so, so long

You may have noticed that there is a LARGE gap in posts. I posted sporadically last summer, and then not at all until this week.

Things have shifted a lot since Eamon was born. Yes, I am married to the same man and live in the same apartment, but I don't do the same things from day to day. Theater has been my passion for many, many years. I still love it, but I don't know how to continue working in it when the pay wouldn't cover child care and the hours are long. More than anything, I want to be there for my son. Theater not only would take me away, but it wouldn't help me provide for him.

Last August, confused about what to do with my life, I went to a career development workshop that my alma mater was hosting for moms looking to start working again. I had been working 1 day per week since Jan 2011 and I had designed the set for a show, but I didn't feel like I had a career or focus anymore.

The workshop enabled me to see what skills I had and how I could best use them, and in late September I launched my new business, Eliza's Eye Family Photography.  The business took up every spare moment I had in the fall, between figuring out how to run it, doing shoots, retouching photos and whatnot - all during Eamon's naps and after he is in bed or when Christopher could watch him. Now that the logistics of the business have been more or less figured out (though of course there is always room to grow), I feel a little more able to knit and read blogs and whatever else I did before. And so I am back.

I'm not sure where this blog will go, or if I will continue it for long. But it might be fun to see where it takes me...

reflecting on New Years past

Happy New Year!

Last night we had our first New Year's Eve as parents. We went to an early evening, kid-friendly party and were home by 7:30. Eamon was asleep by 8 (an hour later than usual) and Christopher and I cooked some mushroom-barley soup while waiting for midnight. It was chill, stress-free, calm.

It gave me time to think about New Years' past, and how each one is reflective of my life as it was at that point.

High school: watching a friend get drunk at her parents' New Year's party and being frightened that she would die because she had a headache. (clearly the drug education class we took in 8th grade made its mark on me.)
College year abroad: wandering the Champs Elysee with my French-American friend, drinking wine and wishing all who passed us a happy New Year. Such a happy memory.

Sometime after college: spending New Year's Day happily alone, wandering Soho and taking a yoga class.

While dating Christopher: after having Austrian fare in Park Slope, we wandered into Prospect Park in time for the fireworks at midnight. The glory of being in a dark, cold park surrounded by tons of families all enjoying the display.

Last year: exhausted from the pregnancy, I begged to leave the party we were at (and had been at for many hours), we were home by 11:30.

I've never been a fan of New Year's Eve, or its bashes. The event never seems to live up to the hype, the feeling that you should be having a GREAT TIME! For me it has never as exhilarating as it is supposed to feel. So being home and having a comforting meal with Christopher? It feels right for where we are right now, even if it doesn't seem exciting or fantastic. And Eamon slept from 8pm to 6:30am, which felt great, even if I didn't go to sleep until 12:30.

Happy new year to you all! I hope to blog more in 2011!

sometimes it's hard to blog

and it's not for lack of time.

It's more for lack of ability to get to the computer, or to type with more than one hand, or to remove small bodies from my lap.Motherhood is going well! Eamon is a friendly little man, super sweet and mellow. He seems to change daily. It's really fun to see him unfold and grow.

I have a few knitting projects to share, and I promise I won't wait another whole month until I do...

the end of a decade

I kind of hate end-of-year summations. In fact, when the New York Times ran their "decade in pictures" feature at the end of December, I skipped it. I just don't like the sentimentality of it. I don't like how those things make me feel, or how they are supposed to make me feel.

Seeing them, and hearing people reflecting on the decade on the radio, did make me think back to my own life in the past decade, however.

In the fall of 1999, I was just finishing my first semester of graduate school. It was a new beginning for me. And now, here at the beginning of 2010, I am expecting my first child, another new beginning.

