Fast Car

This morning I saw a video of Tracy Chapman and Luke Coombs' duet of Fast Car at the Grammys last night and it was perfect.  It was so fun to see people in the audience rocking out to the song, and also to see the obvious professional respect between Chapman and Coombs.  

Enjoy!

Talking Tuesday: Nigredo/Dark Night of the Soul

I've written a few times in this space about Rhyd Wildermuth's work; he has a unique voice and perspective that I find interesting and refreshing.  I don't agree with everything he writes, but he always gives me something to think about.

Rhyd's substack today was on what he calls nigredo, the part of the alchemy process where the elements are burned down to their most basic essence before being transformed into something else.  He writes:

"Nigredo isn’t a singular moment, however, but rather a repeating process. In alchemy, substances required multiple transformations, a repeating cycle from nigredo to rubedo and then back again. What we think we know and who we think we are likewise must be blackened repeatedly, “destroyed” (though never annihilated) and then reforged like the repeating seasons of the earth. We die, are born, and then die again so to be reborn, all the while still “living” and striving towards a time when the drives that defeat us and the drives that create us become lovers to each other." ~Rhyd Wildermuth, On Nigredo, FFrom the Forests of Arduinna Substack, 12/12/23

I love the imagery in that statement.  It's a different way of talking about theosis, even though Rhyd isn't talking about Christianity (indeed, he is a self-professed pagan).   I'm always interested in taking apart "churchy" words and phrases to get under what they really mean because sometimes words can be culturally drained of meaning by repetition.  Graham Pardun's Psalm translation project is very much after my heart in this way.

Later in the piece, he goes on to note that St. John of the Ladder describes this process at the Dark Night of the Soul.  As a fiction writer, this also resonated with me, since it is a key plot point in any good story.  The protagonist goes through a period where it seems all is lost, that everything they thought they knew is gone and they have to figure out how to go on from that.  

In stories, the Dark Night usually happens only once, but in life, Dark Nights are a feature, not a bug.  Something you thought you knew about yourself, or the world, or whatever, is blown to pieces and then you flounder like a fish on the bank of a stream, flopping about and gasping for air until you can work your way back into the water again to swim.  

Every year about this time, I start feeling a bit low.  I used to think it was because Christmas in my family is so special and I wasn't able to re-create it the same way with my own family.  I honestly felt like Christmas just got beat out of me at some point and it took me a while to find it again.  (Don't worry, I have plenty of lovely traditions with my kids and we have our own rhythm to things that is good, but it took a long time to get there).  

Lately, though I think it is really just part of the season.  I'm not much of one for podcasts because I'm a truly terrible aural learner; my brain wanders for a sec and I've lost the plot, but I've been listening to Spencer Klavan quite a bit this fall when I'm doing stuff around the house or running errands.  He's a very interesting and joyful guy who is so grounded and well-read.  I just finished his book and have very much enjoyed his Substack.  The podcast about C.S. Lewis and what he calls the Seven Loves was an amazing deep linguistic dive and The Ghosts of the Old Gods was also excellent.

Over the weekend, I listened to the podcast Spencer did with his sister about her new book, Christmas Karol, which is a creative retelling of Dickens' story.  Klavan's sister Faith is the keeper of Christmas in their family and loves the season.  She made the great observation that nostalgia and longing are baked in the cake of the holiday because it is the start of the march to the cross.  Even though it isn't explicitly in the holiday, it is in the underpainting, and I think most of us feel it on some level, even if we can't articulate what it is.  One of the gifts of the wise men is myrrh which is used to prepare a body for burial.  So it is there right at the start, pointing the way to where the journey to Bethlehem was going to end.  Of course, it ends in triumph with the resurrection on Pascha/Easter, but there is a long and lonely Dark Night of the Soul before we get there.  

I've thought a lot about longing lately.  It is the thing that propels us through life, really.  The cycle of nigredo and rubedo are the parts of our existence that make life worth living.  It is the striving, the yearning, the curiosity about the world and the people in it, the movement to the reforging of the self that gives meaning and makes us grow.  

So I think it is okay to sit in the darkness for a time, to see what it shows you.  Just don't make it a permanent dwelling place or, like Gollum, you'll forget how to live in the light.

Dark Moss

Another day, another pullover.  This one is the Dark Moss pullover by Teti Lutsak.  It is worsted weight so it initially was about a two week project.  But!  I ended up knitting the sleeves twice and the top half from the short rows up three times.  Yes, three!  Because I am nuts.

