storymama

2014: A Love Story in Yarn

I know it's a little late for a Year in Review.  What can I say, we've been a bit distracted round here.  

We're night-weaning Eden.  Hopes for unbroken nights of sleep glimmer before us like heat on the highway, but right now we're in a black comedy of midnight bed-hopping, 2am buttered toast, and morning tea at 5:15.  Robby looks ashen (sorry, sweetie).  I don't know how I look because I gave up looking in the mirror around the time we night-weaned Emmet (he's six now), but I'm sure it's not good.  

Back to the year in review.  Hmm...There's been plenty of introspection here, deep gratitude and uncomfortable truths.  It has been an unforgetable year in all senses.  But, you know, tonight I'm going to keep it simple and write about something from this year that gave me pure, unalloyed joy: knitting.

Knitting, I love you.  You do it all.  You calm my nerves without side effects.  You clothe my family in warmth and color.  You afford me the joy of small, secret yarn purchases before picking up the kids from Grandma's.  You satisfy my need to be productive even when sitting on the couch watching Downton Abbey.  Thank you, knitting! I really don't know what I'd do without you.

I knit all the time and pretty much anywhere, including at stoplights.  If I pass a day without having a knitting project to pick up, I feel noticeably adrift.  The only time I don't feel like knitting is when I'm really sick.  This is how I know I should be in bed.  No desire to knit?  Time for bedrest.

When I find a pattern that I like, I tend to knit it several times.  I like to get to know it from all sides: I try different yarns and make little changes in the pattern to see what happens.  I also like repeating patterns because I start to memorize them and can refer less often to the pattern, which is helpful for someone who knits while nursing and reading picture books aloud.

Here are some of my beloved patterns from last year:

(All links are to patterns on Ravelry, a free networking site for fiber folk.  You can find me on Ravelry here.)

Taking the award for most frequently knitted is the Quynn hat.  I made this hat for my three children, my friend's child, my brother, my sister and myself. It's easy, satsifying and really cute.  And it keeps your ears warm.  My favorite iteration (first, below), for a sweet birthday girl, made use of many of my odds and ends and leftover bits to create the candy-colored stripes.

I also spent a lot of time with the Greyhaven Cowl, making it four times and loving it more each time.  This  pattern taught me to knit lace.  I started out with stitch markers between each repeat of the lace pattern, holding on for dear life.  On the second go, I decided to forgo the markers and found it easier to see the pattern and intuitively find my way through.

This pattern, I really, truly love.  The Griffin is a totally clever and snappy vest for kids that features one of my favorite yarns, Kureyon by Noro.  Delightful knitting, with new colors always coming along to keep you interested.

I entered the cold of November with matching Lyalya balaclava hats for the boys.  (Which was nothing compared to my friend who knitted one for each of her three children and their dolls!)

And for myself...

Madigan in Malabrigo Rios, and a couple of Cupcakes.

As I assemble these photos, I remember not only the joy of finishing these projects and seeing them worn, but the times and places in which I was knitting.  The Madigan on the road to California, the Lyalyas on the tarp at co-op day, the first Griffin in the spring, obsessively knitting after bedtime.  It's all in there, wrapped in the stitches.  What riches! It's been a great year.


 

 

 

 

A Story to Tell: Saint Martin's Light

I stand in the dark, waiting.  

Tucked into a narrow canyon in high mountains, I am surprised by depth of the darkness.  It's so thick it seems to take on form.  I can almost touch it, like some kind of fabric: velvet or felt.

I can hear bells ringing far below, small and silvery.  Then singing, sounds made strange by distance, rising and falling and slowly resolving into songs I know, sung by familiar voices.

My people are coming.  With handmade lanterns of all shapes and colors, they are coming singing and laughing.  Now they see the lanterns hanging in the tree above me, the table draped in silk, the tiny paper footlights.  They leave the trail and shuffle and crunch through the bushes to the chairs set out for them.  Whispers.  Giggles.  A chair and small child tumble over and are righted.  More whispers and giggles.  Then settling.  Quiet anticipation.  

I begin: Once upon a time there was a man named Martin, who was known far and wide for his wisdom and kindness...

This story is special to me.  It's about St. Martin, who is celebrated in darkest November in many parts of Europe (and at Waldorf Schools everywhere). It was written by Reg Down, creator of the Tiptoes Lightly books, and can be found for free here.  

For two years, I told this beautiful story before our homeschool co-op's Lantern Walk Festival.  The experience of telling this story lives in me so strongly: speaking these words to my children and my dear friends' children, all bundled in hats and mittens, firelight on their faces and darkness all around...The  images took root in my family's collective heart and have served us in ways we never could have anticipated.

