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.

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.