BellyDance Knitter
"All Belly, less dancer, 100% knitter"... Blabbing about my two passions; Knitting & Belly Dancing and as a corollory all things North African and Middle Eastern and textile related. And everything else too.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
I haven't been here in awhile. At a time where we shed our memes like snake skin, it would be entirely appropriate to reorganize my thoughts on another blog. But I've been here before too, wondering about this public display of my life. I certainly don't do it for money. If I was publicly shamed for any of my content, that would likely censure me from ever putting anything on again. I think of this blog, like I've written before, as my mother's back hallway gallery of rogues. My heart will be shared with my sister and friends, my private thoughts will remain that way, but for anyone I would greet on the street or in my daily sorties I would share a picture or two on my phone, and tell you a story (and hope you aren't rolling your eyes). The origin of this blog was to write uniquely about belly-dancing, rugs and knitting. I don't belly-dance anymore, though I have doumbek that I'm trying to learn. I don't buy rugs anymore, though I'm always an admirer of world textiles, North African and Middle Eastern in particular. And I always knit. Always.
So this happened. I last left you in the throes of depression and shock during the longest winter of my first year in this new city, without acquaintances or a job. I reached out and made friends through knitting meetups and Bill W. I took a Tier B series on a Canadian comedy show, doing a job I did thirty years ago. Then another job. Then I swore off work. Then I did another job, which turned into eighteen months of blech. Then I swore off work. Four babies have been born and two weddings have happened, not in that order. The world, to my eyes, turned mean(er). I figured out what to do in retirement, finally. I finally, mostly, put down fears and resentment from my middle life.
And Edgar died. The buddy that was my impetus and companion for change these past eight years died in my arms at the end of July. I quit my big job when he was a puppy for more time with him. I moved a city and a continent to open up the life he brought to me. He co-captained with me. He lay at my feet, and slept with me at night. His eyes followed me wherever I was. And me to him. He was the constant presence of unconditional love that got me from there to here.
Guess I'll be seeing more of this blog now. No Edgar. More sewing. Always knitting. Always textiles. More food. Yes swimming. Yes babies. Yes family. Some painting. Some gardening. Some travel.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Tuesday, April 08, 2014
I got lost in Venice one cold and wet fall night a couple of
years ago, ankle throbbing from a bad sprain, right turn after left turn, under
this arch, over that bridge, through that stone corridor, trapped in an Escher
drawing. Panic parched my throat, until
beside me I heard the shrillness rising in another tourist, also lost. That calmed me long enough, this rite of
passage to be lost in Venice, until I found and followed the bread crumbs back
to my own hotel, lobby burning bright out into an empty dark and wet square.
Today I got lost in the suburban ruelles and walkways in my
neighbourhood. I went for a walk with
Edgar. There could be nothing more
enjoyable today than stride on ground that wasn’t iced or snowed over, in full
warm sun. I passed African grandmothers taking their
babies out to sun, Chinese seniors swinging their arms in gymnastic gyrations
of good health, an East Indian woman crouched low on her back balcony cooking
over an outdoor stove, and a stern Sikh man washing down his front driveway
with a hose looking up to give me a smile and a cheery greeting of good spring
day finally arrived. This passageway
led to a cul-de-sac, but another back alley hooked up with a street, that had
another passageway through to a park, which linked with another passageway to a
small street, running parallel to a greenspace which I could spy between the
houses. Every street was a Panamount,
the suffix stretched thinly into every permutation that I could ever imagine;
drive, street, blvd, hill, road, rise, row, square, terrace, point, view,
view-point, way, passage, bay, circle, court, crescent, common, close, plaza,
gardens, grove, green, gate, heights, heath, lane, landing, manor and mews.
How lost could I be in one suburban community of Calgary? The day is bright and warm. I have my big boy on a leash faithfully
trotting beside me. I did have a modicum
of relief when my postal-lady pulled her jeep up to a bank of mail-boxes beside
me. She may not have recognized me,
because I’m loser lady in a nightgown when she rings my buzzer at 11am with an
endless procession of books for delivery, but she recognized Edgar.
“Oh, you’re way out.
You’re over there”, big smile, bemused.
I asked her where the big boulevard was, and she shook her arm in the direction
that I trundled off in. At the
intersection of ruelle, park and passageway, I recognized one of the four main
passages that run off my little park.
We turned down that path, recognizing the hill views I see from the back
deck. Home, bright and warm.