Some things have stayed the same in the past 10 years: I am still in New York. I still work in theater. I don't feel that much older, and I still take myself and my work as seriously as I did as a grad student.But some things are different: I have a home as opposed to a perch. I sleep on a mattress with a bed frame and not a loft bed a few feet from the ceiling. I am married. I have a cat (though Dinah has been with me since the spring of 2000, so she only just missed sharing the beginning of the decade with me). I lost some innocence by living through 9/11 and its aftermath, and I lost more when Christopher was attacked last year.

I am curious what the next decade will bring. Of course, the first milestone is very clearly in front of me: motherhood. I know that having a child will change my life irrevocably, but I also hope that I won't be giving up the other things that are important to me, namely my relationship to Christopher and my interest/need to create and work.

I hope you all have a wonderful new decade, and of course a happy new year!

working for myself

You probably realize this by now, but I'm slightly obsessed with this economy. I'm sure it will bring a lot of trouble to my life, as I know it's already wrecking havoc on others. Theater work (at my level) seems to be drying up as the funding disappears, and I'm left hoping that every show I'm connected to won't be postponed, downsized, or just really small to begin with (my experience so far this year), and that I do in fact have a future in this business.

I realize that not everyone is experiencing the economy in this way. I went out with some Broadway and Off-Broadway set designers a few weeks ago, and they are very busy. Of course, one of them was doing a show that was way below her level, something a young up and coming designer (like me!) should be working on. But I guess that's life: In a downturn, people take what they can get, and those who are less established get pushed slightly backward on the food chain. (Thank goodness I'm not just finishing grad school or college this year.)

The economy is the Topic Of Discussion in most of the circles I'm in. A few months ago I had lunch with a writer-friend and her composer-husband, and they declared that we should all be seeing this slow period as a time to enrich oneself. Like, with your extra time from being unemployed, learn something you've always wanted to learn, a skill that will get you a better job when the market picks up again. Like, another language, or a software system. I suggested that I could learn to quilt, which they thought was hilarious. I guess they didn't realize I was serious.

With their advice in mind, and my disgruntlement at today's latest you-almost-had-this-design-gig-but-it-no-longer-exists, I've decided to see this as an opportunity to broaden my horizons. I will send out letters, I'll get to know the theater community better and network more. And I'll do some things for my mental health too. Like learn to quilt. And run. And spin yarn. And spend more time with friends.

Last week I started the Couch to 5K program. For those of you who don't know it, it's a running program that gets a non-runner to run. In 9 weeks you should be able to run 5K, or about 3 miles. It starts with a walking warm up, and then intervals of walking and running. I've downloaded a weekly podcast, which instructs me when to start to run or walk, and as of today I've finished week 2. So far, with the exception of Tuesday (the day after the snowstorm, when I went to the gym) I have done all of my running in Prospect Park, which is so gorgeous and just down the street. I have no regrets so far, and am really enjoying being outside (near trees) and getting into shape.

On Saturday Lisa came over, and we spent a few hours spinning together. Unfortunately, we both forgot to take photos before it got dark. But it was inspiring in the way I imagine a running partner to be, both of us there treadling away. I finally finished spinning the half pound of turquoise roving I got from Persimmon Tree Farm at Rhinebeck last fall. (I've actually been spinning it since last fall. Very slowly. Really.) I now have 322 yards from it, and a DK weight, which is a first. I am thinking of making a scarf, something warm but elegant for next fall, to go with my knitted coat. I realized recently that I haven't made much with my handspun, which is kind of ridiculous.

As for quilting... no progress yet (other than my sachet from months ago) but I am 90% sure I'm going to take a course entitled "the Art Quilt" this summer up in Maine. Two intense weeks of quilting, with no internet or cell phone reception. Sounds heavenly, right?

legacy

About two weeks ago, on a Tuesday, I had lunch with my cousin Jane. We're not actually first cousins, though we are around the same age. Her father is my grandmother's much younger half-brother, so technically Jane is my second half-cousin, once removed. How about that? Jane and I recently reconnected on Facebook, and we decided to have lunch.She brought with her a bag with three plates in them. The plates had belonged to my mother's great Aunt Helena, a powerful woman who played quite a strong presence in my mother's life before I was born. I never met her, but my other cousin Nell is named after her, and her name is still spoken with reverence by everyone in my mother's family. Having something that belonged to her is an honor, even if it's a single plate (I am to divide the set among myself and my female cousins).

