All These Places Blanket

 Today I finished a knitting project I started over two years ago. 

That's a long time but it was, to be fair, the largest thing I've ever knitted.  A cotton blanket for my daughter.

Who kept getting taller, meaning the blanket had to keep getting bigger.

Here she is modeling it (she's almost 5' 10" now):

I used probably about 10 - 12 skeins of Cascade Yarns Nifty Cotton Splash 100% cotton yarn, which was MUCH nicer than any cotton yarn I've ever knitted with before.  Pricy, but worth it:

I used this pattern: https://www.fiftyfourtenstudio.com/knitting-patterns/all-these-places-blanket which I liked a lot.  My knitting is a lot looser, probably because it is cotton yarn.  But that's okay since the whole idea was to have a lightweight summer blanket.

I cast on 154 stitches and it is (sort of stretched out) 50" wide.  That would be 3 stitches to the inch which really is not what it looks like, so now I'm somewhat confused.  Eh.  

This was a therapy project.  I went through an extremely difficult time in my work life and I desperately needed handwork to help me stay present but keep my mouth shut during meetings, meetings, and more meetings.  Thankfully that is now much much better.

And as a bonus, it makes my daughter very happy.  Yay!

What White Kids Need to Hear

 Yesterday I read two books to my daughters (ages 8 and 11 right now):

Yours for Justice, Ida B. Wells: The Daring Life of a Crusading Journalist by Philip Dray
and

Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey.

Both are good resources and I recommend them.  Note: we didn't read these because it's Black History Month.  We picked the one about Ida B. Wells randomly from the library and the one about the Green Book is a resource for a year-long anti-racism curriculum I was editing for work.

I don't think anything in these books was completely new to either of my kids.  This is stuff we talk about all the time as the opportunity arises.

But afterwards, a while afterwards, my 8 year old turned to me and said, "Mom, were there White people who didn't think slavery ... who didn't think segregation was okay?"

And I said, "There were lots of White people who if you asked them would have said that slavery and segregation were wrong.  But they wouldn't necessarily have said or done anything to change those things, or been willing to stop benefiting from them.

There were lots of White people who didn't see anything wrong with slavery or segregation and were happy to keep benefiting from them.

There were some White people who even worked to keep slavery and segregation going.

But there were also some White people who worked to stop slavery and to end segregation."

This is something White kids need to hear.  They need to know these truths.

But then I went one further.  I said, "In our family, your great-grandma and great-grandpa moved into the house that they lived in when I was a kid.  That neighborhood was all White.  No Black people lived there.  And then some things started to change and it became possible for Black people to buy houses there.  A lot of White people moved away from the neighborhood.  There were realtors who came and knocked on my grandparents' door and told them they should sell their house right away because a bad thing was happening and Black people were moving into the neighborhood.  My grandparents said no.  They liked their house and they liked their neighborhood and they were just fine with having Black neighbors.  It wasn't a really big thing to do.  They didn't help change any laws, although I think they were part of a neighborhood organization that got together specifically to defeat that kind of red-lining and scare mongering.  They just did the right thing in the situation they were in and refused to be scared of having Black neighbors.  Sometimes you don't have to do anything really BIG to make a difference.  Just the right things."

That is also something White kids need to hear.  They need to hear the truth about where their own family story fits with the stories of slavery and segregation, abolition and civil rights.  This happens to be a truth in our family history, but it is not the only truth (go back 50 - 200 years and there are a lot of different ancestors in different places in relation to race relations) and as circumstances allow my kids will hear other truths - like that many of my great-grandparents would have used the N word with no second thoughts, that we have ancestors who were probably slave owners (in a small way - no big plantations as far as I can tell), etc.  

And they need to hear that you start where you are, with the situations you encounter.  And you do the right thing to the best of your ability.  And that doesn't make you exempt from living in a culture of White supremacy, but that you always have the "right to choose which side / shall feel the stubborn ounces of [your] weight." (Bonaro W. Overstreet)

Navigating Decisions: Moving to Yellow

I offered a community workshop for families considering how to change their quarantine behavior as our area moves towards Yellow in the next week.

Here's the link to the recording:  https://youtu.be/CmOSKxFbpDs

I am suggesting these articles as follow-up reading because they've been helpful to me.  In this very unusual time, we are all trying to find our ways and figure out what the next best thing we can do is.  

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/28/upshot/coronavirus-herd-immunity.html?fbclid=IwAR20wgjYRHrd-XRhfRsbLcOutlxJrj8nj83JAW0RnFGT9qxEkUMb_kgnmRQ

https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/05/why-i-decided-to-join-a-quarantine-bubble-and-you-should-too.html

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-to-social-distance-as-america-opens-back-up?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned&fbclid=IwAR3gIzIrZAXEQxQCrj-NKfh5ii7wEzV55tDqhb8wSDnQiAK0NtJJXwj0r0M

https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/grandparents-and-day-care?fbclid=IwAR3yJ6sHZO-hm7lZOFeND0NbbXP3epTKp1fnsvesod3lJh9eeRrHX7reI3A

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20200511&instance_id=18384&nl=the-morning&regi_id=96247195&segment_id=27239&te=1&user_id=adef1a5bd20ef8ff621a468f98981615&fbclid=IwAR3715ScWr91FoXAnga0j2x4x4WkfJeIdwdc5gst250azbJOn1RSLNSK-RQ

And here's the link for the article we discussed in the workshop: 

https://medium.com/@evelindacker/covid-care-e2ede67428d4

Leg Warmers (instructions)

My 7 year old wanted leg warmers.  She had some pretty specific requirements, some of which, I decided after some experimentation, were not attainable.  I also chose the yarn myself because part of the point of this project was leg warmers and part of the point was 'something to occupy my hands during meetings'.  Which became EVEN MORE IMPORTANT when suddenly all meetings were happening via Zoom.