Friday, April 04, 2014
It’s been a long cold lonely winter. It feels like years since it’s been
here. Here comes the sun.
April 4th 2014, Calgary, Alberta
I was knitting a generic sock
this morning, bright light behind me, drinking my coffee, cross-legged fat
buddah belly in my new “nesting” chair.
The local morning television news guffawed on TGIFs and a warm weekend
coming. All notable things because, I
haven’t been rote knitting since I arrived here, and my mornings have generally
been cold dark and terse. Edgar lay beside
me on the ottoman, his head on my chair, his nose pressed into my hip, sleepy
puppy satisfied safe and warm. I might
have been watching too much Game of Thrones.
I’ve lived in a place where “Winter is coming”, nay, winter has howled
me into an isolated suburban cottage on the edge of nowhere and rolling
northern acreages. I pull myself out of
other worldly revelry, and situate myself here and now.
My mind was set to come here,
regardless of the pain I knew that I’d experience leaving my house, my ‘hood,
my city, my mostly ex-husband, my friends, my career, my geography, my climate,
my program, my kind of people, and even my dentist. It was simply time, time to come home to my
family. There were lots of reason to
leave, but they’re smaller in my rear view mirror now. There were more reasons to come here. Lynn, aging, time, my nieces and nephew,
clean air and a full view, and after what will hopefully be a long adventure of
learning a new city and finding new friends and pleasures, a place to die.
In that place I came from, I
craved the winter I just went through, where slow food barely simmered, and I
could spend a day knitting and watching war documentaries, if I wasn’t
reclining on a bundle of quilts and knit blankets reading. I can’t really account for what I did in the
last four months. The main floor is
clear. The lower level is mostly a
disaster. I haven’t sewn the quilts on
my wish list, or finished any knitting.
I haven’t read a book. I don’t
have a job. I haven’t cross-country skied. Important things did get done, but that
refinement of multi-tasking a dinner party, dressing smartly, going for a swim,
writing on a blog and clearing some boxes has eluded me. My brain has droned down to slow, one thing
at a time, with lots of pauses in between.
This morning it was the sock.
Klick, klick, klick.
There is a warm Chinook breeze today,
which is going to melt ice. Later this afternoon, I’m going to open the
door to the deck. The sun will be hot,
and I’ll need to open the front door for a cross-breeze. By late afternoon, half the snow in the yard
will have leached into prairie grasses.
It will be a bit brighter, smells will be a bit sharper, and the bunnies
will be darting white and gray across the park.
Sheila told me to stake myself to nature as a way to walk
through this mire of indecision and fear.
So this winter I’ve watched skies and snow drifting, ached for the deep
blue in sunsets, been thankful to finally hear birds again as a welcome bridge
from winter winds through the pine trees beside my deck, and squeaked snow
steps in -40C temperatures. The Chinook
arch is a promise, here comes the sun. Klick, klick, klick.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Lasts, ending, more lasts.... My last Saturday morning. My last Saturday Star. My second to last day before my life, my stuff, my blight of hoarding, goes public. Last time for a massage this afternoon, cocooned with warm blankets and lavendar oils, my lungs being gently squeezed and revived by pressures on my rib cage. Last time tonight to get irritated and bicker with C about the TV channel. Last time with a snoring puppy beside me in this house, which creaks and scratches to the winds blowing outside. Last time for departed spirits of this place to sigh.
Goodbye hoard of dish-soap, laundry soap, body soap, fabreeze and bleach. What was I trying to wash away? What else can I say goodbye to that won't shame me as it is unloaded by tired and terse men on a deep freeze day in Alberta in ten day's time. I freaked out on the head packer guy on Friday when he came to collect the cheque. Steady, deep and calm voice, me going high pitch in thirty seconds, panting and pacing, gulping air and holding my throat. As a truism of understatement, I was told it was stressful. Up to last week I've been watching all my goodbyes slightly apart. I wrote big cheques for houses, picked paint colours, strode confidently through options and signatures.
The real goodbyes started this week. A goodbye to J dissolved me, my nearly constant companion (and boss) of nearly twenty five years. Goodbyes to program friends at a dinner, the backbone of my sanity for the past two decades sagging a bit. Goodbye to gal pals and work friends this Sunday. And then the unimaginable goodbyes to good and steady friends, and a peck on the cheek to C which will ache my body and numb my face.
Last time in a quiet house. Last time for me to know where my underwear is, with confidence. Last time on solid ground for awhile.