The problem is the decreases in the back, which are done while doing the short rows.  If you follow the pattern, the decreases happen too quickly and it is is too tight across the upper back.  If you omit the middle decreases and just do the raglan decreases, you end up with an extra repeat on the neckline that looks sloppy and wide.  I also sized up on the needles one of the iterations and didn't like the fabric.  I ended up knitting on the 8s (which were my gauge needles), omitting the middle decreases and just doing the raglan decreases on the short rows, and then added a couple of rows to decrease in the middle to bring the raglan line together and have the correct stitch count for the neckline.  Third time's a charm, as that seems to have fixed the fit problem across the upper back.

The sleeves were my own fault really.  I should have sized up on the needles and didn't because I was away from home and just wanted to finish it.  So I frogged both to about 10 rows from the cast-on at the underarm and reknit.  I also made many fewer decreases, I think three?  I knit 56 rows from the intial 10 down and then decreased 2 stitches, then knit 15 rows, decrease, then 15, decrease, and then about 6 more rows before starting the ribbing and that seems about right.  

The cable sections at the bottom were fairly easy and enjoyable, especially since they were knit flat and then joined.  I sort of split the difference between the cropped and longer length and am pretty happy with how it came out length-wise.  

I know this light grey is maybe not the best color on me, but I wanted something that was a lighter neutral and liked the subtle variations in the heather on this one.  And anyway, it is warm and comfortable, which was the main point!  

I had another gum graft yesterday to deal with the failed graft from 2016 and am pretty wiped today.  I have to have another graft on my top teeth in January but need to wait for my palette to heal first.  The main problem, as with the previous graft, is that eating is so incredibly painful and tricky.  They gave me a surgical stent to cover the top of my mouth, which helps a lot with that part, but the graft site is very sore and swollen.  I'm taking Tylenol and Motrin around the clock at the moment.  So I'm trying to find liquid calories since I can't afford to lose any weight right now (not a problem I EVER thought I'd have, but here we are).  The stitches come out next Thursday, so hopefully it won't be too bad of a week.

Footfall

I'm trying to post these projects in more or less the order in which I finished them, but I seem to keep falling behind as I finished this scarf a month ago (and have worn it a lot since) and even photographed it then, but am just now getting around to posting!

This is the Footfall pattern from Kate Davies and it comes from her Bold Beginners book. I tried knitting this pattern some years back (before I was really grooving with lace charts) and made a complete hash of it and gave up. This time, however, it was fairly smooth sailing. In retrospect, I wish I had done a M1L/M1R at the center instead of a yarn over, but not enough to start over again.

I used some silk/wool mix yarn I got for Christmas last year.  My original idea was to use the yarn until I ran out but I got to a certain point and realized that the scarf would be VERY large if I did that, and I didn't want something too overwhelming.  

The upside is that I have enough left to make a hat (and possibly mitts).  My hair is really thin now and my head gets cold quickly!  So I think hats are going to be a fixture this winter.  I've been wearing fingerless gloves in the house for the past couple of weeks because the circulation in my hands and feet isn't stellar, hence the mitts.  Andrea Mowry's new mitts pattern looks interesting.

I finished a sweater this week (after reknitting half of it at least twice!) and am working on some smaller projects before casting on another sweater.  What can I say?  I likes what I likes.

Kazahana

Sometimes you have to frog a sweater that isn't working.  My Weekender from last winter was such a sweater.  I did wear it some but the neckline drove me crazy and it was always too big.  And the drape never seemed right.  

I know a zillion people have made that pattern and love it, but I'm realizing that a straight neck sits really weird on me.  There were a bunch of things about the fit I didn't like, so when it was absolutely miles too big this fall, I decided to pull it out and start fresh.  

I picked the Kazahana pattern since it has my go-to features--textured yoke, easy body and sleeves, and interest on the cuffs and hem.  I did a twisted rib on the cuffs since I ended up not liking how the pattern iteration looked or felt, and I made the sleeves full length that tapered to the wrist.  I did do the pattern on the hem, but honestly, it is so subtle, I think I could have got away with twisted rib there too.  Since the yarn was worsted weight, the knitting went extremely fast--I think I made the whole thing in under two weeks.  I've worn it a ton since finishing it, so it was a good call!  

