What Ignites Me: A Revisitation

As I looked at my last blog post, I thought: it's been THREE months since I've written anything! Have I failed to be ignited? No, of course not. Then I realized that I should really share the poem that inspired the title of my blog. I can't believe I didn't share it right off the bat, in fact. It fits with today's theme because there are three things that ignite me regularly.
1) Working with students and learning from each other.
2) Writing -- reading others' or creating my own.
3) Stitches; yarn; knitting; spinning; crochet; the feel of fiber between my index finger and thumb.

This poem falls under #2.
What I Have Learned So Far

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
no labor in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a cause, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds towards radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of---indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

--Mary Oliver

She's got it right on so many counts. What matters is not the thoughts we sit and think but the action we take. "All kindness begins with the sown seed."

I have finished the wildly patriotic socks, and passed them on. I saw MA today (the student they were for), and I asked him how his middle school experience was going. He said "It's going really great." Just in those words I could hear the genuine quality of his voice, and that he was trying just a little harder to be more grown up. What's happened since June? The sixth graders of last year have become middle schoolers, and they're doing exactly what we as teachers intended for them to do -- grow more independent and responsible. It's so hard to see it happening in your own children (as my son hits fifth grade I see the process just beginning), but as a teacher, it's quite fun to see it happen in other people's children! You get all the benefit and very little weepiness.

There were two other sixth graders to knit socks for last year. HW was one of them, the last of the boys. A bit smaller than the other two LARGE boys (both taller than me, as if that were saying much), HW made up for it in his classroom presence. He was such a creative kid with exceptional ideas about all kinds of things, from group names to literature to art and beyond. At first I thought I'd be making some sort of crazy patterned socks, but once he saw a classmate's blue ones (see previous post) he asked for one that was "all kinds of red". I obliged, to the best of my ability. These socks were knit out of a yarn called Happy Feet DK that is so incredibly soft it's hard to believe it's wool. Harder to believe it's washable. I love them, and if I could have gotten away with it, I would have kept them for me. (After all, all these sixth years have the same size feet as me, essentially!!) But.....bad karma and all that. They got sent to HW. I hope he likes them.


Onward we go. Today one of my now-fifth graders asked what happened to the things I was knitting for them last year. Ummm.....

A Portrait Poem

Today in Writer's Workshop the students started writing Portrait Poems. They're following a specific format, where you start one line with "I am..." and then go on to "I wonder..." and "I hear...", etc. I decided to write one (in the spirit of solidarity), and this is what I came up with. I promptly labeled it my "non-teacherly version" and flipped the page over to write another. Here's the non-teacherly (and therefore more all-around descriptive) one.

I AM Poem

I am exhausted yet full of grit.
I wonder if I could ever get enough sleep.
I hear the tick-tick-ticking of my life.
I see people stacked in corners, waiting.
I want time to slow down.
I am exhausted yet full of grit.

I pretend to love the body I walk in.
I feel whispery touches of ghosts as they pass.
I touch the walls of every room I enter.
I worry about finding the door out.
I cry when I have nothing left to give.
I am exhausted yet full of grit.

I understand that all people can change.
I say that peace begins anew with every moment.
I dream about the touch of my babies.
I try to keep the peace.
I hope happiness can still find us all.
I am exhausted yet full of grit.

In which I wonder if I can finish

It's May 23rd. I have less than a month of school left. 4 pair of socks to finish for sixth year students. 5 bookmarks for fourth years. 6 scarves for fifth years. I am reminded of cribbage games of old when I'd be ahead by a TON of points and my dad would claim: "I ain't worried." And he wasn't. Did he win? Yeah, usually.

So I ain't worried. Am I? No. Am I? No. Am I? Perhaps.....

Here's the pluses:
1. I found the patriotic socks that went missing for a couple weeks and convinced everyone in my house that I was insane, destined to spend my life wandering around looking wildly in every direction, expecting to see a half-formulated woolen American flag flying in some corner of the house. Correction: my husband found them. (Although he was the one who originally misled me, saying that he'd taken them out of the shorts they were in and put them down in the bedroom. He also claimed to have later seen them hanging out in the trash. Talk about a heart attack. Not only is there about ten hours invested in those socks, there's $14 of wool and $16 of needles.)
2. I am over half done with the patriotic socks (for MA) and the blue socks which I have not yet photographed (for WS).
3. Bookmarks are small.
4. Scarves will be crocheted, which is speedy.