Goodbye hoard of dish-soap, laundry soap, body soap, fabreeze and bleach. What was I trying to wash away? What else can I say goodbye to that won't shame me as it is unloaded by tired and terse men on a deep freeze day in Alberta in ten day's time. I freaked out on the head packer guy on Friday when he came to collect the cheque. Steady, deep and calm voice, me going high pitch in thirty seconds, panting and pacing, gulping air and holding my throat. As a truism of understatement, I was told it was stressful. Up to last week I've been watching all my goodbyes slightly apart. I wrote big cheques for houses, picked paint colours, strode confidently through options and signatures.
The real goodbyes started this week. A goodbye to J dissolved me, my nearly constant companion (and boss) of nearly twenty five years. Goodbyes to program friends at a dinner, the backbone of my sanity for the past two decades sagging a bit. Goodbye to gal pals and work friends this Sunday. And then the unimaginable goodbyes to good and steady friends, and a peck on the cheek to C which will ache my body and numb my face.
Last time in a quiet house. Last time for me to know where my underwear is, with confidence. Last time on solid ground for awhile.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
I knit that afghan. My mother, who is photographed sleeping under it, started it with aran weight wool that I had given her (so she could knit me a sweater), but abandoned it after twenty rows because her hands hurt. She had already knit a similar throw with acrylic, desirable for its resilience to domestic machinery and impudence, but less desirable to me for its fake feel and no smell. It is amazing to me that I actually finished such a big project. I only had to think every tenth row when I twisted the braid. It took about 13,000 stitches, mindlessly stroked and wrapped over seven seasons of "24", watched in two and three hour stretches deep into a season of winter nights.
Scott Kneeland was the Principal of Roslyn Elementary School, a tall commanding old school presence with a deep voice that wielded the strap on unruly fighting boys (and the occasional girl), walked the main corridors when we were marched to our class in the morning, sternly addressed our weekly assemblies and sang a bass growl to God Save the Queen. Miss Springer, disapprover of working moms, my grade one teacher, sent me to Mr. Kneeland weekly, where he would browse through my scribbler and sign the occasional page. Later, when my mother asked me about the signatures I told her I did it. Mr. Kneeland might have mentioned that I was with him because Miss Springer said I never finished anything, but he was so gentle about it. I was afraid of being strapped. He must of known that because he just told me to try a little harder.
When I toured the end of school art gallery with my mother looking for one of my paintings to show her, my art teacher told her nothing was there because I never finished anything. I was deeply ashamed. I'd like to ask that teacher today what constitutes finished for a six year old with a wide imagination and a bouncing enthusiasm. That was the system I was in, that was the stick I was prodded with, worse than some, better than others.
Some fifty years later I'm still trying to harness that steel focus on completion, for my own efforts. I never had a problem with applying myself (where it counted) at work. Maybe it was that elixir of fear and money that meant I could sit down to endless hours of focused thinking to build the spreadsheet / budget / financial statements, to stand on the set at four in the morning at the end of a sixteen hour day in a cold November rain that numbed my hips and knees, to get it in the can, to hear them call wrap.
When my embarrassed and minimalist friends looked away from piles of half finished projects and mountains of materials piled and stashed in every corner of my house or apartment, I justified myself by thinking that it was harmless entertainment, and that I finished the important things. I got the job done. Each working day could be measured by footage, each week by reporting, and each show by a door closed behind me on an empty stage or office. Now in this new phase of life, without apparent boundaries, I'm weighed down by the volume of stuff, by the open ended undoneness of everything. A low grade depression aches my brain, and I just want to nap. Miss Springer is sneering at me. The art teacher is paying attention to the prettier kids. Mr. Kneeland is holding my hand, telling me to try a little harder. Just for today.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Inappropriate
I went to my book club last night. We, and i hesitate to call us a "we", because I'm an infrequent visitor who mostly lurks on the virtual periphery checking out the reading lists, are a small group. We call ourselves Phoenix, rising from the ashes of disbanded and disgarded book clubs. Kay and I started it after her bookclub faded away, and mine exploded in a spectacular and emotional display of ferocious literary opinion and vicious disagreement. As I punched the hostess who was hanging off my car as I tried to backup the drive-way, I effectively ended what had been an ongoing two year cat fight between all of us. About books, fueled by jealousies and judgements and I don't know what.
Kay died shortly after we started this bookclub, and my job soon after had evolved into a fifteen hour stamina challenge on film sets that meant i never went to meetings. Work or sleep, pick one.