This year, for our third Lantern Walk, I was inspired to celebrate our love of this tale with a marionette show.  I had never done a puppet show in the dark before, but the thought of this story coming to life out in the woods, in the dark, just set me on fire.  So I set to.

The play developed in a wonderfully organic way, beginning with the puppets.  Since taking a  workshop with Suzanne Down last winter, I've been adapting her needle-felted rod puppet technique to making marionettes.  I'm finding needle felting quicker and more expressive than sewing.  

Here is Martin.  He looks a bit like my husband around the eyes.  And why not?

And here is the Lady who appears to him on the mountain. She has crystal beads sewn into her braid and here and there on her dress, which were quite sparkly in candlelight.

Which brings me to lighting.  This was really fun!  I made eight little footlights, each holding a votive candle.  Here was my process (the little circles are for gluing to the bottom):

Placed strategically on the tables (there were three of different heights, to create the effect of a mountain journey), they lighted the action in a mysterious, wavering glow.  The tables were covered by dark clothes and decorated with rocks, gnarled branches, and evergreen twigs.  Yes, all this was carried up the canyon by the generous hardy fathers of our homeschool group.  "It seems we are bringing the rocks to the mountain," was their only smiling comment (that I heard!).

 

Revisiting this story and the Lantern Walk ritual for the third time as homeschoolers and fifth time as a family, I find I appreciate these things even more deeply than when they were newly-discovered wonders.  The simple act of repetition- of visiting the same emotional soil each year as the earth turns into a new quarter- creates a deep resonance.  What originally felt fun, but sort of extraneous or even bizarre (you make puppet shows for your kids?), now feels necessary.  It's part of our bedrock.  

Favorite Toys for 2014

Well, friends, I'll admit up front that the title of this post is a bit of a tease.  If you're looking for secret sources for hand-dyed playsilks and Ostheimer figures, you'll have to look elsewhere.  Yes, my children do have a goodly store of such things, mostly gifted by generous relatives who understand our preference for wooden toys hand-carved in Germany or Vermont by dedicated elves. (As my friend says, Shouldn't elf labor lower the cost of toys?).  And we love them!  But, really, what can compare to this:

Gravel!  Blessed gravel!  Gravel wins the prize for Eden's toy of choice for the toddler years.  Just think of all the things you can do with it!  You can toss it in the air, you can drop it in a hole, or move it carefully from bucket to bucket.  You can slide it through cracks in the plastic slide.  And, if new molars are bugging you, you can even chew on it and get some relief! 

Runners up are: the chicken feed bin (you can scoop it and pour it! the lid is a drum!), the cupboard where we keep the pot lids, and any water glasses that get left where he can reach them.

Here we have another favorite: Emmet's Ice Pile.  Also known as the place we dump the goats' leftover water, the ice pile offers hours of fun.  With the brick, sticks and stones pictured here, Emmet enjoys jabbing, hacking, whacking and otherwise demolishing the ice pile.  Then he can look through the bits of ice and find ones with special shapes: a moon, a diamond, a flower.  A great toy for a five-year-old boy with busy limbs and a creative mind.

And here we find Ida's choice: the Backyard Obstacle Course.  Here we have a perfect storm of cinderblock walls, old metal laundry pole, and wooden pallets which hold our compost pile.  Add the chicken house roof and various dangerous stretches of metal fencing and you have a suitably interesting playland for a daring eight-year-old who loves to climb.

Am I not worried about swallowed gravel and flying bits of ice?  Yes, I am.  And I am especially wary of Ida's playland since she fell from the wall to the tune of eleven stitches back in December.  But I also love these things.  These are the world's true educational toys.

I know that young children learn by doing.  They learn by discovering all the fascinating ways in which their tender bodies and indomitable wills meet and interact with the stuff of the earth.  They scoop, toss, grind, cut, churn, climb, fall, succeed and fail.  They learn.  I do my best to stand by until needed, letting small hurts and frustration be teachers, saving my rescuing arms for the bigger falls.  And hoping I can tell the difference.  It is a tricky balance, but maybe that tipping point is where the most learning occurrs, for all of us.  We'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, what are your favorite non-toy toys?

Farewell Christmastide

Today we took down Christmas.  Cardboard boxes and piles of tissue reappeared from the garage and armloads of ornaments, garlands, advent calendars and nativity scenes old and new were stowed away for the coming year.  The dove flew into her tissue paper nest and Mother Mary and the Baby Jesus snuggled down for some serious cuddling amongst the shredded newspaper.