On the same day, coincidentally, I received an email from one of Anne's friends, asking me what size shoes I wore. Apparently my feet are too small to wear some of Anne's shoes, but some blouses and a skirt are being held aside for me.

These gifts, these small reminders of these women, made me very thoughtful that day. My grandmother had been a doctor, attending medical school in the early 1940s, when my father was still small. This day of receiving reminded me of something that was said to me at her funeral, an offhand comment from another relative, that her footsteps were a lot to fill but that I was lucky to have such a role model in my life.

Many role models, really. I am so lucky.

Happy New Year!

We had a good end to 2008-- brunch with Christopher's aunt and uncle and cousins, an afternoon at the Coop doing a hurried make up shift, and friends for dinner and wine. Overall the day was friendly and open, with hope and good feelings for the future. This is a can of champagne that I received at my bridal shower more than 2 years ago. I broke it out last night for the celebration. It was rather gross but fun to drink.

Yesterday the Coop closed early, and therefore was mobbed. I watched as a friend of mine who works there kept her temper in check. I tried to assure her that people would be more considerate once the holiday season was over.

Why I like the Coop: I witnessed a shopper drop a jar of something (applesauce?). He immediately found a broom and swept it to the side, and then got a mop and "wet floor" sign and cleaned up the mess.

Why Christopher hates the Coop: A woman told me that she doesn't understand why the Coop stocks pork, when "pigs are our pets and friends."

We've been laying low today, swearing we'd do some organizing, cleaning and purging. It's slow going, and it's much more interesting to start a new knitting project or listen to the radio while lazing on the sofa. We're starting to make some progress. Slowly. Surely.

Have a good year!

keeping moving

We had a very busy weekend this weekend. After an awards ceremony on Friday night for the theater festival we participated in this summer (we won best director), we ran to Philadelphia on Saturday morning to see family.

As previously mentioned, Christopher's sister had a baby at the end of June. Little Alden is now 2 months old, and he's so much bigger (and more exciting) than when we saw him a month ago. We also had a good time with Alden's big brother Isaac, who is now four, and he asked me if I'd succeeded in getting dressed. (clearly, getting dressed is what he's learning these days.)

Sunday would have been our friend Anne's 65th birthday. Last year Christopher and I drove down from NY with Anne's best friend, and celebrated her birthday with her friends at my parents' house. This year sadly it was the day of her memorial service instead. My parents hosted a brunch for her family and friends from out of town, and after a short break Christopher and I walked over to the Philadelphia Museum to catch a bus downtown for the service.

I'd never been to a memorial of this magnitude. Anne was the director of the museum for about 25 years, and she knew and touched a lot of very interesting people. The memorial was at the Academy of Music (which I hadn't been in since going to Philadelphia Orchestra concerts with my grandmother in high school). They estimated 2,000 guests, most of the Philadelphia art world as well as her family, her husband's family and various important art people from around the world.
The director of the British Museum spoke, as did the director of the Getty, and director emeritus of MoMA and Matisse's granddaughter. My parents and I didn't see them, but the paper reported that Christo and Jeanne-Claude were there, along with Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly and Richard Gluckman.

Afterwards, we took a bus back to the Museum for a reception.
We mostly hung out with my parents, drinking wine and eating cheese and grapes in the grand hall before we discovered that there were tables on the terrace in front of the museum.It was dark and hard to photograph, so you'll have to trust me that there's no other view of Philadelphia quite like the one from the top of the Museum steps, and it was a real treat to be able to sit at a cafe table there, drinking wine and chatting with people from all parts of my parents' lives.

