The Gap

It's been nine months since my last couple of posts. And before that little bit last April, there was a gap of almost a year.

I've figured it out. You see, I read other people's blogs and they have babies and there are pictures of them (the babies) sleeping on their (the parent's) lap and the person is knitting. And they say things like "I just can't help it - I have to do something creative every day." They live creative lives.

I don't ask myself how. That I know: there is no such thing as super-mom, -dad, -whoever. You trade what you want for what you can do. Baby got new hand-knit socks, but I'm not even going to think about posting a picture of the giant dust bunnies under the bed who will stealthily come out at night and eat said socks. Right? (Everyone nod in recognition :)


However, I have asked myself why. As in, why don't I? Apart from hectic last-minute hours of sewing presents, I've barely stepped foot in the studio. Granted, half the time the past year-and-a-half it was full of crap from our floor renovation, but it's not like I went down into the depths to retrieve my sewing because, you know, I needed to make something. Apparently I don't. And this made me feel less of a crafter, less....genuine.

I've gotten over it :)

And that's 'cause I've figured it out. Mr. S.'s Nana (who sadly passed away almost a year ago) said of me, before Safiya was born, that I was going to be a mother "like a hen to baby chicks". I had no idea what she meant. I was hoping it was a compliment, but I could tell by her tone that it wasn't, not exactly. It's taken me a while, but I get it now.


Have you ever tried to take a chick away from a hen? Hens are vicious. And it's true, I'm that kind of protective and watchful over my children. But you know what else? That's all hens do. They eat and they take care of their chicks. And that's me. All my energy, creative or otherwise, goes into my baby. And that's just the way it is.


Until one day the desire comes back. That restless feeling starts. Fabric bins are sorted for no other reason than to feel the fabric and see the wonderful colours.

The last time that happened was the beginning of this space five years ago: Valentine's Day, 2007. Safiya was two-and-a-half years old.

Zinadine's almost two. So if you see the odd sight of a hen clucking down the road, needle in hand (wing?), a cloud of fabric scraps trailing after her, don't worry, it's just me, flying the coop :)

Takin' it to Town...

Zinadine has a grunty-growly thing that he does when he wants something, and wants it badly. I don't remember Safiya doing the same, so maybe it's a boy thing, and maybe it's just him :)

I was putting groceries away when he spied the plum. Never seen one before. Shouldn't have know that it was edible, but boy did that boy want it. Now, we're a lot more relaxed about food with this one than we ever were with Safiya, but still...should I peel it? Is it even ripe?


Whatever. The boy did not care. Grrrrr. Want it. Grabby grabby. So of course, I gave it to him, if only to see what he would do with it. And he took. it. to. town. Skin, didn't matter. Juicy, didn't matter. He yelled at me when I took it away to take the pit out. It was a both-hands-stuff-in-mouth kind of experience.

I love watching him, experiencing the privilege of watching another kid grow. I love watching him watch his sister, his open-mouth-face-lit-up laugh when she does something that he thinks is awesome. I love that he pauses nursing late in the afternoon and casually signs "Dad", as if, "I was just thinking about him...." I love that he dances to his favourite songs (Queen's "Under Pressure" and Regina Spektor's "On the Radio") as if he's just discovered dancing. I love may many things about him and about having two kids.


It's been almost a year since my last post. Truth be told, besides the greatness that is having the boy and our little family, it's been a hard year. And my camera died in the middle of it, so the record of Zinadine's first year is going to be a little spottier than Safiya's. Call it second-child syndrome.

There have been more than a few times when I thought "I should write that down". I guess I wasn't ready. Well, time to think of a new banner, time to share some pics, time to use my words again.

Hello there.

Getting Ready to Bloom

Today is a day of sun and warm breeze and, of unexpected peas!

Everything at our house is getting ready to bloom...


Including me!

Content, I have to laugh at a sidewalk chalk game that Safiya made up, 'cause it's something that I'm whispering to The Bump all the time now:

So Start!

On Dropping Out and Then Coming Back (or, Trying to Ignore Physics)

This feels awkward. I'm still here, and I've desired to write lately, but there's a little something that keeps getting in the way, so I'd like to deal with it. Namely, not being around for a couple of months. I'm going to go beyond a simple apology because although what's been occupying my time and life really has been personal (and broader than what I'm going to write about now) and there are a lot of details that I'm going to omit here because yes, they're personal, there's something really important that I've learned that I'm going to write about because it's a lesson that I cannot let myself forget.