I'm the youngest of this incredibly accomplished group of women. I've seen them at the peak of their careers, and moving into retirement with enthusiasm and grace. If they've had any identity crises about this change in their life I haven't seen it. They speak thoughtfully. They measure words. I've only been able to glean their backgrounds from passing commentary, and they have that humility that doesn't sing and gloat their glories like the film hacks i know. Forensic psychiatrist, judges, lawyers, college administrators, teachers, provincial government bureacrats, CFOs, I think. They take fabulous world trips. They remind me of my aunt Nicole in the way they prepare and digest the experience; journals, expeditions, well researched sidetrips, the unique places they stay and people they talk to.
Last night the author of our book came to the meeting, being a friend of one of the members. He was an established journalist, who is now teaching at Ryerson, and wrote this book while employed full-time. I liked seeing and hearing the voice behind the voice and getting more story on the story. Knowing more of him, and how he got from there to being a published author, was satisfying. As I contemplate the same pile of laundry week in week out, I'm entirely amazed and awed by the hundred steps and prayers on your knees it takes to move from idea to bound book. And rather than feeling overwhelmed by it I'm empowered that I might spend fifteen years writing and actually finish something. I have no illusions about being published, but I do wonder what the effect of time and concerted effort would produce for my "writing", blog or family memoir, such as it is.
As I battle my intellectual lazieness, trying to overcome my guilt for not multi-tasking a one hundred semi-finished bitty tasks, I am not a measured speaker. I blurt. I spurt. I hide in corners, catatonic and grey, and a month later burst forth staccato opinions, ambiguous, generalized, trite. I think i did that last night. It's an old script, being the youngest of a very smart group of people, and not measuring up intellectually, but putting my body of passion on display with outrageousness and inappropriate conversation. I shouldn't have talked titties. I should have shutup. Sorry. But score, that I didn't punch anyone.
Friday, May 25, 2012
I'm no longer a hospital virgin, having undergone my first real procedure in a hospital since i was born. I did have two stitches to close a cut on my forehead that i sustained from diving head first into a metal bed frame when i was two years old (back in the days when bed springs meant something). i walked into the OR, a bit disappointed because everyone else in the prep area had been wheeled in. "Have I missed the Party?", was the best I could come up with. Just a bunch of bright eyed hospital gowned guys and gals hanging around a very cold room. a couple of introductions. i was trying to be as hip at this cocktail at this party as i could be, striking a nice balance between interested, not too gushy, one of them, please don't hurt my feelings or my body. I hopped up on the table, to some hoo-hawing fanfare that they have to help everyone else up. I guess any show of enthusiasm for their work is lauded. They wrapped me with a warm blanket. i said something about "better than a spa". This mistress of potions and her resident helper who was way too handsome to be an Igor, smacked my hand for a vein to pop, and put an IV in, an oxygen mask over my face. I told Dr Yudin to not fuck it up, chortle chortle, my knees went weak like the best drink in the world, wait for the burning, here comes all the burning down my vein highways like i'm strung up for lethal injection, oh fuck,
an annoying fly of a woman keeps coming in and out on me. is she talking to me. shutup. oh i feel sick. i'm slurring my words. my eyes won't open. i'm going to puke. oh i'm really sick. she's going to throw up, quick, she's going to throw up. blech. what did i have in my stomach? yudin talking. moving, being wheeled. look over, there's clive, warm and golden brown and plump full of life in this gaudy hard light. ice chips. i forgot they were there. dressing my body, slow and thick. more wheeling. clive driving with a fan blowing hot air. open the window. get a breeze. looking over at me, and racing up to stopped vehicles the words can't get out of me fast enough so i hit him. brake.
i'm going to throw up. home. edgar big and strong, moving around too fast for me to catch him. i take his place on the couch. nina comes, bringing food. one forkful and i lie back. still can't keep my eyes open. water. i'm going to be sick. phone ringing. bed. go to bed. edgar follows, lies close. gone, dreaming about about highly painted cruise ships speeding through rice paddies at night.
and then i woke up.
