On with the show
Thank you to everyone who read my post about G.’s assessment and did not immediately write in to comment that I sounded either horrendously pushy (counting in six languages indeed!), hopelessly defensive, or just barking mad. With the benefit of a little distance, I can see I might have (ahem) over-reacted somewhat to the parent-teacher interview, going into Full Panic Mode (one of my most familiar modalities) at the mere suggestion that investigation might be warranted. It’s a funny thing, being a mother, and I now understand all sorts of odd parental behaviour that mystified me in the past — such as the tendency to talk at endless, boring length about one’s child. And how We Think You Should Get Him Tested can become There Is Something Terribly Wrong With Him in the time it takes to come out of a teacher’s mouth and reach my ear.
Anyway. As the title says, on with the show.
I recall mentioning in the same post that I had uploaded a bunch of photos for later blogging.
Swatch and yarn for a top-down raglan with cable rib for B., with the camera wobble I specialize in. The yarn is some natural-coloured aran/heavy worsted weight bought for me in New Zealand.
A selection of red, purple, gold and orange yarns for Annie Modesitt’s Cocoon Sweater (a.k.a. Twisted Float Shrug, or Twist, Float and Shrug, as my brain keeps proffering it).
Weft for a couple of blankets, from my stash. The yarn on the left is recycled from one of my mother’s UFOs. None of the ball bands have survived, but it’s brushed, with a high animal fibre content (wool and mohair, at a guess), and there’s about a pound of it. And it’s purple: very, very purple.
The yarn on the right is seventeen balls of Debbie Bliss Soho, shade 08, originally destined for a sweater until I swatched it and discovered that it virtually felts in the hand. Irritating in a sweater, but perfect for a blanket that will be fulled on completion anyway.
I don’t have anything suitable for a warp in my stash, so I’ll probably buy some Briggs and Little Regal (possibly the evocatively named Fundy Fog) that will do as a warp for both — well, it’s necessary to finish a project, right?
And finally, this:
The photo does the subtle, gorgeous colours no justice whatsoever. This is the one unjustified exception to my yarn diet, bought in a moment of weakness from its dyer on ebay in early December. No immediate plans: I post it here in the spirit of full disclosure, or confession.
And I’m almost finished the 23rd square of Lizard Ridge…
I don’t know what to say
I haven’t posted in a few days, and this was going to be an upbeat post. Deb left me a comment that cheered me up about Rosedale, which has been stalled while I decided what to do about the contrast rectangle on the back. Carrying the yarn across the back of the contrast area has given it the consistency of a board, and messed up the tension on the adjacent stitches, and I’m enough of a perfectionist to be bothered by both these things. Apparently, I’m not the only person to have problems with this part of the pattern, which is encouraging to know: I’d put the unsatisfactory result down to my deficient colourwork.
But I’m not feeling very upbeat. I wasn’t sure whether I’d blog this, but here goes: I’ve just had a miscarriage. It’s my fourth, in fact, and my third within the last twelve months. I have no idea why, and neither do my doctors; all the tests have turned up nothing.
I’m trying not to generalize the misery. My life definitely doesn’t suck: I realize my great good fortune in having a patient, tolerant, funny and utterly decent husband whose few small quirks (pathological attitude to sleep, for example, and an inability to hurry up when required) are really very easy to live with, and who somehow–miracle of miracles!–manages to put up with me, my moods and my morning grumpiness. And I have my son–charming, offbeat, affectionate, smart as a button, and healthy as a horse–which is an enormous consolation many of those in the recurrent miscarriage boat don’t possess. Miscarriages aside, we’re healthy. We have a house we like, jobs that engage us, for the most part, and we’re financially stable. We’ve been lucky.
But this year has been spectacularly bad. Two miscarriages, my mother’s rapid and painful death from cancer (a cancer, what’s more, triggered by medical hardware used to repair an injury caused by a careless driver who hit her when she was crossing the road), and now another miscarriage. There’s also been a plethora of troubles, small and large, in the lives of people I care about and hurt for: bereavements, health worries, anxieties over children. I hate this year. I’m afraid to contemplate the ways it could have been worse, in case I make them happen. I just want to sink its feet in concrete and drop it into the sea.
I’m going upstairs now to spin up some merino roving. The spinning helps: it’s part physical therapy, part hopeful reminder that, with patience and gentle encouragement, the snarls and tangles can smooth themselves out and become something useful and beautiful. And if you have any good luck mojo going spare, send it our way, OK?
Ravelling and unravelling
