of all the projects, and unfortunately, many of them slipped through my fingers without being photographed.  But they all were finished, blocked, boxed, and gifted.  Most were received with heaps of enthusiasm, which is always both gratifying and surprising.  I’m embarassed to say this, but homemade gifts were… looked down upon when I was little.  But, both times and people change and I’m happy for the opportunity to make things for people who love and use them.

P’s Sweater.  It’s an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern (Saddle-shouldered) with Kn*itpicks Tweed (70% merino wool, 20% alpaca, 10% acrylic).  If the sleeves hadn’t been too long for me, I may very well have kept it.  It’s so soft and cozy.

P’s hat.  This fall, when I asked him if he wanted a new hat, he said yes.  I was pleasantly surprised when he asked for a hat that was red and cabled!  He typically asks for things that are plain and grey (or black).  It’s a lovely splash of excitement to his wardrobe!  It’s this hat knit up in a merino wool.

This cute little bunny is knit up in a merino wool for a friend’s baby, due in early January.  It’ll soon be gifted with the blanket below.

I do love this baby blanket.  So simple yet so beautiful.

And here is where I’ll sheepishly admit I didn’t get photos of the two mohawk hats I knit for my nephews, the two princess hats (and wands) I made for my nieces, the cute little bear hat for another niece…  I do have a few more items around the house I can still photograph, so I’ll be back for another round soon.

The Other Side December 16, 2011

Well, folks, it sure has been awhile.  In August I wasn’t sure if I’d ever made it to this point – the point where all that remains of my 18 credits is one test and the remnants of a paper.  Where only one semester of my undergraduate career remains.  The point where my large, unwieldy  directed study is done.  The point where no farm work remains, although the same can’t be said of farm meetings.  The point where I happily turned 30.  The point where I have occasional meetings with M to check-in and continue honing my new skills, but those meetings aren’t the only thread holding my sanity together.  The point where the sadness is more of a faint, background note than a clanging gong.  But I did, I made it, and it feels so good.

In fact, this may very well be the happiest I’ve been in my entire life.  There have certainly been more exciting times in life – India?  Thailand? Iceland?  - but this is, by far, the most consistently peaceful and content I’ve ever felt.  I type and erase, type and erase, trying to find the words to explain what happened, what it feels like but I can’t nudge the right words into the right places.  It just feels good and it’s (mostly) felt that way for several months now.  I feel loved, safe, secure.  And there’s no better way to head into the holidays.   Xoxo

Sticking with it October 31, 2011

Today is the 20 year anniversary of the great H*alloween blizzard of 1991. I was 10 years old. I’ve always loved a good blizzard, especially one that lasts for four days. In addition, halloween is my hands-down favorite holiday. By all accounts I should remember the snow storm that shut down my great city. I should remember the enormous piles of snow. I should remember the shock of adults, the delight of children, the amazement of a multi-day blizzard that closed out October and ushered in November.

But I don’t. I vaguely recall dressing up as the devil and my legs were cold through the thin red tights. Did I even wear tights? Perhaps my legs were bare. I do remember that my mom’s boyfriend wouldn’t let us trick-or-treat (ever), but my brother and I dressed up anyway, and walked around the neighborhood.

I’ve always ignored the fact that I don’t remember this momentous night.  But today, when thinking about it, I stuck with the unsettled feelings that arose rather than pushing them away.  I accepted those feelings, let them in, listened to what they had to say.  And I realized that this lack of memory aches because I want so badly to remember that blizzard. I want to remember what it was like to be ten years old and be caught in an enormous city that was stopped in its’ tracks because the plows were without blades, because the snow just kept falling, because it was blizzarding in October. I want to remember because I was there. I was in a place where something big and incredible was happening and I have a story, I just don’t know what it is.  I want to weave my narrative in with others.  I want so much to be a part of that clear snapshot of Minnesota life on a cold October that nearly everyone remembers in striking clarity.

But there are no memories. Like so much of my childhood, like so much of my life, despite my physical presence, I remember nothing. Despite years of frantic searching in my own mind, I still only find darkness.

And, you know, it’s okay to lose most days.  For the details to drift off into vaguarities of daily monotony. But big days, days that acquaintances swap stories about, days that pull communities together, days that build bridges between people, well, it hurts to lose those days.

All this serves as a further reminder that it all was that bad. Life was bad enough that not even an epic blizzard could break through the dissociated state in which I waited out my childhood.  I wish it hadn’t been like that.  God, I wish it had all been different.

Coming off the needles October 25, 2011

A few things have come off the needles as of late.  That doesn’t mean they’re all finished per se, but close enough.

The calorimetry.  I must have knit and frogged this at least seven or eight times.  I didn’t like the short row holes and it took a while to figure out how to neatly finish the pattern without them.  But the ninth or tenth time was the charm.