Usually by January 6th or 7th I am really ready for this process.  I relish the sweep of pine needles into the dustpan and enjoy the simplicity of clean white walls and the return of floor space.  But this year, I will admit to being almost as sad as my children at the prospect of the end of Christmastide.  For some reason that we can't quite pinpoint, this year was special.  This year we lived Christmas more fully and sweetly than we ever did before, and no one is quite ready to see it go.

Inspired by this post and others, this year we decided to honor the full twelve days of Christmas.  I had visions of us opening our presents slowly, over a twelve day period, but this was quickly shot down by the kiddos.  Neither did we feast and celebrate in any obvious, outward way.  It was more an inner gesture of savoring a special, quiet time.  We spent day after day at home: playing, knitting, reading, resting.  I let the laundry slide.  The corners of the living room played host to dust bunnies, bits of tissue, and new toys not yet sequestered in baskets.  I turned a blind eye.  In the evenings, we lit candles around the nativity and sang a few songs by the tree.  Unlike the days of preparation before Christmas, it felt effortless.  Even a challenging trip to the ER for Ida's "first stitches" and the woes of trying to night-wean little Eden did not mar the sweetness, but somehow deepened our understanding of just how lucky we are to be living this life together.

Our season was crowned this Sunday with an Epiphany pageant that my dear friend Kyce and I co-created.  In the golden sunlight of Kyce's living room, a flock of gorgeous children enacted the ancient story of hope and tenderness, gifts given and received.  As I watched and sang and marvelled, a special peace came into my heart.  It lingers there still, even as the boxes are once again stowed amongst the cobwebs, waiting for another December.

And now we step into the stream of life again.  Homeschooling and co-op begin next week.  A new baby is expected in a dear friend's home.  The new year begins and we find ourselves blinking in the clean light of January.  

 

 

Children of Light

May the peace of Midwinter abide in your heart.

In this moment of stillness and light, I would like to offer a puppet play such as I might share with very little ones, perhaps three or four years old.  In this story, a mother is awaiting the birth of her Child of Light in the midwinter time.   Feeling the chill winds and the icy ground, the mother seeks help to make a beautiful winter garden to welcome her child to the earth.  She is assisted by the stones, the plants, the animals, the sun, moon and stars and, finally, the children.

Although the mother and child are not named, adults will recognize elements of the familiar Christmas story.  I have endeavored to bring forward what is universal in this story, to create an image of sacred birth that children and adults can feel and love, whether or not they relate to Christian teachings.  This theme is very important in Waldorf Early Childhood classrooms, and this story was inspired by several sources including this wonderful book.

I've been telling this story to my children in several forms and I've found that they relate deeply to the archetypal Child of Light.  Perhaps because they have recently made the journey of birth themselves, they naturally and instinctively love the little child with a reverence that has little to do with religion per se, but much to do with their own inborn compassion and sense of wonder.  

For me, telling a story like this is a prayer.  It touches my heart, soothes my tired nerves and brings me back into my center.  I am reminded once again that every child is sacred and every birth is holy and miraculous.  I envision a world in which each child's coming is held as a sacred event, and each new mother knows that she is worthy of help and support.  Dear mothers, we are doing work that is precious and important beyond understanding.  

The other morning, as Emmet and I were watching his little brother toddling joyfully around the living room in his pajamas, Emmet turned to me and said, "Our baby is a lot like the Child of Light, isn't he?"  

"Yes, he is," I answered.  "And so are you."

And so are we all.

I first told this story as part of a presentation on "Celebrating the Season of Light" that I brought to the Autumn Homefire Retreat held by the Radical Homemakers of New Mexico this past November.  Many thanks to the Radical Homemakers for their support and inspiration and to my dear friend, Erin,  for videotaping.  

 

Once upon a time there was a mother who was waiting for the birth of her child.  It was midwinter and all around the earth was frozen and white.  As the mother gazed around her at the snow and ice, she thought to herself, I must make a winter garden, a beautiful garden to welcome my child of light.  But how can I make a garden, when all is frozen and hard? 

Up spoke the stones and rocks of the earth.  “Dear mother, we will help you to welcome the Child of Light!  We will make a garden path of crystal stones so that when you walk, you will not stumble and your steps will lead you truly.”

“Thank you, dear stones,” said the mother.  And the stones did their work well, making a broad and steady path for her feet. [place stones]

Next from under the ice and snow came the voice of the plants.  “Dear mother,” they said. “We will help you to welcome the child of light.  Will give you our evergreen boughs, so sweetly scented."

