New Rug. Relatively plain for me. I went to J's house, belly-dance head-mistress, and saw a rug I had given her (in complete gratitude for the life altering experience she was sharing with me on a weekly basis). I forgot how lustrous and sharp the red/blue was, so five compulsive shopping minutes later I jacked another rug into my collection (now standing at 100+).

Wooly day on the beach. I walked this afternoon with C. The waves were oily and slow, on their way to unfrozen I think. It snowed all day and I needed to get out and defy my lethargy. Hector was injured in a fight on Friday night. He went slack-jawed, like he did when he went kitty comatose last August, so I brought him into the vet on Saturday morning to check him out. Loaded on pain meds, anti-inflammatories and antibiotics, he's played inside cat for the last two days. He hasn't even bothered to look out a window. He prefers a green hand-knit blanket placed under a rug covered bench beside a heating vent, dark, warm, aesthetically pleasing. Or on my lap. Yesterday's bd class popped my hips with all the hip slides, so both Hector and I have been stiff legged and slow moving. Happy to sit in and knit...

Scarves in a closet... drugs in my pocket... aren't those song lyrics? Caffeinating with one of my knitty friends yesterday morning, she opened the closet on her own personal stash; miles of hand-knit scarves, made by her and (I think) daughter(s) or recovered from Goodwill. There were made from mohair, psychopsuedopoly ooh la la synthetics, and plain and sturdy nothing fancy ma'am muffler wool. I think this scarf collection is the yin to my sock yang. I probably knit a couple of scarves a year (my obsession this year has been alternating two rows of Noro kureyon alternate colourways - my take on looking at the world through pink coloured glasses).

So we all have these bits of scarves, which maybe we eventually tire of. When I'm ready to purge scarves, I think I would like to felt, cut, double and serge like sized pieces, and make a blanket (or a rug). Or unravel the Kureyon and start over again.

Eve. Rug#1. Ground Zero. Mother. Araignee. Maman. with Hector

Post dinner, henna hands, Marrakesh, Morocco, 2002

I just came back from my shoulder numbing wonderful beginner two belly-dancing class. This morning we did arms; persian, snake, temple, egyptian, flamenco-ish, front, side, back, down, combined with undulations and backward camels. It is, after all, undulation bootcamp month. The idea is that on Valentines Day, we should approach our lovers with dropping hip circles and undulations, and rise up in perfect undulation bearing a gift of chocolate (or tv changer or something like that). The studio was cold this morning. We all stayed covered until we were finally able to unfurl our shoulders away from our ears. Belly-dancing came into my life around this time of year, a mid February "get out" pot-luck dinner in a cold condominium party room where the hostess had invited a belly-dancer to show us some basic movements. This beautiful native woman pushed the on button on her portable stereo, and the music that played was music I had been listening to for the past year. I don't know why, but I had never made the connection between North African music and belly-dancing. At that time, I thought belly-dancing was a cheap glittery lounge act. Three years before I had travelled to Morocco with my step-mother and her crew. I was in great physical and mental pain, having just separated from my husband. We stayed in the cheapest hotel she could find in the old part of Marrakesh... no luxury Mamounia Hotel rose petals on the polished cotton sheets for us. Woken to prayers every morning in the dark of 4am, I knew I was in a different place. This was a geographic cure, as far away as I could get from the mess my life was in. I had never had any romantic feelings about North Africa or the Middle East. It was the last place that I ever imagined myself travelling, and frankly the pain of being there was still less than the pain of being alone with myself in an empty house in Toronto. We met wonderful, welcoming people, who invited us into their home, who showed us the hamman. Being with two avid shoppers, we spent a lot of time in the souks. There began a period of obession, passion and acquisition for all things North African; leather, glass, pottery, embroideries, and of course carpets. I had always cooked and shopped vaguely North African foods. My post-trip rug acquisiton phase was probably 60 rugs in the first year alone. Then I bought a CD of Najat Aatabu, so I could complete the mood as I ate my lamb & apricot tagine while lying back on my rug and embroidered pillow covered divan, the floor insulated with six layers of rugs. It was inevitable that a dancing girl had to appear... I just didn't know it was going to be me.

Ok, now I'm pissed... I finished this sock (ok, just about finished, just binding off the toe now), and I've lost the mate. Maria, my heroine cleaning lady, was here on Tuesday morning, and in my rush to clean up for her (yes it's true, I think the true purpose of a cleaning lady is the deadline they impose on your own tidying and putting away), I threw out the sock with pile of newspapers. I just started having the Sunday New York Times delivered, so the pile was hefty... and recycling day was Tuesday... so not only do dryers eat socks, but they can be lost to recycling depots. sniff, sniff, sniff.

Here is a picture of me and my two grandmothers, Gammy (l) & Meme (r). I'm holding Stephen, which was a not too subtle hint to my parents to produce a son, a gift from Gammy. Both of my grandmothers knit, but I observed my maternal grandmother, Meme, knitting more often. However, it was Gammy who produced knitted gifts for my sister and I; mittens, helmet hats, cabled skater girl headbands, sweaters for the two dolls (I only ever had) and an afghan blanket. Gammy was a record-keeper, book-keeper, archiver, not unlike her eldest grand-daughter. It's in her hand-writing that I find patterns for the afghan she knit me when I was sixteen and not particuliarly grateful for her time and colour choices. As a typist, she transcribed detailed patterns, the type that fascinated and scared me when I was approaching knitting for the first time. This was before grids, when all three hundred stitches of a row were painstakingly transcribed. She, naturally, kept a knitting notebook, with some of her more basic patterns. Gammy would have thought the current stash of Italian merinos and cashmere yarns in today's stores a complete waste of money. She was frugal. It was probably her mother that knit that plain little jumper/vest for John (below). In an era when the girls of the household were expected to move those needles and produce, I don't think that I could convince her to buy anything other than Paton's beehive, or the renewing effects of contemplative knitting (with cashmere!). She would have, however, gotten a kick out of the stitch'n bitch evenings that you find in public places these days, if you were to replace the coffee or tea with sherry straight up.

This is my great uncle John, photographed at 16, in 1916 Nova Scotia. I'm not entirely sure about the central heating situation in his home at the time, but I suspect there wasn't any. Looking more closely at the photograph, you can see that he's wearing a handknit vest or sweater in plain knitting. I met a woman today, who moved here from Florida to pursue an artists life, completing the picture by moving into a "real" artists loft with drafty windows, hard metal radiators and crumbling brick walls. Coming from Montreal, I don't think much about Toronto winters. In fact, I don't think any Canadian thinks much about Toronto winters. They aren't much more than a couple of weeks of iced up puddles, and some brisk walks to buy milk at the corner. But this woman from Florida is really cold. She said the transition from heated humidity has been a shock to her system, that trading an outdoor by the sea life for a brutish solitary existence in a loft reclaimed from Toronto's decrepit manufacturing factory stock is too much. I look at this picture of my uncle John and I think that you have to dress for it, accept winter as a contemplative time, put on your wool socks to go to bed, wear long-johns where necessary, and take comfort in hand knits. The trick is preventative... put the socks (sweater, wristies, scarf) on before you get cold. And don't think about it.