Although in the end a lot of these were knitted during births, too.

This is the yarn I chose, from Wild Hand in Mt. Airy.  They were very helpful in figuring out what I wanted and then they wound it into a nifty ball for me.

This was a very improvisational 'pattern' with a lot of false starts before I hit on what I really wanted to do.  I used No 6 4.0mm bamboo double pointed needles.  I divided the yarn into two balls before I started so I wouldn't make one fabulous leg warmer and then run out before I made another one complete.

• Cast on 30 st and k2p2 in the round 20 rows.
• Switch to k only and knit in the round another 20 rows.
• Start adding 1st by knitting into the front of the stitch, and then into the back of the stitch before slipping the stitch, every other row. I just sort of varied where in the round I was doing this, so it's a bit random.  Add a total of 10 stitches, ending up with 40 st on the needles.  
• Keep knitting in the round until you feel like you are almost out of yarn or it's long enough for your child's leg.
• Switch to k2p2 in the round 20 rows.
• Cast off!

The results:

I made them extra long in the hopes that she'll be able to wear them for a few years.  She is thrilled!

Keep Going

There is a moment

when the path you are on 

ends;

all the ideas

and plans

and expectations you had

don’t make any sense,

not anymore.

You were a dot

moving in a line

on a plane.

Suddenly,

there are three dimensions

and the way you must go 

is up

out

away 

from the plane 

you used to know

was everything.

A Jacob’s ladder

leading up into the blue,

often through a storm

into heights 

with no air to breathe.

You may struggle 

for a time.

Want to go back,

need to mourn,

be angry,

shout at the sky.

And then you keep going.

It’s the only thing

you can do.

Keep going.

Become the person

you have to be

to do that.

Keep going. 

We are with you.

image Balu Ertl / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

Copyright Dawn Star Sarahs-Borchelt 2020; may be used freely for any non-profit use including streaming with credit.

Songs

Two songs have come to me in my life.

This one came when I was 15 and feeling very afraid a lot of the time.  (I had been robbed at knife-point at my local regional rail station down the block from my house.)  This song helped me be less afraid.

Do you know how strong you are?
Do you know how beautiful you are?
That you shine like a star in the night?
That you blaze with your own light?

You can see me sing it here: https://youtu.be/K22StyCGHbI

The other came the fall both of my maternal grandparents died.  We sang it at their memorial services.

Bury my heart but not my love;
carry that with you wherever you go.
We bury your heart but not your love;
we carry that with us wherever we go.

You can hear me sing it here: https://youtu.be/yMB4Zg7FOks

When You Have More Than Enough

Once upon a time there was a family. Maybe this family had not quite enough to eat.  Or maybe they had just about enough. Or … perhaps they had MORE than enough.

You might not have been able to tell.  THEY might not have been able to tell. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you have enough or not.  It’s hard not to want more or different things than you have.

In any case, this family came together one autumn day for a celebration.  A feast. A time of gratitude.

They gathered, as we have done, around a table.  There was food. There was drink. There were flowers to remind them of beauty.

And then there was a call from the gate outside their door.  

“Hello!  We’re hungry and thirsty and we see you have a feast.  May we come in?”

Well, the family didn’t know at first how to answer.

Who were these people at the gate?  Was it safe to let these people in? Did they have enough to share?  Was there room?

But they remembered.  

They remembered that most of them had come to this family, to this celebration, from someplace else.

They remembered that even they, who were there at that table, had not always been kind to each other.  There had been times when they hurt each other. There were still times when they made each other sad or angry or afraid.  There is no way to make life completely safe.

They remembered times when others had shared with them, even when the others might not have had quite enough of their own.  

They remembered when each new member of the family had been born, or come to stay, or married in.  They remembered that they had always found a way to make room.

And they remembered an old, old saying: when you have more than you need, it is better to build a longer table than to build a higher fence.

We have enough, they said.  We might have more than enough.  We are many, and strong, and we can hold a safe space here in our home for all who come.

And so they went out of their door and to the gate in the fence.  They opened the gate. They invited the people who were there in. Inside, they pulled out another table and made the space for these newcomers.  They covered it with a cloth. And the newcomers set upon it a dish full of something fragrant and delicious which was strange and wonderful to the family.  Everybody shared. And there was enough.

I want us to notice that we only heard one part of that story.  We heard the story of the people who were in the family in the house, ready to feast.  We didn’t hear the story of the people at the gate, wanting to come in. We don’t know who they are or why they are there or what they bring to the table other than the strange and wonderful food!  So when you hear other stories this Thanksgiving season, I want you to think about whose stories they are. And whose stories they aren’t. And what those other stories might have been.