It was such an odd way to wish farewell to someone we knew. She had this very important public life, one which we didn't have a great part of, but it's how most people knew her. At the same time, the woman I knew, who was very gracious and generous and warm was also very private. I had very few personal conversations with her, which I really regret now. I'm not sure how that could have been different, but I now wish I could have asked her how she maneuvered the ropes the way she did, and how she learned to be so tactful. I regret not knowing more about how she perceived her position in the art world.

ETA: I forgot to mention that there was this marvelous silence before the memorial started. Most of the guests were sitting down and ready well before 5, and when the chimes went off in the lobby to make everyone sit at 4:55, everyone got silent. You'd think that within a minute or so they'd all realize that it was just the chimes, but the audience stayed very still until the service started at around 5:07. The silence was wonderful, and I was just astounded at how 2,000 people could suddenly just decide to be quiet. Perhaps this can only happen in a Quaker city.

more thoughts on art

My knitting projects have become less portable recently. The blanket I'm making for my new nephew is being pieced together, the sweaters are so cumbersome, my mother's cowl needs only to be bound off but it's very fiddly. So instead of knitting on the subway, I've been carrying one of Christopher's old New Yorkers with me.

Today I read the most interesting article about the cave paintings found at Chauvet, France in 1994. I remember hearing about them a few years ago, perhaps when I subscribed to National Geographic. Anyway, the article is all about how the researchers are studying the paintings and caves and trying to figure out who the people were who lived there. To give you some perspective, these paintings are surmised to be 35,000 years old. That's really, really old. The cave paintings at Lascaux, which I studied in my college art history class, are only half that age, but they look so much more primitive. (I am not so comfortable copying over the images from their respective sites, so you might just want to follow the links to see what I'm talking about.)

Anyway, apart from the Chauvet caves being untouched for 35,000 years and the fact that the drawings look like they jumped off an art student's tablet, the article had another really interesting quote:

The authors cited laboratory experiments with subjects in an induced-trance state which suggested that the human optic system generates the same types of visual illusions, in the same three stages, differing only slightly by culture, whatever the stimulus: drugs, music, pain, fasting, repetitive movements, solitude, or high carbon-dioxide levels (a phenomenon that is common in close underground chambers).

Isn't that interesting? (Am I the only one who finds this idea completely mind blowing?) I mean, that trance like state, a state that a monk might easily slip into and that you might call "transcendent," is being compared to shooting up and to starvation. (Yeah, St Francis!)

Of course, they don't explain what those three stages are, and it's not like I'm having visions... but I feel like this is related to the same scary feeling I was trying to explain last week when I was talking about the act of designing, and how I let myself go to my unconscious when I design and how scary that can be. And how I don't feel that same fear when I knit, though in some ways it's similar (because it's a repetitive movement?) though less deep.

Thoughts?

perspectives

Last weekend I went to my high school reunion. 15 years. It's really hard to think about and really get a handle on what has happened in that time. I mean, a lot has happened. A lot of good things, things that have steered me in the right direction and to the life I lead now.

College. Internships. Struggling in New York. Grad school. More struggling in New York. Meeting Christopher. Getting my own apartment. Moving in with him. Struggling some more in New York.

Things have really come together in a way that I couldn't have anticipated 15 years ago. When I was in high school I worked very hard not to be noticed, to blend in. I was so, so, so self-conscious. I raised my hand only in the most dire situations. It's taken me a long time to trust my own opinions and aesthetics. (Grad school was a huge help in helping me understand that what I made and liked was often much more successful than something I created to please a professor.)My closest friends from high school didn't go to the reunion, and for a moment on Saturday afternoon I was seized with silent panic as I greeted people who I had barely spoken to in our 13 years as classmates. But I relaxed, and people were friendly, and more and more classmates arrived.