Monday, May 21, 2012
A coyote ran down the centre of the street yesterday at noon. It loped quickly, streaking fawn brown gray past the three oblivious sets of fannies bent over flower beds across the street from me. There is a ravine on the curve of my crescent, a deep dark green wet and steep buffer to the trestle for the commuter trains blasting through to the eastern suburbs. That is where a pair of coyotes live, in a den burrowed into the hill under a deck jutting out into the high cover of tall trees. Small cats go missing around here all the time. The Neville coyote down by the beach has been known to hop a fence, and jump back just as quickly, mouth stuffed with a squealing miniature dog. Scat. What mourning pet owners go looking for in the ravines, when Percy or Tims doesn't come back the next morning or the next week. Poking pooh with sticks. Clive used to take hector, our big bad black cat, to the ravine where he could be a panther, slick shiny black and stealthy through the ferns. I stopped walking Edgar through the ravine when we came upon the body of a newly dead raccoon, not begun to fall back to rot with fluttering crawlies. Just asleep on a bed of fall leaves. I didn't want to see him disintegrate. This morning when we were walking back to the car, up a wide avenue running from the beach flanked with taupe arts&crafts verandas, a posse of three dogs raced up the street. A vaguely coyote-Akita mix chased two Australian sheep dogs in sweeping curves over lawns sidewalk and street all the way to queen street. Follow the mummies and daddies cooing their precocious charges back to their leashes.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
It's a long holiday weekend. Edgar and I are installed on the front veranda in the shade, dozing to the sounds of industrious neighbours madly scrambling away at dirt and plants in hot sun. Obviously to the (NDG) manor born, I'm more suited to a long cool drink, crushed white linen, a snoring dog at my feet. My street has a sound of whooping kids and chatting neighbours like the street I lived my first eleven years on, in Notre-Dame-de-Grace in Montreal, stacked with the Lambert duplexes which were built at the same time as these east end semi-detached two storey houses were. Same trim, floors and doors, same narrow little rooms, same burnt wood and paper smell when the doors and windows have been opened on the first hot day. Plus ca change.... I don't remember neighbours like me, single women with big pooches. Everyone was in some stage of family evolution or devolution, breeding, raising, booting from the nest or baby-sitting grandchildren. We had no backyards, so we played on the street, swang off pipe balustrades like gymnasts, called off hide and seek, and tag, bounced balls against brick walls between the houses in narrow little driveways to the back alley that were paved, and roamed the in-between green between Vendome and Marlowe where a grove of weedy trees could hide forts that we built without Dads or adults of any kind. Public play was on the street, private play was under the balconies and verandas, and in the back gravel alley that ran the length of the block. At night on my way home from a hard day's play, I could hear the neighbours at their kitchen tables eating their dinner, the noise of plates and pots, small conversation, scrapping and washing up. I'm comfortable with this moderate cheek to jowl existence, hearing my neighbours, seeing parents run after their kids, Edgar's friends partaking of the yellow fire hydrant on our front lawn, cocktail hour two houses down. For the most part I'd rather be sitting on the front stoop or porch, than insulated behind the high walls of my back yard. On a long weekend, with my boy, knitting, drinking tall glasses of fuzzy water, exhaling.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
I was the pale cream moon legs poking out from the deep shade of the thatched beach umbrella. Knitting in humid heat that was only relieved by sea breeeze. So humid that the chart paper flopped over, and that the Hebridean yarn which was born in North Sea cold and raw, flushed and plumped in dripping tropical heat.
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Edgar ate my knitting needles
Edgar was advised in no uncertain terms when he came to live here that to touch the knitting was to make his mumma unhappy. We know if mumma isn't happy, no one's happy. The day came when I came home after work, doing my post work home inspection of what mischief (i don't know, is eating kitchen cabinetry mischief?) a galloping 140lb year old bullmastiff can get up to when he's left a lone for a couple of hours. He has been a master shredder of assorted papers, but he had never touched a textile. Until the day I came home and found my knitting had been disturbed. Deep intake of breath. Gingerly picking up the remains. The knitting, of a gray boring brioche note, was untouched. The lovely additurbo needles however were crunched. Good boy. This boy likes sharp implements. One night recently when we were getting ready for bed, he bounded up onto the covers with an ahoy matey tilt to his head and a flash of silver in his mouth. Ack. I had been finding bits of blue plastic around the house, but now I found the source of the plastic, a wonderful henkel paring knife.
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Evolution
In the fall of 2010 I danced my little heart out, performing in Shagara Moon's THE RED SCARF. I rehearsed and sewed and ferried people and bits about for a couple of months between paying gigs as a television production manager. It culminated in four performances over one weekend, at a University of Toronto theatre. A total high. A total relief to have done. A total awareness that I am an introvert, and performing for anymore than three people is a stressor.