Mr. S. was right.

Ha! He'll like that....Actually, it's more along the lines of him, frustration in his eyes, sitting across from me at the kitchen table, saying "you can't take care of everybody."

Now, most of you who know me could probable take a stab at what would be my usual response to that. "No, but I can try...."

Guess what, I failed. How do I know? Because in trying to take care of everybody, I failed to take care of myself. I ended up with a huge thyroid hormone imbalance (I'm dependent on thyroid hormone replacement as my thyroid decided to mutiny a couple years back and I had it dealt with) and a massive B12 deficiency. While being pregnant. (p.s. baby's o.k. and kicking up a storm) Crawling on my hands and knees up the stairs to go to bed at 6pm wasn't a big enough hint. Having to bow out of volunteer commitments wasn't a big enough hint. Mr. S. doing the laundry, the cleaning, etc., etc., to cover for me wasn't a big enough hint. Even Safiya looking at me with a smile after a rare moment of light-heartedness from me and saying "Mama, I like your face like that!" wasn't a big enough hint. Not caring; being too tired to care after a lifetime of being able to find a little bit of beauty, no matter how small, in every single day didn't do it either. Actually, it was the not caring that frightened me the most (although, at the time....)

I don't do weakness well, and I certainly don't do vulnerability well. I understand that many, many people are dependent on something external to themselves for their mental health. To be brought to that lesson in a physical way (and by my own doing) was a harsh lesson for me. I am dependent on this:

That's my daily medicine. That is one molecule, one vital link, in all the hormonal workings in my body. And to this I say to myself, to remember: You cannot argue with physics. If you don't pay attention, sooner or later the physical world is going to smack you, and you'll be caught by surprise. Which brings me to gratitude. I have a great husband and daughter, a social safety net that provides free access to excellent physicians, and I have education and experience enough to know my way around the system to get what I need when it hits me that I am in need. That is, I am fortunate that my life has back-up and resiliency to allow for stupid self-care.

Hopefully I won't have to use it again. And it is my hope as well (and it's been proven already) that the lovely people around me also have back-up and resiliency to allow for my stupid self-care (which regretfully translated into neglect for some of my loved and much-liked ones). And to them I say, with much gratitude and humbleness....thank-you.

Now, let's carry on......

This One is For Ruthy

Back in October at Thanksgiving, we were fortunate to meet up with old friends for the evening. Good people who now live far away and live separate lives from us - we were just getting to know them before they moved, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to see them again. I was taken aback (in a pleasant way) when she said, "Hey! You haven't blogged in a while!"

So this is for Ruthy, because she's the kind of person who so easily reminds me of the wonderful things in life to be grateful for.

I am grateful for (in no particular order):

The warmth of Safiya's little hand as we walk (she still takes mine automatically whenever we set out somewhere).

Cats. Somehow we've ended up with two cats. Cats are ridiculous creatures, and they make me laugh.


That tenacious streak in Mr. S. and that he's got my back.

Sleep.

My mother and I can drive eachother crazy (Mr. S. often says it's like listening to one person argue with themselves), and probably we both often fail to live up to one another's standards of what we think a mother or a daughter ought to be, but we've got the kind of relationship where after tensions rise, that's it, we're done, now let's go watch a sappy movie and cry together. She tries so hard to be a good person all the time (I've only recently gotten her swearing - it was necessary, and I was so proud of her), she's trustworthy, reliable, slightly crazy (as all mothers are), and I like her the way she is.


Morning sun. That first cleansing morning light.

People who don't remind you of your faults when you've failed, even when they're pretty obvious. I think that's called grace.

After a summer of not being in the studio, coming back and feeling like I'm falling in love all over again.

And that trepidation/joy feeling of new growth (five months of it so far, to be more or less exact :-)



I love that Safiya's drawn the baby upside-down and that I apparently have a gazillion legs.

Like I said, a lot to be grateful for.

A Project That Will Grow...