There was so much to catch up on! Pregnancies, children, careers, family. And there were memories to hash out. By the end of the afternoon I was wandering around the school with two women who I had barely seen since graduation, talking about elementary school and various events we we remembered each other being involved in. It was really fun. That evening we all met at a bar in Manayunk and I spoke to another woman who I had been close to when we were in elementary school.

Throughout this all, I was struck by how much we remember from so long ago, things that were so serious and helped mold us into who we are now. Fifth and sixth grades are so horrible, with puberty and kids forming alliances and some kids just developing at different speeds than other kids. (In case you couldn't tell, I was one of the slower ones to catch on to fashion and cliques.) There's also this feeling at that age that everyone else has it together, and I remember feeling so alone, lost and vulnerable. And I thought I was the only one who didn't have it together. Talking to these women gave me a whole other way of understanding what was going on. Clearly we had all had a hard time, and we had all found different ways of coping with it (and talking about our fears with each other just wasn't an option. Interesting since that's how I deal with stress now).

Ok. Here's the revelation, and why I've been dwelling on this all week: no one is as perfect as they may seem. This isn't really news, but knowing that I wasn't the only one with self-esteem issues growing up (even if I thought certain people had it all together) changes the way I felt like I fit into this group. Suddenly we were all flailing around, not just me. And this week the world (and how I fit into it) just feels different.

exhaustion

Recovering from Christopher's attack is strange. On the one hand I feel like it shouldn't be that hard for me: he's looking tons better, he's now able to take the subway alone to Manhattan (though not home). On the other hand, his eye is still bruised, he still sees double, and we're both nervous to go out at night. We are both feeling rather vulnerable.

Each day is very different. Some days I feel energized. I have things to do. I go to work. I get my hair cut. I go grocery shopping. I vacuum. Other days, I feel really sapped. Yesterday was like that. We had put a lot of energy into Christopher's reading (which went very well!) and totally crashed on Thursday night. When I got up to go to work on Friday I just felt unable to face the day, and I went back to bed for a few hours. (Luckily for me, my work is flexible and they have been very understanding. Not that I get paid when I don't show up, but at least I don't lose my job.) I spent the rest of the day at home, doing yoga and pulling our tax information together (yeah, we still haven't filed. It was just really low priority).

There is another thing that I've finally found solace in (and I knew I would, it just took a little time): my spinning.

I'm not a great spinner. And I mean that in many ways: I'm inexperienced and I don't produce a lot of yarn. Since getting my wheel in December, I've made one skein of (rather ugly) yarn. That's not a great average. Since then I've been very slowly working my way through the rest of my maroon merino multi 64s. Some of it was on a bobbin and I started filling a second one right after Christopher's attack. I didn't get far because it was just overwhelming, too much for me to deal with right then. Well, yesterday I sat down for about an hour and just spun and spun, and this morning I spun some more, and I'm now out of the maroon roving. I'm rather proud of myself, and I'm pretty excited about how much I liked spinning. It put me in a calmer place, and that's what I need right now. I hope to ply it this weekend, and I'm looking forward to trying a new fiber. I'm so charged by spinning at the moment that all I want to do right now is spin and spin.

If only that I didn't have other things to do, like our taxes.

spring renewal

We took our walk on Friday, an hour or two lazy loop of the Botanical Garden. It was bright and the Bacitracin on Christopher's wounds somehow leaked into his eye, so he was uncomfortable. (We didn't realize that the Bacitracin was the cause of his pain until we got home and we flushed his eye and removed the bandage.) It was nice to be out though, and the spring weather was fantastic.

On Saturday we rented a car and drove to Hartford, where we saw the final performance of the show I'd designed (and abandoned). Everyone up there had done a wonderful job pulling the design together in my absence, and the trip gave me closure as well as a sense of pride. The set looked damn good, if I dare say. (Hopefully the pro photos look better than mine; it was really tough to photograph well.)

