God bless Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka The Yarn Harlot) ! I wish I had her talent (at knitting or at writing,) her initiative, and her creativity. She has ignited the online knitting world with her 2006 Knitting Olympics! Alas, although I seriously desired and considered participating, my crankier more realistic no, more enlightened (?) self prevailed. Although I sincerely admire the fortitude and humor of all of those involved, I need to have knitting as a refuge from competition, from comparison, from tension and stress. (Goodness, isn't there enough of that in my regular life?) Therefore, although I am sure I will be watching much of the XXth Olympic Winter Games, I shall occupy my t.v. watching with relaxing, pressure-reducing, meditative, calm-inspiring knitting. No contests, no deadlines, no medals to aspire to -- just me and my needles and wool. And I'll tell you about it here. Whenever I happen to get the chance.
In a related note, I'm borrowing my husband's Toyota and am leaving early tomorrow morning to drive to Pittsburgh for a funeral. The woman who, for decades, was my mother's closest friend, died this past Thursday night after several months of illness (a blood cancer.) She was a Holocaust survivor who had come to the U.S. as a young girl. Her entire family perished at the hands of the Nazis. She met and fell madly in love with a handsome young American soldier (also from Germany, but one of the lucky ones whose family had the resources to all escape long before the atrocities of Hitler.) They married, moved to Pittsburgh, and raised two wonderful sons. Along the way, they became more than friends to my parents... indeed to my whole family. When my sister and I were little, she played with us when my mother needed a break. She took care of me
and my sister when my parents took an occasional weekend out of town. We lived around the corner, and for years during my childhood, saw each other almost every day. I remember that they always kept a set of encyclopedias in their living room, and I remember spending countless hours lying on my stomach on their carpet reading random volumes of the World Book. We spent holidays together, she attended every chorus concert and theater production I was ever in, and every one of my sister's piano or violin recitals. She wrote me letters when I went to sleepaway camp. She was a master baker and shared her recipes with my mother and me.
She also was the person who taught me how to knit. I was about 7 years old, I guess, and I know she must have taught me the European method. Unfortunately, when I went to re-learn knitting in my 20's, the booklet I found only described the American style, and although I knew it wasn't quite what I had learned as a child, it was all I could find at the time. And so, I developed as a knitter using the right hand carry and the throwing, rather than picking, method. I've tried since then to knit in the European style, as I have since read that it is actually much quicker and can cause less stress to the wrists and hands, but at this point it feels just too weird and clumsy.
One small anecdote... although we were very close during my growing-up years, when I got married and moved away and started my own family (even though she and her husband drove out to visit us when Anna was born) and her sons married and had their own families, our times together grew farther and farther apart. And yet, a few years ago, when my father-in-law died, she invited me and my kids and my niece to have lunch. I was so struck at the lunch table at how she inquired of each child, without being intrusive or inappropriate, or making anyone feel at all uncomfortable, about their lives, their interests, etc. She truly was interested in each one of them as an individual. What did they like most in school? Did they play a sport? A musical instrument? She just was genuinely interested in learning about each one of them... what made them a special, unique person. No talking down. Nothing forced. Just a sincere and caring curiousity. I saw how each child simply blossomed in conversation with her. A beautiful thing.
It never failed to amaze me that someone who had seen so much horror and hatred in her life could be so giving and loving, but that is always what she was, to all who ever met her. Aunt Irma, I shall treasure your memory and your beauty, inside and out, for as long as I live. May you find a heaven full of love and may you be joyfully reunited with all of those whom death took from you so very, very long ago.
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