Ooooo, I've been sitting on this one for a while :-) Now that there's an official introduction out there, I finally get to show my excitement here! I just wanted to make sure that it was really going to happen, and not let anyone down, including myself ;-)

There are a couple of intersecting spheres of activity and ideas here, so I'll do an old-fashioned narrative to straighten things out. Sit down, grab a coffee.

It started with a walk. Good things often do. Late last summer, that is, in 2007, on the way home from a visit to the park, my friend Katharine, the kids and I stopped to talk to a lady who had a very nice pear tree in her front yard. Not an astounding pear tree, but a very nice, abundant pear tree. We complimented (and by that I mean envied) her tree, she said that the landlord used to pick it but no longer did, and that maybe someone she knew was going to come by and pick it, but if not the pears would fall and. would. go. to. waste.

Arg! The Mennonite part of my heart contracted in pain at the thought of that food going to waste, and more and more I started to notice bags of apples and pears being brought to the curb on Tuesday mornings (garbage day) when Safiya and I would be walking to the East York farmers market to buy...apples and pears.

Surely someone could use these? A couple of years ago I had read about Fallen Fruit, an urban fruit foraging group in L.A. There had to be someone in Toronto doing this. At that time, and by this time it was winter, I couldn't find anyone. In spring I fell in with this wonderful group called the Shoelace Collective, a group dedicated to alleviating the symptoms of poverty in our neighbourhood. Practical stuff, like community lunches and dinners, a workers' referral system, and working with the food bank.

Went to a meeting, brought up the idea of a residential fruit harvest; something walkable/bikeable. Where we could share the harvest with our neighbours, with an emphasis on preserving the harvest so that we could use it for dinners or donate it to the food bank or have a bazaar and sell it or give it away...the list of ideas got big fast :-)

A late summer meeting saw us ready to go, with a name and kind of a plan. I'm really a "huh, I have feet and hands, you have a fruit tree, I know of a kitchen. Maybe people will join in. And...done." kind of gal. So, with a neighbourhood newsletter in the works, we were waiting to go and then I got a very interesting email from someone at Shoelace after the meeting about....duh duh duhnnnn:

not far from the tree

I emailed Laura, the (phenomenal) project coordinator, right away, hoping to talk to her about some tips for us, since clearly they had their act together :-) They looked to be about a year ahead of us in planning and experience. Perfect. She said, let's talk. We met in a coffee shop. The gleam in our eyes was the same kind of gleam, and Laura took a very large chance. And the rest is history, or actually, just the beginning.


We will be the Woodbine Heights Hub of not far from the tree. As each neighbourhood is unique, we retain a similar, but slightly different mandate (ward 21 donates fresh fruit, we'll have an emphasis on preserving) and our own not-for-profit affiliations (Shoelace, in our case), but are under the beautiful, caring, inspired umbrella of not far from the tree.

And I have to say, it gave me goose-bumps when I sat in that first meeting with Laura and we shared the vision of the entire City of Toronto covered; linked, with these hubs. "Can you imagine?" we kept saying...

But as for now, now it's just me and my neighbourhood. 'Cause that's where food security starts. And everything starts with food security.

peace and sweet, fruitful dreams to you, my friends...

We're Back

We did this. For a while. And as it is said: it was good.

Now, much too chill air bookends the days. I'm already wearing woolen socks. But in the spirit of a just-passed-us-by-and-much-too-quickly August, this evening we took part in quite possibly the most urban thing ever: we roasted the last of our vegan marshmallows in the kitchen, over our stove...using chopsticks as sticks.

Seems like a strangely Canadian thing to do, too, although I hear generations of campers rolling over in their graves. ha!

There are many stories to tell, much to catch up on. Including my work for this weekend's Queen West Art Crawl, into which I was accepted. So now, on to a some late night crafting.

I hope you have been keeping well this summer's end. Good to be here again.

Just a Note to Say...

thank you.