We spent the night in Amherst, MA, at the home of family friends, and on Sunday morning I had pure alone time, the first in ages. Our hosts were out of town for Passover, so the house was ours, and while Christopher slept I sat on the patio with my journal and just wrote and enjoyed the sunlight for a few hours. It was rejuvenating and relaxing, exactly what I needed.

When Christopher got up, we headed into Northampton, where we found a new wallet for him before wandering around the Smith College campus. For those of you who don't know, this is where I went to college, and the campus looks very different than it did 11+ years ago when I was a student there. Most confusing to me is that my house (or dorm) has been gut renovated and the houses around it have all been moved to different spots, a few were torn down, and this massive student center was built in the space that was left. I can't remember anymore where everything used to be, but the area I knew best just doesn't feel very familiar. It's rather disconcerting.

Spring is here! Going 3+ hours north was a little like going back a few weeks in the life cycle of the plants in NYC; here there are more blossoms and the leaves are just about out. In Massachusetts the leaves were just poking out, the peonies in our friends' garden just sprouting.

I'm glad. I need this weather and the cheer that comes with it.

life on the road

My life has been a whirlwind since we got back from Germany. I am designing sets and costumes for a show in Hartford, CT, and so I've been trekking up and back weekly. I used to think that I'd like business trips, because I like to travel, but I'm discovering that I don't. Traveling for fun is so different than traveling for work. When you travel for work you only have work and work-related things to do. There is no going home at the end of the day, and there's not much time off that's very focused or relaxing.

A few years ago I designed the set for a play in Vermont, and the only place to go in town (besides the theater and a bake shop, where you couldn't really sit) was my haunted hotel room, where there was a really dinky TV and 24 hour news coverage of the Pope's deathwatch. I have never had much interest in the Pope, but in this case it was utterly absorbing. I kid you not. (perhaps I wouldn't have this problem if was in a higher paying field, but still.)

Anyway, I'm nearing the final stretch in this project, and it's really nice that the end is in sight. I'm looking forward to having time to pet the cat and organize my yarn (which I'm embarrassed to say is all over the place). On the other hand, I have two more set design projects waiting in the wings. We had a meeting for one this afternoon and the other one will be in full swing almost as soon as I get back. It's exciting to have so much to work on, and I certainly can't complain, but I also wonder whether my life will always be this hectic. I mean, this is the career I chose, and I knew that this was the lifestyle that came with it. But the lifestyle makes more sense when you're 25 and single. How does one incorporate a family life into this time sucker of an art form?

holiday roundup

We had very busy 48 hour trip to Philadelphia, to spend time with our families over the holiday. I feel like we were being social in almost all of those 48 hours, and I'm rather relieved to be back, though the time there really wasn't unpleasant at all. Dinah is also happy to see us.

Here is a photo of my parents' impromptu Christmas tree (and Christopher).
(This- and our own tree- got me thinking recently about dim lights in the dark, and how I start enjoying both the darkness and lights this time of year, mostly in the form of Christmas lights and candles. Neither can be really appreciated, in my opinion, without the other. There's nothing really like sitting in a dark room in front of a roaring fire or meditating on a lit tree. I guess I find it sort of spiritual.)

The other major highlight was being able to spend some time with our nephew, Isaac. He's 3 and we've had trouble finding time to get to know him, since usually we only see him on holidays when there are tons of people. Today we went out and spent a few hours with Christopher's sister and him. It was really fun, especially since he's become very chatty in the past few months.

I hope we can do more of that sometime soon.

cycles

My father turned 70 on Wednesday. Age is so funny, it seems so relative to me. My dad has always been my dad, and perhaps because he's always been 37 odd years older than me, he doesn't seem to get much older. He also isn't someone who has ever lived by society's expectations, so perhaps he never will age, in the usual sense, anyway.

There is going to be a grand party tomorrow, in Philadelphia. A friend of my parents is hosting it, and the guest list keeps growing. My mother and I brainstormed on how to celebrate my father's life during the course of the party, and we settled on doing a mix of music in chronological order bringing us from my father's birth year to today. This idea has evolved, and eventually it became mostly music that my dad really liked from the 50s-60s, plus some other tracks to fill in the other years.
This is my dad, probably when he was in high school.