Here's the minuses:
1. I have to find a place to live before July 1, an endeavor which is not always easy.
2. I have a bunch of end-of-year reports due tomorrow that aren't finished.
3. I am tired. As in weary, exhausted, emotionally spent, easily frustrated, and overwhelmed with life. I don't want to do anything anymore.
4. I also need to bust out two pair of socks for the auction project (Parent and Child socks, won by our lovely art teacher).

All this, and something new, something exciting. I'm starting to teach knitting on June 3rd at the YMCA! It's a volunteer position, but it doesn't matter. I am beginning to make plans about how to intrigue them, excite them, and infect them with the love for yarn.....

What I Love

I love things that make sense of the messy world. Straight lines, clean edges, a box tied up tight with string. I love how a perfectly symmetrical sphere rests its cool weight in the warm palm of my hand. I love evenly tesselated pictures, geometric patterns that repeat their perfect predictability off the page and into unknown space. I love long complicated mathematical proofs that fill up pages of grid paper and emerge with an equation of pure simplicity.

I love rows and columns, lined up in order and never exceeding their borders. I love the tiny kernels of golden corn on the cob, arranged in perfection vertically and horizontally, each tiny cube pregnant with flavor. Anything arranged in boxes and borders with reasoning and logic is a relief to me.

That may be why I love knitting. I love the neat, even stitches created by two dull knitting needles as they click against each other in a predictable rhythm. It's expected and yet always a surprise when a new row emerges with color and structure in perfect accordance with what I had in mind. It is motion with purpose, motion that has an effect on the world. And it never needs be repeated -- it's not like doing the dishes, or changing the baby's diaper, or paying a bill, or watching tv, or listening to the radio. What's created has been created, and there is no arguing with reality resting in your hands.

Considering

Lately I've been completely tuned out, turned off. I'm like an electronic device that nobody has bothered to charge for weeks. Or just hasn't bothered actually powering up. The first sign of this was the overall lack of knitting. As is often the case, I was the last to notice. Other people noticed. My students commented first: Johanna, what happened to those socks you were knitting? Johanna, have you finished the xxxx project yet? Johanna, why don't you ever KNIT anymore? My co-teacher noticed. And of course, my faithful blog readers noticed the lack of progress in my knitting goals. Didn't you?...... (cue the crickets)....

There were other signs too, of course. It's not just the knitting. But it's an interesting question to pose to the universe: why is it that we stop doing things we love sometimes? Readers will go for a period of months without reading anything. Writers (and this is true of me in particular as a writer) will go a year without writing much worthwhile, and then suddenly come back to it with a vengeance. And knitting, while it is pure medicine for my soul, has suffered the same odd fate in my life too. Where does our joy in things go when it goes missing?

So last Thursday I decided to take action. I was at Webs and just decided to buy the yarn for a very cool blanket that my friend was knitting. It was almost completely funded by gift certificates from my birthday, so it was guiltfree. It's a neat blanket. You make a striped hexagon out of a few parallelograms, then sew the hexes together for a neat optical illusion effect. It's called the Illusion Cube Blanket. I've linked to the pattern, and will post pictures soon. I have finished 5 hexagons, and it's really fun. I hope it's enough to rekindle some joy in yarn and the work of the hands.

Oh Beautiful

For spacious skies, for amber waves of grain...


Come on. Look at the socks. Look at them. And pretend you don't suddenly feel the need to break out into absurdly patriotic song.

That's right. Give in to it. Just make sure it's not "Oh, Canada." I started these during the Olympics and would like to say that I did not do so with the purpose of making patriotic socks. These are NOT for me. I am not sure I want to advertise my attitude towards my nation right now. I also question many of the attitudes that have surrounded patriotism and love for your country in the last ten years. It's all gotten very wrapped up in politics and anti-terrorism, and American flags popped up and sold like hotcakes after 9/11. Genuine American patriotism? Perhaps. Timed to show that being an American means support of violence towards others as part of the process of revenge? Definitely.

I don't know. No, what I do know is that MA loves red, white, and blue. He'll love these, and that's really all that matters. I've been working on these for quite some time -- look at my last post and you'll see what I've been distracted by. My students made amazing embroidery squares, that I also feel the need to share here.













That was just the beginning. The finished pillows have been auctioned off to families of kids in the class. I cannot believe I let them escape without pictures. They sat in a trash bag for a few days while I struggled with other projects before I could sew up the stuffing hole. I didn't leave myself enough time.