The yarn is such a pretty heathered color; it is hard to capture on film, but there are flecks of turquoise, yellow, seafoam green, and a darker teal running through it. It is definitely a solid color for my wardrobe palette.

I used a gift certificate for a local yarn store recently and bought some Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in the Button Jar colorway.  It is more to the olive side of green, but the tweedy flecks are similarly toned, so I'm eager to knit that yarn up!  I'm nearing the end of another worsted weight sweater, so I think the Shelter will be next up.  It is looking to be a colder year this year, so I'll be glad of some heavier weight pieces to keep me warm--I'm feeling the cold a lot more these days.

Sarkle

Most of my finished objects right now are going to be knitted, but it's sweater weather, so I'm not even a little sorry.  I'm not sewing at all except for outside projects for the drama program at my kids' school and have had a good time thrifting on ThredUp.  (It's fine, really.  I've got plenty to keep my hands busy).

To be perfectly honest, I feel better about thrifting anyway, as it takes something out of a landfill and puts it to use, whereas sewing has a similar footprint to buying new.  (It doesn't help that my go-to fabric store went out of business in the spring; I have other places I like, but nothing like fabric.com--RIP). 

Obviously, I do occasionally buy something new, but I find thrifting fun. And confession: I find I have different seasons with some styles or particular pieces, especially with major body changes (about which more, at a later date).  So thrifting works better for me on a lot of levels right now.

Anyway, I present my Sarkle, made in August mostly.  It was a totally straightforward KDD knit, and since I'm pretty confident about her blocks, I got gauge and just got on with it!  The twisted stitches were fun (more so than cables) and the pattern varied enough not to get boring.  

I'm working on the coordinating cowl to this pattern right now and am struggling with pattern boredom since the twisted stitch pattern isn't quite as varied as the sweater yoke.  (Which explains how I managed to make a whole other sweater from my unraveled Weekender in the past three weeks while the cowl has languished since late August).  I've also been poking away at a lace shawl and am just over half-way on it.

The color was a bit hard to photograph but it is a lovely deep teal that leans slightly toward green.  It's similar in shade to my Carbeth, but the DK weight is a lot more useful to me.  My next sweater project is another Teti Lutsak pattern.  I love how her stuff fits me and find her patterns visually interesting and fun to knit.

Nothing to say that I didn't note on my ravelry page.  I will say I still struggle with finding the right sweater length on my figure.  I'm short-waisted so I have to watch body length very carefully but my measurements are a lot straighter than they used to be, so I can get away with slightly longer sweaters now.  It feels like a Goldilocks dilemma and I wonder if this sweater could stand to be another 1/2" or so longer, but it is a bottom up sweater so there is no way I'm messing with it!  The leather skirt is a new thrift and it is *mwah*!  Put it with a recently thrifted black leather jacket and I feel extremely stompy.  

Lost Generation

I find myself missing the '90s lately. Maybe that is just my mid-40s talking, but with the recent '90s revival in fashion and other things, it seems like my teenage years are all around me. Except not really. Context is everything.

It's not that I miss that period of time historically or that I'm nostalgic for it.  I don't think it was simpler, it was just less fractured at a cultural level. (I certainly don't miss my personal fashion sense of those years...oy.  I was not a cool teenager.  I'm not a cool adult either, but let's just leave it there, hmm?)  I am enjoying my Doc Marten combat boots a great deal these days, however.  One of the perks of being an adult is being able to afford some of the things you couldn't as a teenager. 

It's more that I miss having common cultural touchstones.  GenX is the lost generation, if you ask me.  Everyone skips over us and goes straight from Boomers to Millennials.  Particularly those of us born in the late 1970s; the Oregon Trail mini-generation if you will.  I guess I get tired of that sometimes.  I want to be able to reference Pearl Jam, Third Eye Blind, the Goo-Goo Dolls, Dave Matthews Band, Hootie and the Blowfish, Collective Soul, Lilith Faire, Reality Bites, Life Goes On, Felicity, Saved by the Bell, CK One, coffee house culture, VHS and 8-track players, mix-tapes, and the pre-internet/cell phone days and not be met with blank incomprehension. Last fall, we had my husband's clerks over for a game night and played Apples to Apples.  Admittedly, our copy is about 15 years old, but I was surprised how many of the Zoomer clerks didn't get the pop culture references.  Demi Moore, people.  Michelle Pfieffer.  Sharon Stone.  And I'm not even particularly well-versed in pop culture.  I felt very old in that moment.