I spent last Sunday working on this, downloading music from itunes and otherwise filling it out with CDs that we already owned. What's really amazing is the life that he has had. I mean this is totally self-centered, but it's hard for me to imagine his life before I was born. And here is all this obscure music that I've never heard, from a time before I existed, music that he himself requested. Ever heard of The Coasters? They had a really kick ass song called Searchin'. I recommend it.

Last week Christopher gave me some slides from his father's family and asked me to scan them so we could get prints made for the family. Today at work I scanned them during my lunch hour. They are really wonderful, a little peek into the family's life in the late 60s, including a picnic at his father's family's house and his very young mother, looking very shy.That's his dad on the left.

The human experience. These men were, in these photos, much younger than Christopher and I are now. They look so foreign and far away. I want to ask them what it's like there, in the era they are inhabiting. Oddly, I feel the same curiosity towards the photo of my young father as I do to the one of Christopher's dad, who Christopher barely knew. I suppose that this is just how things go, that we grow older and our youth is inconceivable to our children.

it's been a year!! (part 2)

this time I'm not talking about living together!!How does it feel, a year later? Fantastic.

Perspectives

After yesterday's post, I received a wonderful email from my mother which basically said that knitting is not an obsession or escape: it is (at least in my case) an art, and that I should give it that sort of respect. Hearing that from her was a huge relief, a permission of sorts to continue exploring something that has been giving me a lot of pleasure (though I do have this nagging guilt about it).

In any case, yes. I love crafts. I love making things, whether that be a sweater or a meal or a model for a set. I love trying out new combinations and seeing what happens. I love experimenting, seeing what I'm capable of creating. This afternoon I settled down with my sewing machine and made two little blankets for a play that I'm designing. They are supposed to be little fantasy blankets, little bits of comfort to two homeless people from the angel of death. Yesterday I bought some silk and today I just sewed it up. It was very satisfying and easy and now I have some scraps that I feel like I should make something with. Our apartment is a little less deluxe though, so I'm not sure what the scraps would be good for.

I also took a walk this afternoon. Christopher went to a writing group and I was done sewing, so I took advantage of the end of the daylight and get out. It was such a beautiful day! Crisp, sunny, perfect fall weather. I wandered through Prospect Park and just took in everything. I felt a little like I was in that M. Night Shayamalan American Express commercial, the one where he sees meaning in every little gesture. That was what my walk was like. Completely refreshing and invigorating (since I didn't bring my camera I'll share a photo of the park in March, which of course is very different.) My lesson today: that I need to remember to give myself permission to reflect and also do things that I enjoy. When I do, I am a more centered person. The trick is to give myself a few hours to do something for me, whether that be a walk, some time with my sketchbook or the sewing machine.

my state of mind

My beloved Park Slope Food Coop, which I can wax poetic about for hours, is driving me crazy. I joined the Coop in May 2004 and was told then that debit card machines were in the works, that within a few months we'd be able to pay with debit cards. This turned out to be a big lie, and so for the next 3 years I continued to pay for my groceries with cash.

Until now. On October 1, they installed a new cash register/debit card system, which you think would just make everything easier. But alas no. The two times that I have shopped since October 1, both of the cash registers where I've been checking out have frozen and I've had to stand there for 15-20 minutes while someone fixed it. That's two for two. Added to my disillusionment is that on Wednesday, when I did my squad leader shift, two of the other squad leaders (who were responsible for making sure that everything runs smoothly with the cash registers and the cashiers, whereas I'm responsible for making sure the shelves are stocked) did not show up. And I was left to try to pick up the pieces on the shopping floor. It was horrible.

I am not happy with the Coop and have actually decided that it would probably be better to use Fresh Direct for the next month until they've sorted out their new checkout system.