A couple of other things happened too. I expended my physical resources, which made me really sick in 2011. Girl issues, iron deficiencies, nothing drastic. I just couldn't walk a block without stopping three times to catch my breath. Only in 2012 am I finally regaining stamina, but after not dancing for what is now close to eighteen months, parts of my body have almost rusted stiff and away from non-use. Originally because I was home on modified puppy maternity leave I had been able to give my attention to this endeavour. It's been a long slog to move from enthusiasm for a fabulous career and being well compensated for lending my skills, to hoarding my best energies for me. My resulting boredom in negotiating kit rentals and lunch receipts for entitled film technicians and walking a tightrope of controlled chaos reached its zenith in the spring of 2012. So i quit. Not really quit quit walk out the door, but I called uncle. This disturbed the well established order of my working relationships, in particular with the producer I had worked for for over 20 years.
I had to face the loss of a good working relationship and a good job, by taking a peon job across the hall as an accounting clerk. Another quasi police show being produced by an American network with money. In the eyes of my old colleagues they probably think I slutted out to the evil empire. But the experiences has been good. I've mostly laughed my pants off so hard everyday I peed. That felt good. I've refocused what I can give and what I would like to do, and what I want to be paid for it. And it only took five months to figure it out.
So now, waiting on my next job, I'm back in the basement, the basement I so desperately tried to avoid 14 years ago. I'm with large dog, knitting needles, fabrics and sewing machines, and a handsome apple iMac. I follow my selection of lifestyle porn blogs, now emboldened to share my own visual aesthetic. I've thought of starting a "journal" blog, a food blog, a quilt blog, a bullmastiff blog, but I think I'll stay with bellydance knitter. There is something disturbing to me where one's life and interests are compartmentalized. Where knitting Turkish stockings leaves off, collecting Persian rugs begins, and where sitting on a rug ends with a meal adapted from Paula Wolfert's writing, discussing Edith Wharton and where the Arab Spring meets Occupy Toronto, and my family's well trod path through alcoholism and addiction to wellness and healing, and wholeness. Not wanting to be too scary here, but the blog is a package deal I think, what I would share with a stranger in a coffee shop, or co-workers by the monitor. Maybe I'm too open a book, too shallow, too concerned with pretty colours and nice flavours, too messy, too much rage, too much dog hair. et bien.
So writing on the bellydance knitter blog continues.
A couple of other things happened too. I expended my physical resources, which made me really sick in 2011. Girl issues, iron deficiencies, nothing drastic. I just couldn't walk a block without stopping three times to catch my breath. Only in 2012 am I finally regaining stamina, but after not dancing for what is now close to eighteen months, parts of my body have almost rusted stiff and away from non-use. Originally because I was home on modified puppy maternity leave I had been able to give my attention to this endeavour. It's been a long slog to move from enthusiasm for a fabulous career and being well compensated for lending my skills, to hoarding my best energies for me. My resulting boredom in negotiating kit rentals and lunch receipts for entitled film technicians and walking a tightrope of controlled chaos reached its zenith in the spring of 2012. So i quit. Not really quit quit walk out the door, but I called uncle. This disturbed the well established order of my working relationships, in particular with the producer I had worked for for over 20 years.
I had to face the loss of a good working relationship and a good job, by taking a peon job across the hall as an accounting clerk. Another quasi police show being produced by an American network with money. In the eyes of my old colleagues they probably think I slutted out to the evil empire. But the experiences has been good. I've mostly laughed my pants off so hard everyday I peed. That felt good. I've refocused what I can give and what I would like to do, and what I want to be paid for it. And it only took five months to figure it out.
So now, waiting on my next job, I'm back in the basement, the basement I so desperately tried to avoid 14 years ago. I'm with large dog, knitting needles, fabrics and sewing machines, and a handsome apple iMac. I follow my selection of lifestyle porn blogs, now emboldened to share my own visual aesthetic. I've thought of starting a "journal" blog, a food blog, a quilt blog, a bullmastiff blog, but I think I'll stay with bellydance knitter. There is something disturbing to me where one's life and interests are compartmentalized. Where knitting Turkish stockings leaves off, collecting Persian rugs begins, and where sitting on a rug ends with a meal adapted from Paula Wolfert's writing, discussing Edith Wharton and where the Arab Spring meets Occupy Toronto, and my family's well trod path through alcoholism and addiction to wellness and healing, and wholeness. Not wanting to be too scary here, but the blog is a package deal I think, what I would share with a stranger in a coffee shop, or co-workers by the monitor. Maybe I'm too open a book, too shallow, too concerned with pretty colours and nice flavours, too messy, too much rage, too much dog hair. et bien.
