On all things juicy

This blog is about life as creative process, and how knitting, living, and creating modifies awareness.

Knitting, food and cooking, herbs and gardening, poetry and writing, music, tea, health and awareness, good wine, tarot, astrology and all things witchy: anything goes!

In English or in French (a WIP) - welcome to everyone on my knitting and creativity blog.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Delayed

I am a tomboy. Always been, always had.

Always had guy friends. Always played with the boys. I dunno why. Girls where too bitchy, too mean, too cry-baby, and uninteresting I presume. Boys had all the cool toys and they didn’t fuss about pesky and annoying girls hang-ups. I was always one of the boys.

Needless to say, I didn’t cry for dolls. I didn’t play “mommy”. I didn’t hosted tea parties (the Martha Stewart hostess streak and cooking gene unfolded later). I had my first Barbie doll at 8 years-old I think, and it’s solely because of the genesis of my Olympic Games craze, back in 1976 when hosted in Montreal. Needless to say I was glued to the TV for all of the games, all the while listening to my Wings Silly Love Songs 45 rpm single record. Oh those where the good times! I so needed to have the Gymnast Barbie. Complete with horizontal bar and gold medal… Oh yeah! After all, with her perfect 10, it was Nadia Comăneci's games. And every little girl's dream too. Tomboy or not.

Oh, but, I almost forgot… that Marie Osmond doll a couple years later. Almost too late, for I was already turning on twelve I think. Blushing. But it’s not my fault. I didn’t request it. I just enjoyed the show very much. And I had that crush on Donny… (my bro got the Donny doll – darn!)

I’m a little bit country
and I’m a little bit rock 'n roll…

I've always been the rebel rocker chick type.

So I requested boy games. Trucks. Tonka trucks, firefighter’s trucks, Mecano build-your-own trucks, Lego blocks, Playmobil kits, and a foot-pedal activated race car. Yellow. My grand-pa’ was appalled, for I was his first grandchild. He refused the Tonka truck, but finally caved in for a firefighter truck I think. Poor parents. They where stuck with quite a handful.

I did get my race car and hence was the coolest kid on the block (if I don’t count in the bullies who continuously took it away from me). I played with my bro’s Fisher-Price garage sliding his Hot Wheels down the ramp two by two for races, with his Lego and Mecano sets and with Youri’s Playmobil. Youri was the little boy across the street and he was not from Russian descent. He was named after Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut. Gotta love those groovy 70’s.

And then came the glorious eighties. And my pinball phase that gobbled up all my quarters. And then I discovered the classics: Pong, Merlin, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man! So I attended the video arcades with boys from my class. I’ve even saved all my allowance money for an Atari console, and after that a Comodore 64. And boy did I play. Till my eyes cried and my fingers ache.

We grow up, but we never quite eradicate the kid in us.

I’m still a tomboy at heart, although an accomplished cook and hostess, a budding gardener, a new part-time mom, and a compulsive yet addicted crafty person as well. They where many phases and crazes as the years went by: my music playing teens, the Jane Fonda aerobics craze complete with headband and fluorescent turquoise leotard, the come and go Yoga and Tai Chi practice, the on and off weird vegetarian bouts, the many explorations of the Occult and the Spiritual, the brief massage therapy career, the desperate (and failed) attempts at Salsa dancing, the container gardening tropical forest occupying all of my balcony. And then I finally came back to my senses and reunited with knitting. Thank God!

You see, I am victim of my Gemini moon which relentlessly makes me flutter from one thing to the other for I must try everything at least once. But I am not a tramp: I am always loyal and faithful to my first loves.

Hence, I am now delayed in my Christmas presents list and in my personal knitting as well. And this is the reason why:


Geeky. Nerdy. Almost shameful. But I don’t care!

ROCK ON!

(Are you gonna go my way drum beat thumping in the background)

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Cornered

It’s almost been a full year of silence.

Silence, yes, but not empty neither uneventful.

In retrospect, a full year of so many things. So many disruptions. The happy ones, and the challenging ones. I am since recovering and coping as much as I can. From both. Yes, too much of a good thing can be disruptive, but mostly unbalancing. And after having succeeded in founding a comfortable zone, I am still reinventing myself and setting the stage for a new episode in my life’s book.

So, I quite dunno where to start actually. And I am a bit ashamed and appalled for such a long hiatus. For letting myself go this much. And sad I got sidetracked from the things I love so much. But from this long and unwished for vacation from writing, I came to realize that I need my blog and my knitting more than I thought I’d do at first, more that I can grasp as well too. And this is a good thing. I think. And second, I did realize that I was posting on Ravelry and on Yahoo Groups in a way much more appropriate and suited for a blog. Further more convincing me of the usefulness of that outlet for my creativity and my many ramblings.

Bottom line, bouts of harsh reality nibbled and eroded my idealist’s view of all things. I don’t feel as funny and as light hearted as I used to be. I feel more adult, more concerned, more responsible, more reasonable. I’m self conscious about exposing the darker side of what’s going on in my knitter’s life, but I cannot pretend that it’s not there. I would be a liar if I wouldn’t.

Cornered. Yes. That is how I feel. I feel better just saying it.

And, thinking about it, it must be related to my mitered corner and short row issues. Life as a way with its lessons… They’re always right under my nose. Cornered! Not for long.

I will get back soon, to talk about my current projects, about the nice workshop I attended this very weekend, about the WIP I succeeded in getting to the FO stage and my ever growing Christmas list.

In conclusion, as long as there will be some knitting… to knit on with solace and might all the while going through life’s little bumps, I should prevail.

PS: One good sign of the newfound wisdom I recently embraced: no more bilingual blog for me, after a full year of ambivalence and angst. If maintaining a translated blog keeps me from having a blog altogether, I prefer to stick to English. No pun intended.