In any case, this is probably bothering me more because of a general anxiety I've been carrying with me for the past month, anxiety which is contributing to frequent headaches that I'm now in the process of being tested for. I've had an MRI. I'm scheduled for an ENG. I sort of feel like a week at a spa or doing yoga would fix my health problems, that they're really just stress-related. (and of course the headaches and appointments only make me more stressed) How can I convince my insurance that acupuncture would be cheaper for them than a brain scan? Or maybe they can send me to a weekend yoga retreat (also probably cheaper than an MRI).
To deal with my sense that nothing is under control, I've been, -yes, you've guessed it!- knitting like mad. Christopher's stocking is coming along (did I mention that it's going to be huge!?) and I've also now started a sweater for myself. Stitch Therapy. If only it really took away my stress; I feel like the knitting is more of a happy compulsion, perhaps an addiction...

remembering things past

I feel like the older I get, the more I think about my past. My cousin Julie is in the Army reserves and is being sent to Afghanistan this fall; I believe that she started active duty on Monday and so we gave her one last hurrah at a party on Saturday. It was bittersweet-- too many people to get a real conversation in and yet I felt a real longing to connect with her before she goes.

Of all of my cousins, Julie is closest to me in age. She is a year and a half older, and when we were kids we played together like good friends. For some reason we would always hang out on the lavender carpeted steps at our grandmother's house, or else we'd mix cocktails of different sodas (Sprite and root beer?) from our grandmother's bar. At some point, sometime around 1985, our grandmother took us both on a cruise to Bermuda. Julie and I would wander around the ship on our own and apparently -at least according to her - I was a terrible troublemaker. I can't help wishing I remembered these things with more clarity. All I remember was that as a child I felt unbelievably alive when I was with Julie. We climbed trees, we explored the cruise ship. And yet this also seems so recent, so much a part of who I am now. Sometimes I feel like I could just reach back and be there.

But now Julie is a mother and a nurse and a soldier, and I'm a wife and a New Yorker and a set designer. But I feel like we still could connect the way we did when we were twelve, if only we had the time and the freedom and the space.

poco a poco

I had a long list of things to do this weekend, and practically none of them got done. I feel like this is a huge weakness of mine: starting an organization project and then sticking through it to the end. The problem is that I start organizing, carry one thing out of the room that belongs somewhere else and then I get distracted on the computer or with my knitting or whatever else. Very little gets accomplished.

What I did do this weekend:

-I visited with my cousin and checked out the condo she's made an offer on in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. The apartment is yet to be built, but it's pretty sweet. (Imagine glass and brick modern cottage and garden here.)-I saw two movies! We never see movies, but recently we've decided to remedy that and are proud new members of Netflix. So on Friday we watched The Bourne Identity and last night we had a date night and saw Eastern Promises. Eastern Promises was certainly haunting; the plot was rather confusing though and it could have been a lot fuller.

-Christopher helped me photograph my knitting projects (or start to) and I've posted them on this fabulous new knitting site called Ravelry. I was on the waiting list from July 5 until I finally got in last week. It's sort of like Facebook for knitting. I'm not sure where to start describing it but it's completely addictive to someone like me. -We saw a series of one-act plays this afternoon and then played squash for 45 minutes. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but for the past 6 weeks or so I've had episodes of dizzyness and headaches. This past week has been especially bad, but for some reason the squash playing took away my headache (which I've had since Wednesday). And it was tons of fun.

-I organized my studio a wee bit and painted my model for a presentation I have tomorrow. I'd been putting that off but it actually went really quickly and will make a huge difference. Anyway, back to my point: I organized the studio a little bit. It's becoming a space where I like to work and where it's not hard to find things. I still need to sort through everything that's on the shelves on the right (and attach the shelves to the wall so they don't tip over some day), but it's beginning to feel right. And Christopher's side of the room is also coming together, but that's another post, another day.