Adolescence

Finishing up a knitting piece (!) and listening to the Everly Brothers sing "All I have to do is dream." Thinking, wondering if mine was the first generation to have its own music in adolescence.
~~~
Well, that took two hours, longer than I thought, and turned out worse than I expected. I dread meeting up with the experienced knitters I know, who will see at a glance that I lost a stitch near the beginning, and then one near the end, too. They are the hard parts, a little different than the knitting endlessly along the middle. I could always hide if I saw a knitter.

Furthermore, it goes with nothing in my wardrobe. Nearest, with my new old blue flannel plaid shirt. It's about on that level of undress, anyway. Kind of scruffy looking. Just plain knitting. I thought that would be easy. Well, I almost got it right, look at it that way.

And I realized as I worked on the thing - a scarf, your first project - that it is one of my high school colors. We were maroon and gold, two colors I hate for their own selves, and for the memory of high school, too. I grew to hate the color. What was I thinking when I bought it? My eye was drawn to the yarn, Bamboucle it was called. It just captured me. I didn't think how bad I look in yellow or what I was going to wear it with. It was about some dream, a dream of thread made from bamboo and linen. I love bamboo, the plant, and didn't realize how a four-ply yarn would split on me, how the slight nubbiness would add to my difficulty knowing what I was doing, without giving it any nubbiness at all. I bought bamboo needles, too, and they are very nice. I kept on enjoying them, anyway.

Thus I have wasted my Monday morning to end up a little grouchier than when I woke up. I am supposed to be saying Yes to everything. Yes, this is a damnable yarn. Yes, it's a gloomy day. Yes, at least I am done with it. I am done with it. I don't have to wear it. I certainly don't have to go buy clothes to go with it. As an artist I have lots of things that didn't turn out. Hey, here they sit in my file drawers, in my drawing portfolio. That's something it's hard to take, the unease when the finished project is not what you wanted it to be. Not great. Or maybe it is, if you just look at what it is, not what you wanted it to be. There, I knew I'd arrive at Zen eventually.