Many an adult said: "Oh, so-and-so may be able to embroider, but that other kid? No way." and "that student just doesn't have the attention span for embroidery." Many adults even said such things about their own kids -- oh, my child? Never in a hundred years. But guess what? Guess what? (I am now shouting triumphantly.) They did it. (Ok, that was a smug yet quiet tone. End of shouting.) And they did it with such pride, and such care, that you would have thought they were a young Japanese girl embroidering her own wedding kimono onto silk or satin. Many times they sat around the low table with their embroidery gossiping just like a group of 19th century Bronte sister heroines. But I learned something. Not only did I learn several stitches to teach them (ah, who cares about all that...it's in books, after all). I learned that my students can be gentle, and patient, and attentive to detail and beauty at every turn. They can also be maniacs and loud and obnoxious and frustrating. Welcome to the 9-12 child, Johanna. Did I mention that I love teaching these kids?

A Long Unawaited Post

Well! Good thing I don't have faithful readers to disappoint or anything. I've not been posting for almost two months, but luckily, the earth hasn't been thrown off of its axis or anything. Keeps things in perspective, I'd say.

What I've been up to:
--teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th graders
--parenting a couple kids
--trying to take care of my household as a single parent

-- and knitting/sewing!

Pictures of what's been accomplished: The socks for SA! When I gave them to her, I gave her specific washing instructions, and according to the grapevine, she's been very concerned about wearing them only at special times. That'll wear off in time, I hope. I personally think that handknit socks should be worn EVERY DAY.

Speaking of which, today both kids had on handknit socks. GF was wearing some new ones that I knit for her just recently, and DL had on some quite old ones that are too small for him. He said, "Look! We both have Mommy made socks on!" I was so happy. Here's the ones that GF was wearing.


I knit them up in just a few days. Pink and light teal blue? Yeah, those colors scream Georgia all the way.








Onward -- I did some cross stitch for a Christmas gift (no picture, as it IS a gift that I haven't given yet). And then....one of my lovely fifth-graders, Victoria, left for Africa. For ten months, no less. Yes, that's right. She's 11 and going to Africa for longer than all of my vacations put together so far in my whole damn life. I'm not entirely jealous. Part of me is quite happy for her. And we will ALL miss her...she's such an important part of the class. As a goodbye gift, we all helped to sew her a little creature, which is half falcon and half flying pig (in my class this is called an Ub). The Ub has a short and complex history. It was created in the fall as a brainchild by one of our highly intelligent sixth years. The Ub is mostly pig but does have the capacity to fly. When our class chose names for the two groups that go to Art at different times, they chose the Unexpected Ubs and the Fierce Falcons. So the sewn creature is half and half. And the eccentricity of the creature, which is probably making you giggle, is exactly what we wanted to come across. Our class is eccentric, and creative, and crazy, and giggly, and interested in the world around us. And I adore them for all of those reasons.
Also.....I've knit some socks for a new baby to enter my life -- my friend's little redheaded wonder. I've only hung out with him twice but can reliably say that he is gorgeous and perfect and well-behaved and a wonderful little addition to this world.


If there were a penny next to these you'd realize how tiny they are. I cast on for them when my friend went into labor -- over 4 weeks early. I was under the impression at that point that I was knitting for a preemie. Little did I know that he was coming out at over seven pounds!! And long, long feet. I have to pull out the toes and redo them. No big deal. I also have some booties in the works that I'm afraid that I'm running out of yarn for. He's so fun to knit for.


Also, I finished the quite large socks for a friend of mine that I work with. They are beautiful. They did not fit my foot when I finished them, which bummed me out, but she IS a size 10, and so I held on to a bit of faith that they might fit. And they did!! She commented on how perfect they were. Can't ask for better than that.


The yarn was very nice....Araucania makes it; it was some sort of sock yarn by them that is not too soft but not scratchy either. On sale at Webs!!

I also finished GF's purple sweater that's been in the works for awhile. How can I say this without crying about it? Not sure...but the truth is, she won't wear it. Lovely little child, that one.














In the past month I have also become MUCH more familiar with the ins and outs of embroidery and sewing machines than ever before. Or, as my mom would probably be quick to point out, I used a sewing machine for the first time. My students all embroidered these beautiful squares with African-inspired geometric patterns and I sewed them together (yes, with some guidance from the quilting store and from my mom) into even more beautiful pillows. Next step: quilting.

Next pair of student socks in the works is for MA, who is a complex character in the class who I have a lot to say about. More on him (and a work-in-progress photo that will make you want to sing the national anthem) next time.