ROAD BLOG AHEAD

Made it back to Oregon late Thursday night and picked up Lena from PDX yesterday morning. She actually ended up on a much earlier flight and was waiting when I arrived, not knowing how to get ahold of me as I wasn’t at Veronica’s that first night. We’re in Kellan’s room again. Amazing how much more cramped the space seems with two of us trying to stay organized. Lena only has one smallish suitcase, but it seems like much more stuff than when I was here alone a few weeks ago!

Although I’m somewhat weary of the back-and-forth moving around from place to place, one of the nice aspects is that I’ve become much more familiar to the kids. Danika, at five months now, sees me and gives me a huge grin and a giggle and wriggles to be picked up. Alaric seems to have passed the horrible stage he was at a month ago. He still says “no” a lot, but he’s much more chipper and sweet, the way he was last winter. We babysat him last night while Roni and Kurtis went out and he was so good, so mellow and happy and cooperative. Strong-willed kid and you can already see the testosterone in this little boy. Whew! But he’s also sweet and loving. Greeted me this morning with a crow of delight, threw his arms around my neck and gave me a big kiss. What grandma wouldn’t be thrilled by that?

Looks like Roni was serious about wanting to learn to knit. We’d gone to a yarn shop when I was last here (I needed a new ball winder) and she was mezmerized. She already crochets a bit (her dad is a big crocheter and taught her how years ago) but all the stuff she saw and liked was knit baby clothes. So we discussed it and I sent her off to get a big skein of inexpensive worsted and some size 9 circulars (mine are back in India) while I was in Canada. I wondered if she’d get around to it though or if it was going to be another “rountuit” that never got off the ground. Well, I had hardly walked in the door when she proudly displayed the variegated purple stuff and needle she’d bought. So I think today will be knitting class. We’d thought to take the kids to the park, but it’s cold, grey and raining out so that’s not likely. A good day to stay home and knit I think. I want to start her now so she can practice for a few days while I’m here and I can help with any glitches. It’ll take awhile of course, to get the hang of it. I’m debating whether to start her absolutely dead simple on a garter stitch scarf or do a basic watch cap or roll brim hat in the round. She’ll learn more with the latter. Her own aims are ambitious. She wants to learn to knit because she fell in love with a bobbles and lace baby sweater in Debbie Bliss cotton cashmere designed by a local grad student. I bought the pattern but warned her that it’s complex (there’s a few bits that I’m not entirely sure of and may have to run by someone like Sylvia,) and that it’s at least a fourth project and more like a fifth or sixth. She gets it, but wants to get started on knitting so that there’s a chance she might actually get to the sweater before Danika is too old for it!

I started knitting in earnest when she (Veronica) was about the age her son is now. Sweaters for 2 year olds are great to make - they go fast but the proportions are more like regular sweaters than the one you have to make for babies with their big heads and floppy limbs that can’t easily poke into sleeves and neck holes. Making a handful of those for her over the course of a year or so taught me a lot and made my first adult-sized projects much less daunting. The nice thing is that, now, everyone uses circular needles. WHen I was learning, straight needles were the norm with circulars used just for neckholes and such. Credit Elizabeth Zimmerman for changing the way people knit in the round. I don’t like her styles and patterns particularly, they’re mostly clunky and dowdy, but her techniques have affected so many knitters in my generation that she’s something of a hero to many.

I’m going to start working on a pair of gloves for Silva in Vancouver. I’d actually started a pair of socks for her in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd’s Sock yarn, the flame colourway which suits Silva perfectly. But I misjudged the width of her feet - they are actually even wider than Lena’s. So, while I’ve got the better part of one sock completed, it’s not going to fit and I’m not sure who it would fit that would wear screaming red, yellow and orange socks! Not Lena. Anyway, as we were talking, SIlva said that, given her druthers, she’d prefer a pair of gloves. So I’m debating between frogging the socks and using the yarn to make gloves or using some other wool to make them and finishing the socks and figuring they’ll fit somebody by and by. I’ve put in rather a lot of time already on them so I hate to rip it all out. On the other hand, kind of pointless to continue if they won’t fit anyone! I don’t mind starting a different project - I LIKE knitting gloves. I’m doing the finishing on a pair for Roni’s guy, Kurtis, in an odd Opal yarn that sort of looks like camo except for the hint of purple. I’ve got the second glove of a pair on the needles for Lena in another LL - the mineshaft colourway which is gorgeous for her. Roni would like a pair too and then there’s Silva. So I’ll be working on gloves rather than socks this winter, looks like. Maybe mittens for the kids.