So writing on the bellydance knitter blog continues.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Seven Year Cycle. Repeat.
THEN:
Almost fourteen years ago I was in the basement watching COPS reruns with my now ex-husband. I wasn't very happy (mind you, my nature is irritable restless and discontented). I was mulling over a possible opportunity to push through to the next dimension in my career. My textile aspirations at the time were humble, daily offerings of stitches knat, and I had only begun to crave the large scale of colour, movement and pattern satisfaction that quilting offered. So I weighed the prospect of staying in the basement, with the now ex-husband and toodling away at my craft, or going big at work. I chose the little red sports car, big budgets, men and machines, and staying out all night. For a very long time my new chosen life was a lot of fun. Along the way, I divorced the husband, found mid-life love for eastern textiles and belly-dancing after I thought I'd never love again, and continued to nurture my passion for yarn and fabric. In that time, I found the like-minded in knitting cafes like THE PURPLE PURL, and online communities like Ravelry. After a seventy hour week, knitting with my friends was my social life. I stopped debating the guilt of stash acquistion, craft or art, and indulged every textile whim I had. Five hundred knitting books, three rooms of wool and fabric, seven bins of belly-dance costuming bling, two new sewing machines and one serger, two hundred and fifty rugs later...I sold the miata, quit the big job, and live with a big bullmastiff boy puppy named Edgar and date my ex-husband. Honey, I'm home!
NOW:
NOW:
THEN:
Almost fourteen years ago I was in the basement watching COPS reruns with my now ex-husband. I wasn't very happy (mind you, my nature is irritable restless and discontented). I was mulling over a possible opportunity to push through to the next dimension in my career. My textile aspirations at the time were humble, daily offerings of stitches knat, and I had only begun to crave the large scale of colour, movement and pattern satisfaction that quilting offered. So I weighed the prospect of staying in the basement, with the now ex-husband and toodling away at my craft, or going big at work. I chose the little red sports car, big budgets, men and machines, and staying out all night. For a very long time my new chosen life was a lot of fun. Along the way, I divorced the husband, found mid-life love for eastern textiles and belly-dancing after I thought I'd never love again, and continued to nurture my passion for yarn and fabric. In that time, I found the like-minded in knitting cafes like THE PURPLE PURL, and online communities like Ravelry. After a seventy hour week, knitting with my friends was my social life. I stopped debating the guilt of stash acquistion, craft or art, and indulged every textile whim I had. Five hundred knitting books, three rooms of wool and fabric, seven bins of belly-dance costuming bling, two new sewing machines and one serger, two hundred and fifty rugs later...I sold the miata, quit the big job, and live with a big bullmastiff boy puppy named Edgar and date my ex-husband. Honey, I'm home!
NOW:
NOW:
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Shagara Moon performed at Riverdale Park on July 1st. The stage was this painted black plywood contraption, which was burning the feet of the dancers in the first number. Blistered and limping, the remaining dances were done on the grass in front of the stage, which was better on the feet and a more intimate performance I think. The khaleegy dancers were like coloured bejeweled butterflies floating on the steep green hill falling down to the Don Valley. So beautiful.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Monday, September 14, 2009
Bellydancing is a fact of my life. It is not a fad, not to be put aside like some of my other pursuits; beach glass mosaics, speed-walking or calligraphy. I can turn my head away for a little while, but somewhere a string of music or a rhythm always catches me. The dance troupe that I've ingratiated myself with is real. As much as I try to fade to the back of the room to observe the pretty young women with bendy bodies, I cannot ignore that I'm taking up space in this room. My body moves, not like a seventeen year old, but it moves. It wants to dance too, heavy and swollen, but with hips that remember. I can summon the zills heavy rhythms in silence. My hips pop, my arms swim, my chest drops. We rehearsed khaleegy yesterday, and I didn't even have to think about how I would drop to my knees. My brain didn't think creaky knees, it just went down. My hair swirled. I'm not here by mistake. Every flaw my body carries is part of my dancing. I am a dancer.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
I went away to a cottage this weekend for two days of summer and swimming. We pretended as best we could that it was warm, but here is a picture of me wearing fleece warmups while drinking my morning coffee and knitting. The ghost of Daddy was close by when I did the "e-e-e-e-ah-ah-ah" cry before submerging in still northern lake waters. When we used to sail with my Dad on Lake Champlain in Vermont, he always had us off the boat in the water before the first cup of coffee, no matter the weather or wind conditions or the temperature. When I woke up Saturday morning on Mink Lake, before a thought bubble had formed over my head, I tripped into a wet bathing suit and stumbled to the lake edge. e-ee-e-eee-e-e-eahhhha -ach. Into still waters I slipped, warming with every stroke, pushing through the top layer cooled by night and finding yesterday afternoon's tepid slick. It was just enough exertion and cold water to wake up, and spur me onto the reward of fleece pants and the first cup of coffee.