See?  Are the turns purty?  The final time only took about two hours to knit.  This thick, toasty wool topper has been seeing a lot of playtime so far this fall.  Love, love, love it.

Ok, so this doesn’t technically qualify as knitting.  It’s the quilted blanket I’m making from my dad’s old flannel PJs.

I’m hand quilting it, so it’s going to take a while.  But now that is colder I don’t mind sitting now and then to stitch on a warm quilt.  If the applique looks familiar the birds are simply sized up from this book.  I added the moon.  I just love how the flannel squares look like a twinkling night sky with a new moon and the shadow of two birds on a branch.  It’s so quintessentially my dad.

I’m nearly finished with P’s EZ’s Classic Brooks Sweater.  It’s a merino/alpaca/tweed blend and the yarn is so soft to work with.  Love.  The arms came out a little long, but the rest of the fit is really nice.  I had to rip back the epaulets in order to lengthen them, but it’s just an hour or two away from being blocked.

The baby blanket is done and just needs blocking.  It’s lovely.  Perhaps it’sa teeny bit itchy for new baby skin, but it will make a nice lap throw for the baby’s wool-loving parents or a cover for the stroller.  Their babe is due mid-January so I have no doubt it’ll get a lot of love.

And this little lovey just needs a face.  It came out better than I was expecting.

The garden’s last sunflower.  The garlic was planted earlier in the week and will be mulched on the next sunny, warmish day.  I love planting the spring garden, I love the lushness of the summer garden, and I love putting the garden to bed in the fall.  It’s a little sad to say goodbye, but spring will be here soon enough.

Freeze October 22, 2011

The first freeze finally came and took away most of the garden for the season.  I’m always simultaneously relieved, sad, and amazed.  The peppers are done for the year, along with so many others.  It’s time to put the garlic in the ground and a layer of mulch over everything.

I’ve been a little bit stressed because of finals and thus I’ve been cranking out the knitting at a furious pace.  I hope to be back soon to display all the lovely woolen wear.

Risk, revisited October 5, 2011

My one little word for 2011 was risk.  I’ve really enjoyed having a one little word focal point for the year and I’ll likely do it again next year.

Little did I know, way back in January, just how important this little word would be.  Just how many times I’d lean on and embrace it.  Just how comforting it would be to let go and plow ahead instead of hanging back and shying away.

Over the past few sessions, but especially this week, M (my therapist) has made it clear it’s time for us to start terminating therapy.  It’s been about a year since I started and that’s about what I was anticipating.  Six months ago I could hardly fathom coping without M, but now it seems possible.  My wings feel weak, unpracticed, but jumping from the nest does seem like a logical next step.  I suspect I have the strength to do it (and enough support if I need it).

I wish there were some numerical measure of progress, some scale, some way to compare the before and after.  I wish I could point to an assessment, an evaluation, an exam and say, “Look!  I made it!”  But alas, there’s not.  But while there are still some sad days, the sting of my past has faded.  I don’t feel so broken or angry.  I have tools to (sometimes) pull myself out of the anxiety spiral and I’m better at recognizing and accepting my own needs and then standing up for myself.  I have a much more accurate picture of who I am and where I’d like to go.  I can relax sometimes.

And I have outside validation in the ring of M’s words, “Meg, I don’t know why some people come out of these things better than others.  People try to measure it, to name it, but I’m not sure it can be measured.  I think of it as a strong spirit and you’ve got it.  You’ve done a lot of hard and important work.  You made a lot of great progress.  You’re a fighter and you’ll be okay.”

Last session we spent a lot of time talking about a recent, semi-catastrophic meltdown I had when I got a 70% on what I thought was a decent paper.  I knew it was completely irrational but I cried on about how my past “was coming for me” and how I was “doomed to live a crappy life” and how “I might as well give up now because it’s hopeless.”   I explained the background of the meltdown – the constant haunting feeling, the sense that if I don’t run hard and fast enough, if I don’t push myself far enough, if I don’t work frantically and always succeed, my past will catch up and drown me in everything I’ve worked so hard to overcome.

And she said simply that feeling was fear and I had to face it.  I needed to acknowledge all the work I’ve done to ensure a better life for myself.  And then I had to refuse to let fear bully me into reactionary living.  The fear I was not rational, it was rooted in an unpredictable and scary childhood, which, thank god is over.

I wanted to run, run, run.  I was utterly terrified.  This has happened several times in therapy and after the initial visceral reaction I think about two things:

1.  This year I’m going to take risks so face it, Megs, and let’s see what happens.

2. If I don’t face this that SOB is going to continue impacting my life.  And I don’t want that.  I will not, come hell or high water, let that asshole win.

So, holding at bay every ion in my body, I let the fear in, let it pour through me, and then, miraculously, let it flow out of me.

I am always surprised that fear is so haunting when just out of sight.  But when it’s cornered, when it’s bought into focus, it has so little staying power.  And its’ evaporation can bring so much peace.