“Thank you, dear plants,” said the mother.  And the plants did their work well and sheltered her in their sweet-smelling boughs. [place boughs]

Then came the shy steps and soft voices of the animals.  “Dear mother,” they said.  “We will help you to welcome the Child of Light.  We will bring our warmth and our protection.  Your child will be safe from harm within our circle.”

“Thank you, dear animals," said the mother.  And the animals did their work well and brought their protection to the garden. [place animals]

Then from high above came the voice of Mother Moon.  “Dear little mother, I will help you to welcome the child of light.  I will give you a blanket of moonbeams to soothe your baby and shelter him from the cold.

“Thank you, dear mother moon,” said the mother.  And the moon did her work well, and sent a blanket of the softest moonbeams. [place blanket in mother’s arms]

From far away on his winter throne came the voice of Father Sun.  "Dear little mother, I too will help to welcome the Child of Light.  I will send a spark of my summer sunlight to warm him in the cold night."

"Oh, thank you Father Sun, " said the mother. [Bring a lighted candle and place it in front of the mother.]

Then from high, high above came the soft voices of the stars.  “Dear little mother, we also will do our part. We will guide your child upon his journey from heaven.  And when he looks upon us he will remember where he came from.”

“Thank you, dear stars,” said the mother.  And the stars twinkled their beautiful light upon the earth. [place stars around the garden]

“Now all is ready for the child of light,” said the mother.  But just then she heard a soft voice from close at hand. [place a child to one side]

“Wait, wait dear mother, for we also wish to lend our help.”  [place other children on both sides] The mother looked around and she saw the kind faces of children all around.  “We will bring our love and our songs,” said the children.   And the children began to sing:

While the stars are shining bright,

Rock the little child of light,

Sleeping softly through the night,

We watch the babe in slumber softly dreaming.

Slumber, slumber, see the babe in slumber softly dreaming.

[while singing, place baby in mother’s arms, with blanket wrapped around]

Close by covering the puppets with a cloth.

Song by Nancy Foster

 

 

Women of my Tribe

Just over a week ago, I returned from a family pilgrimage to the heart of Utah, where we celebrated Thanksgiving and, the following day, my grandma’s 90^th birthday.  Spanning divides of geography, generations, politics and religion, upwards of a hundred relatives gathered harmoniously (and uproariously) to celebrate our lovely Grandma Nadine.

Sharing airspace with so many of kin is a great way to get perspective on things.   While passing the Jell-o and sweet potatoes, I was also pondering questions of origins, family patterns, why the heck we are the way we are…and I’m not only talking about our short hamstrings.  Especially fascinating was the time I spent with four generations of women under one roof: the truly noble Nadine, my sparkling mother (known in Utah as Miss Favorite Aunt Suzy), my warmly hilarious aunt (whose roof it was), her daughters and their daughters and my sister and my daughter and me.  After extensive observation, I can report that along with our wonderful individualities, we do have a sort of shared family “we-ness” and it looks sort of like this:

We love to laugh and we love snappy conversation. We love getting a crowd of people into a room and feeding them until they beg for mercy.  We love games and we play for blood, but we also laugh harder over a hand of cards than at any other time. We cry easily when we’re happy and our hearts are touched.  We are still susceptible to Roy Orbison’s high notes.

We’re not particularly practical, but when we have a great idea, we make it happen by hook or by crook.  When we screw up, it’s not from lack of initiative, but from overly optimistic planning.  If we forget to set the timer and burn the cookies, it’s because we were changing a diaper, embroidering something and talking on the phone at the same time.

We love family and social life, but we have a quiet side as well, and a sensitivity that requires periodically sneaking away from the group to hide in the upstairs hallway to read old Tasha Tudor books. (That would be me).

We sometimes get in the habit of thinking that it’s all up to us.  We’re afraid that if we don’t bring the casserole every time, there will be nothing to eat.  Ever.  As we prepared for the big birthday shindig, my dear little grandma who can’t walk to the bathroom alone and doesn’t remember my name or what state she lives in, kept asking, “Now do we have enough food?  Who’s bringing the games?”  We all reassured her that all was well and taken care of and we were all eating Chinese and not to worry, but to no avail.  And I’ll probably be the same way.

Women of my tribe, what a blessing it is to be in your family.  You’re strong and smart and funny.   You express gratitude. You give good hugs.  You make gorgeous kids.  You make a lot of food.  You keep the sun rising in the east and the stars in order.  Thank you.