00:00
[music intro, an upbeat instrumental song without lyrics. Music credit: Ketsa “Day Trips”]
Holly 00:30
Morning! hello! I'm so happy to be talking with you. This is earlier than I normally logon to do this but I wanted to say hello.
Holly 00:41
It's been (laughter) it's been a long week, especially for those of us who live in the DC area. I have really been struggling with that very large elephant in the room, that big outside issue that is facing me both as somebody who is, you know, a resident of this place that I love and then also as somebody who is an American citizen. And it hit me this week as I was trying to do online school, which is an outside issue, and then I was getting all these text alerts about the city in which I live going on curfew, which again is another outside issue, and then I was also not feeling well and realizing that we have been exposed to covid-19, which again is another outside issue (exasperated laughter) and I realized that each one of these outside issues would have been enough to inspire pausing and reflecting and resting and yet I was still trying to power through.
Holly 01:55
So I wanted to talk a little bit about that. So the theme today is rest. I know I've talked about this already, but you know,it's been a year. (laughter) I found a lot of comfort in reading Courage to Change, which if you don't know or you're not a member of Al-Anon, Courage to Change is a daily reader. They’re just short little readings, some of them are kind of cheesy, but they’re really meditative and helpful. There’s kind of a tarot-card quality to it. You never know quite what the reading for the day will hold but it always seems to have some small aspect of recovery that I seem to need to hear.
Holly 02:41
And of course I’m off the date. (laughter) I’m behind in my reading. (laughter). So when I open Courage to Change I usually just pick up where I’m at (so it really does have a randomness to it). I read January 1st’s entry, which was about how recovery takes time and how it’s okay for things to take time. And I needed to hear that. I need to hear that because I’ve been really struggling with my recovery. I’ve been trying really hard to work and push things forward and it's taking time.
Holly 03:22
And of course it's taking time. As I just said those three outside issues all together are a lot to handle and I keep expecting myself to be performing as though those outside issues weren’t impacting my life or even the inside issue, which is how my family's had to cope with addiction this year on top of everything else.
Holly 03:41
And so that message was really useful to me and so we took time off. I called the kids out of virtual online school and we've all just kind of flopped and it feels okay. I know that there's work to be done ahead of me but right now what I need to do is rest.
Holly 04:01
And so I wanted to share what I'm knitting. I'm in a big knitting mode. I think it's partly because you know I don't really have the mental energy for anything else and I'm just really really physically tired so I can sit and cuddle with the kids and just work on projects. And so I know I was on here last week (laughing) proclaiming howI was going to move on from my Christmas sweater and embrace bright new things (sarcastic tone) but it feels kind of like it’s December 37th, so I'm still working on my Christmas knitting. My Betty and Jude lodge sweater. I'm really taking my time with it, which feels really nice. I did a tubular bind off, which is a sewn bind off. So right now I'm just kind of doing that kitchener stitch on what feels like 3,000 stitches.
Holly 04:50
The sweater body fits! It fits! I'm so excited! I am not doing it to gauge. I am knitting it with fingering weight yarn and I think it calls for sport weight yarn and so you know I did some hasty gauge swatching math and I realized that if I just cast on two sizes larger it should work. It’s supposed to be a very fitted sweater, which is not my jam to be honest with you (laughing) so it calls for negative ease but I wanted it to just fit so I just knit it my bust size. And that looked like two sizes larger, given the yarn substitution. And that seems to have done the trick because when I tried it on it fit! It doesn't have sleeves yet but when I tried on the body of the sweater it looks good and it's been really fun to sort of try it on with the high-waisted jeans that I wanted to wear it with. It looks really cute, so it's going to be really fun next next Christmas season. And so rather than leaving it to be done later, I just thought: why not? I'm in the headspace for miles of stockinette.
Holly 06:01
And like I said I'm resting. And so that's just where I'm at and I'm letting myself binge watch television shows, which I don't really get to do very often. I feel like all of our devices and all of the spaces in our house get taken up by one of my kids, so that always leaves me to be watching things on my phone, which I don't love. I would rather listen to podcasts or music. But I’m watching television shows and knitting my Christmas sweater and it feels great.
Holly 06:33
When everything, you know, all the outside issues on Wednesday were piling up, I found myself unable to knit even-- I was so distracted--and I also found myself unable to focus on relevant information on the news. Like it was very clear that I needed to like do something else but I couldn't kind of tear myself away from the computer. I was kind of just trying to go through the motions and keep working but really it was allowing me to freak out in a kind of quiet way so what that looked like was that I started Googling like all the couture fashion houses and socks. It was an absurd research inquiry on Google even for me but what I found was a lot of really beautiful, interesting runway pictures of fashion models wearing hand-knit socks (laughter).
Holly 07:29
But the long and short of it is that I found an amazing pattern and cast it on. It's like a sneaky pattern on Ravelry: it's from the Prada show in 2010 (i think its fall-winter show). So it’s from a lifetime ago. The models wore hand-knitted ribbed socks with this intarsia cable down the front. They’re amazing. Google it! Just Google “Prada cable socks” and you’ll see them. They’re really bizarre and interesting and I just became quite taken with them. And then I started to Google more fancy socks. There's a Gucci version as well that has a two-colored intarsia cable, which I highly recommend, (laughter) they're really interesting, too. I was intrigued by the technique and the color and like I said I didn't have any ability to focus productively on work or even be ready to knit and so I just did this deep dive of research on Ravelry.
Holly 08:32
And thank goodness for Ravelry. I know that there's been some controversy about its accessibility as a platform and that sucks because I find it to be such a comfort and I can't imagine not being able to use it. I really hope that they get their act together and make that be much more accessible for all of us so that we can use it as a tool.
Holly 09:00
When I was able to knit again… I went to many, many meetings this week and so I cast on the Prada cable socks. You know it's not the bright Valentine's Day or galentine's day object that I thought it was going to be, but I do have some kind of crazy extra socks on my needles and they're purple and gray they're not really bright but they are kind of outside of my comfort zone and a little bit absurd and that's kind of what I need right now to hold me together as I continue to rest on this weekend and prepare myself to go back to the grind next week.
Holly 09:45
So I hope wherever you are, you're well. I hope that you are finding ways to take care of yourself and I guess my reminder to myself is that recovery takes time and it takes energy and it's hard and sometimes you just need to rest so I hope you are surrounded with beautiful materials. I hope that you are feeling safe and happy and well and I'll talk to you soon.
Holly 10:10
Bye.
[Music Outro: similar upbeat musical interlude as the opening, with more bells trilling. musi c credit: Ketsa “Day Trips”]