We committed the cardinal sin on this trip. Between the two of us, neither of us brought socks. It was cold at night. It was cold after the morning swim. We needed socks.
And I knit socks, continually, religously, obsessively. Thick, thin, working, art-y, plain, cabled, bright, dim. My friends have been giving me gifts of store socks for years. When my mother started to knit again, she gave me socks, of the thick acrylic blend of faux Christmas sock slipper variety. When I go to the ONE OF A KIND show every December in Toronto, I buy the Quebecois mohair bed socks, and of course I buy every other bit of mohair product they have, including short tall mens' womens' black blue natural mauve single double mohair socks and mittens. I give these bed-socks away, and I've kept enough pairs for personal usage that I've managed to stash a pair in all my suitcases and travel packs for "visiting" emergencies. There is nothing worse than sleeping away from home, and being woken by cold feet. There was no precious little knob of mohair bed socks tucked into my bag this weekend. Whimper and wail, no socks.
The ultimate irony was that this was a sockknitting weekend, and between us we had five pairs of unfinished socks. Never again. Je me souviens. Je me souviendra. I'm putting an emergency sock stash everywhere this week.
Monday, August 25, 2008
.....last post in March 2008....yes, in five months there has been knitting, dancing and rugs....again, with the punctuation.....again, with the half-thoughts....
I purchased a rug, while showing a co-worker how to bid on ebay. Ali was turning forty, and she appeared to like the rug, so when it was delivered I gave it to her as a birthday gift. The rug that we had spread out in the office and dug our toes in, lived with us for only a week. Here, it lives virtually and for as long as there are bits and bites and electricity. It has the most unusual deep cherry red, a colour I crave, yet never manage to hold onto for long. Like all shiraz rugs, it's filled with little emblems, flowers, medallions, signs from G*d, animals and aliens. One day I'll study one of my rugs, and read it for a couple of months, checking for cast-off symbols, reckless camels or deliberation of design.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
My Mom's pair of scandinavian socks are modelled by moi, at the base of Sterling Mountain, Smuggler's Notch, Vermont, January 1967. I look at this picture and I feel cold. I remember that thin little jacket, when we regularly skiied at zero farenheit and lower temperatures. I think my wool fixation comes of having been so cold as a kid. Now I'm outfitted with hats, mufflers, scarves, gloves, mittens, thrum mittens, wristies, sweaters thin and heavy, down vests, down jackets, hand-knit socks up the whowho, silk long-johns, cotton long-john underthings, cotton and wool turtlenecks and even electric socks. Those long cold days of eastern skiing ice and rock, frost bite on my face and toes have left with one me with one notable driving force in life; knitting in the chalet at the base with a nice cup of hot chocolate in front of a fire.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
Forgive me blog for I have knit more socks. It's been many months since my last confession of sock completions.... I finished khaki green ribbed socks for Clive, same version different colour (burnt orange/brown) for Lisa, kiddie primary blue/red/green on a white twist for Lynn, hideous white/orange/fushia for me (because they're not going anywhere) . WIP include pink lace from Nancy Bush, briggs&little work socks, and plain socks with selfpatterning mauve,fushia,orange,tan and browns.....
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Thursday, August 16, 2007
My aunts Monique and Micheline went to Morocco last fall. They were a small group of elderly Quebecoise ladies (average age well over 70), including two very well known Quebec actresses. Their intinerary included camping in the desert. Camp was made for them during the day, and appears to be made with kilim rugs strung over wood frames. Their hosts then cooked and served the ladies a Moroccan feast before leaving them alone in the desert to cackle and twitter, gossip and theorize late into the night. The pee shack was away from the camp, by the tree in the background. Each of the little ladies probably had to make their own midnight toddle to the shack (chamber pots being out of fashion) under a big starry night desert sky. Monique gave me this picture when I was in Montreal last week, and it's formed the basis of my own little fantasy world of making a camp with all my rugs, cooking and feeding my friends in the twilight, and dancing to exhaustion by fire and under stars. The pee shack I'm not so sure about.
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