It's been a year :: three hundred and sixty-five days :: just over twelve lunar cycles :: one hundred and seventy-five posts since the beginning. Thank you for stepping into this stream every once in a while. If you've been here since I started, thanks for keeping up. If we've just met, thanks for taking that little bit out of your day to wave hi from the other side. All of the thoughtful encouragements and comments over this year have been invaluable to me and greatly appreciated. If we haven't met yet...I can't wait! ;-)

So here starts another year. The things I love haven't changed much since I took a look around last February, and for most things the feeling has rooted deeper, more secure. Hopefully those roots are going to bring up some strong sweet water...I'm excited to see what leafs out over the next year....

peace

Marnie

Hello Again...Today is Thursday

Two weeks of summer busy-ness, of beach, family, friends, and re-ing.....re-evaluating, re-learning, re-examining. Even though this ended up being an unintended blogging break, there's a two week trail of orphaned posts-in-progress. I can't bear to just leave them there, so their faces will be scrubbed up and they'll be sent out here, all proper-like.

I'll try to keep them in order, but they're a little unruly, as all summer children should be!

Elasticity

Trying something new usually has an attendant amount of anxiety attached to the experience, or it used to for me. Well, maybe not anxiety, but at least a healthy self-respecting dose of worry. I'm the kind of person who maps things out ahead of time, who has read the directions before, who has a binder of appliance manuals, organised into subcategories, on our bookshelf. Freakish, I know. These days my brain is a bit more elastic (or maybe it's just floppy from getting older...huh) and I don't mind throwing cautiousness to the wind and in fact find creativity feeds off new experiences, both bodily and mindfully. So, a new thing today:

A Sunny, Frigid Day at the Beach

A last minute decision, a different bus than usual, and 10 minutes from our house...I'd forgotten how nice it was - the sound of waves strange to me in such a cold context, the birds fluttering on the breeze...we collected rocks, looked at the freezing water gently rolling in, then came home for hot chocolate.

Oddly, this tied in to crafting today. Once again, I felted a sweater whole-hog, intending it for a project for a little babe, and it did not turn out, which was too bad, as I liked the colours and pattern. It was 99% wool, and 1% "other". Whatever the "other" was, it wrecked the elasticity, and I can't use it for what I'd like...So I had an idea and tried something new:


Hee hee, you'll never guess! Anyway, even if it doesn't turn out, it was fun trying!

Connecting the Dots (in which there are italics)

"That's what you should blog about" said my husband last night after eating some homemade cornbread. So, how do you take an appealing picture of cornbread when artificial light is all that's available? You don't. Here's the empty pan.....


(The recipe I found by googling for vegan cornbread recipes - it was very scrumptious)

What's this blog really going to be about? (Besides the occasional side-dish about food because, well, I looove food.) I'm really good at ideas, it's the doing that sometimes catches me up. There's a stash of fabric and thrifted wool in my basement (patiently waiting a finished space to call its own, but that's another story), a new sewing machine as-yet-untried, an assortment of projects half-underway in various spots around our little lovely house, and a list of things promised and not finished. This space is my space (mine - all mine! mwah ha ha) for exploring creativity in-between taking care of a toddler, running a household (I say with authority - ha! ask my other about that one), and maybe, just maybe, starting a little enterprise of my own...we'll see...

A sample of little things of which I'm proud:

Birthday Beanbags

Tea Cozy
(felted wool lining)

Recycled Wool Sweater Blanket
(machine pieced, cotton twill backing, hand knotted for extra strength)
(with my daughter jumping on it - doubly proud of her)

I see others around me in this craft blog world (I think it all started for me with an innocent google-walk that ended with Amy at Angry Chicken and it's just spiralled from there) and they're so inspiring, so various in their voices, and just a lot of fun to read - they've made it look like fun, so I thought I'd try it out. (A good friend said "just do it as an experiment - that way there is absolutely no failure".) I like the sound of that.

Note to self: Add projects to be done, add list of lovely blogs....

If you're reading this, please be patient, I'm new to this, so the site will metamorphose in an erratic way, I'm sure - enjoy!

Post Number One

There are many things that I love....my daughter and husband being a big love, and then there are the smaller loves. The anticipation of chocolate, small kindnesses from friends that cheer a day, the full-blown sad-movie cry that you can't stop no matter how ridiculous your brain says it is, the sound of cicadas in the trees on those skirt-stuck-to-the-back-of-your-legs days in the middle of August (remember those?) Wrapping my fingers around a warm mug of something...anything!...on a day as cold as it is today. Making things. And the smell of roses, always the smell of roses.

That's my Valentine for today.