We are the generation who had an analog childhood and acquired a digital adulthood; we straddle the life worlds of Boomers and Millennials.  And now in our 40s and 50s, we are raising children and taking care of our aging Boomer or Great Depression parents.  Or grieving them when they are gone.  It's a busy season of life, a necessary one, a good one, but largely invisible.

I read Andrew Rannells' two books this past week; he is exactly the same age as me and grew up in the Midwest.  So much of the culture and touch points of his coming of age are familiar to me.  (Fair warning, his stories are very funny and enjoyable to me as a creative person who likes to perform, but his books are definitely not for everyone).  I felt the same kinship to Mary Harringon while reading her excellent book.  She is also exactly the same age as me and the context of her early adulthood is familiar in the same ways.  

One of the essays toward the end of Rannells' second book asks the question of how you mark time as an adult, particularly if you don't have kids.  That is to say, how do you know you are an adult if you don't have the so-called traditional markers of it?  It's an interesting question, marking time.  Our liturgical calendar and rhythms of family life are definitely the scaffolding for me, but I'm thinking more about internal markers.  

I sometimes wish I could go back and enjoy my early 20s more.  I was in such a hurry to be settled and socially awkward and insecure.  I'm still socially awkward but I'm working on it.  I felt a lot of pressure to be a responsible adult, to be financially independent and follow a quick narrow path to maturity.  It's been 20 years this year since I moved back to the States from Russia.  I don't regret the move there and sometimes wonder what might have been if I'd just taken the dead-end job I was offered after my original job ended and stayed longer.  

It is a dangerous slippery slope to play the what-if game, particularly in your 40s.  The major decisions of life are made, the path is relatively set.  Until it isn't.  If there is one thing characteristic of our current moment it is the basic instability of absolutely everything.  Liquid modernity writ large.  

Except that actually, my 40s are pretty great.  There's a certain sort of je ne sais quoi about this period of life, a kind of settledness within myself that I lacked at earlier ages (and wish I had had!)  I'm less afraid of things, more secure in myself, and find my horizons are much broader than they were previously.  The world simply is, and people simply are.  It is the way of things.  I'm tired of the us/them binary of so much public discourse, of the constant scare-mongering and catastrophizing.  We are all people just struggling through life.  Our most important job is to love one another.

For all that I am an historian and love to think about the past, I have always been someone thinking four steps ahead, often to my own detriment.  My recent reading of Charles Taylor's A Secular Age has given me some pause about that tendency.  It is a peculiarly modern thing to do--to push ahead with no regard for the present.  I suppose it is of a piece with trying to be anything other than what we actually are.  The conclusion I keep coming to is that we cannot go back.  

Taylor observes that attempts to recreate the past in the present are doomed to failure because they take something that developed organically and creatively and mechanize it, stealing the life from it (747).  We can never go back to a unified societal vision because once you introduce choice into a system, the mere presence of an option fragilizes those choices.  We are all Cartesian Protestants now.  

At the same time, however, we can anchor our place in the world by reenacting the patterns of life passed on to our by our ancestors.  These reenactments bring both the people who have gone before us and the patterns they enacted closer to us, gathering time, as it were (719).  The idea of gathered time (a pre-modern concept) is very interesting to me, as it tracks with my theory of Orthodox time and the idea of God existing in an Eternal NOW.  To this theory I would add the image of the world's time as gathered in the way that fabric is gathered.  Dips and folds bring the pieces closer together, but also fan out below to allow movement.  The gathering can be relaxed or tightened, depending on the need.  

Taylor goes on to note that our restless search for meaning and mythos is part of the human condition and that to try to subvert that restlessness will only set us back and ultimately cause more suffering.  To live in the discomfort is actually part of human flourishing (622). We must learn to hold the ambiguity of life within ourselves and understand that the tension will never be resolved, but that we can hold it lightly.  That meaning exists in the world beyond our minds and selves and is there to be found if we care to look for it.  

I suppose the back and forth of life is part of holding that tension within oneself.  I don't *really* want to go back to my early 20s, even if I could.  There is so much that has been hard won along the way.  In the meantime, I'll be listening to The Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Crash by Dave Matthews Band, and Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls whilst stomping around in my combat boots.  I'm sure I've still got a black ribbon choker around here somewhere...if you know, you know.

_________

Cited:

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age. Boston: Harvard University Press, 2007.