Winter’s Return
All this space you see, some might call it ‘wasted’…
Space littered with too many words, too many pictures and too many voices…
And the questioning voice begins…
“Does anyone have time to read these distractions?”
I can sum-up my blog reading experience as reading / sifting / scrolling / clicking / going straight to commenting without time to properly digest whole paragraphs-nuances of the author / an inability to absorb the ‘whole’ of a blog post.
More and more, it seems like I’m only finding time to speed-read / quickly review:
- Bullet points
- Short sentences
- Hyper-linked content (video clips, photos and text)
Is this how your blog reading experience is shaped as well?
Is it shaped by the pressures and time constraints of life, work and finding time to relax & regroup?
Just wondering…
If you’ve made it this far in my post, I am thankful for your company, your time spent here and your interest!
Also, please forgive the dust as it settles ‘round your computer screen. If you’ve paid a visit in the last couple of weeks, you probably noticed some subtle changes? For the most part, I think I’m done manipulating, adjusting and tweaking the blog template.
Just know that what you see here, reflects my current state of mind (or lack thereof) and is shaped by recent events (the return of a season, the loss of a co-worker and the actions that follow those events).
Winter came back to Kent Washington last week and who can explain why?
Is it the earth’s rotation, perhaps slightly off its axis?
Is it global warming or could it be that we are headed into an ice age and that all the human ‘nesting’ behavior occurring is caused by some underlying-psychic-premonitory knowledge of what’s to come:
- Eating hardy (storing of fat for Winter)
- Hand crafting (sewing, knitting and weaving)
- Self sufficiency (survivalism)
Last week I watched the snow fall all day at work and there was probably 2 inches of snow on top of the car when I pulled out of the parking lot. What happened to Spring, to the birds singing, to the warmth of the sun and the promise of Summer?
Upon the return of Winter, I was drawn to one of my warmest sweaters, my gray ‘Cocoon’:
The Cocoon sweater was created to blanket, to insulate, to provide that extra measure of warmth in the depths of Winter, when earth’s orbit seems farthest from the Sun.
I started this sweater back in November of 2006 and then finished it the following January (you haven’t seen a photo until now simply because this sweater doesn’t come out of the closet too often, only in these ‘pre-ice age’ days).
I used the Knitting Pure & Simple Neck Down Pullover #991 pattern, only changing the collar and the length of the sleeve cuffs (I wanted the collar to be extra long and the cuffs to match the length, so they could be doubled up or unfolded to cover up cold finger tips). For the materials, I chose the Beaverslide Mule-Spun worsted weight yarn in the Catbird colorway. The yardage was so generous and the price could not be beat. I think I still have 3 skeins left of this, somewhere?
In the imaginary throws of Winter, I find that some of the same music that I was listening to a few months back, still appeals to me. I keep playing the White Chalk album over and over, finding new favorites. It seems to draw me in by its raw intimacy and sparseness. It’s turned out to be a perfect ‘pairing’ with the Winter weather and my gray attire.
As I said in my mini-review of this CD before, this music is a great companion for going through old photos, letters, re-connecting to the past…
If you’ve followed my flickr photoset, you probably noticed all the flat-bed scanning I’ve been up to:
My father is coming next week and I hope to put names to the family photos, to the people I don’t know before they are ‘lost to time’, to build some kind of context around them before time runs out:
Family should not remain anonymous and I wouldn’t want that for myself (100 years later, to be handed over in a cardboard box as a ‘mystery’, just an old image buried in one of many piles).
Before I go, I want to thank James again for another beautiful assortment of gifts from far away New Zealand:
He helped to combat the Winter-like weather here with chocolates, an Erasure CD, Kent-ish postcards and my favorite thing of all, a hand written letter:
Thank you James!
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