So I’ll just do the best I can with the now. I did finally actually get UP on this blog about 5 or 6 entries that I’d written and never actually posted here. Hoping people will forgive me for keeping them wondering if I was still alive or not. I notice that, when I’m here and have good internet access and connection speeds, I’m too danged busy to write a regular blog. Then, when I get someplace that actually IS pretty interesting in a lot of ways, such as Nepal or Mexico, I have more time to just sit and write about it, but less ease in posting things to the internet.

So a few bits (hey, I just wrote “bitch” instead of bits… freudian slip?) to report.

I’m here on my last day in Vancouver with Silva, wishing it weren’t the last day. Had dinner with her and Terry last night and the 3 of us had a marvelous time. Came back here afterwards and hung out until the wee hours. I got maudlin and emotional about leaving. I thought I was being a party-pooper, but both of them were so sweet and supportive. I truly am lucky in the women I have in my life! In a large way, that’s a part of why I got maudlin (circular cause and effect here for sure): I do not feel anywhere near this loved and appreciated in other places, particularly not in Asia where I am seen as an oddball at best and a total freak at worst and mostly people want my money. Here I feel loved and cherished and beautiful. It’s really hard to contemplate giving up one for the other. But I have made a commitment to Lena and Lama Wangdor and I am a person who keeps her commitments. So I will go back to India for as long as I am needed there and give it my very best.

Last weekend, Lena taught Dzogchen on Whidbey Island, WA. Since it was so close to Vancouver, I drove down to be with her and to finally meet Lynn Hays, the wonderful, wonderful woman who orchestrated the retreat. As Lama’s secretary/assistant, I’ve been corresponding with Lynn for years and enjoying her tremendously. In a lot of ways, I felt like I already *knew* her. But efforts to actually join Lama Wangdor and Lena on Whidbey were always thwarted by practical considerations, so I never quite managed to be there at the same time they were. Last Friday I finally met Lynn for the first time face-to-face. And she is every bit as terrific as I’d though AND every bit as familiar. I really does feel like I’ve known her forever. She feels like “family”. All the Whidbey Island community I met were just the most amazing group of women, each totally unique, each with presence and grace. It was a delight to be there.

Many of them, Lynn included, are doing some sort of fiber arts, so that was an unexpected common thread. Out of a group of 20, at least 4 or 5 are/were handspinners. My Journeywheel got lots of attention and praise! There were also knitters, crocheters, quilters and weavers. SOme folks (like Lynn again) do all of these things. Or did. Lynn is pretty much entirely focused on her wax paintings these days and has let her textile habit slide a bit. Though her floors are none the less covered with absolutely gorgeous hand loomed rugs! One woman, Jeannie, is in the middle of an odd and interesting project which she referred to as knitting her own “shroud”.  She’s not terminally ill and is only in midlife so it’s not a matter of seeing a need coming soon. Rather, from the bit I was able to gather, she is knitting together all sorts of pieces of her life into large pieces that she can wrap herself in or be wrapped in when the time *does* come to go. I had a skein of the banana fibre yarn from Nepal left in my luggage. The morning before I left I gave it to her for inclusion in her project. She was thrilled and fascinated by the texture and the idea that I’d brought it all the way around the world looking for the right person to give it to. I’d almost not brought it with me to the Island, then, at the last second, changed my mind and stuck it in my suitcase. Appropriately, since it WAS meant for someone there.

The Dzogchen teachings, held in Lynn’s house (converted to a shrine room for the occasion) went quite well, in my opinion. Now Lena was sort of the surprise. I mean, I knew she was good - she’s my root teacher after all,. among many, many other things. This, however, was the first opportunity during our current trip for me to actually be at one of her big public teachings with many people in attendance. Listening to her, watching her, FEELING her teach and give the wang, the energetic transmission, blew my socks off! I’ve heard a lot of teachings in the past 20 years, gotten “wanged” by a lot of lamas. And she was easily as good as any of them and better than most. Particularly on Sunday morning. She was ON. I’m still going “oh wow!” about this. As much as I wanted her to be as fine and magical as I think she is, somehow I wasn’t totally prepared for the reality! Makes me remember why I agreed to follow her to the ends of the earth and beyond.

Any of these things I could say reams about, but then I would have to forego writing about some other key factor. this is just a bit of update. I leave for Oregon tomorrow. I should be able to write more from there.