The day after I turned sixteen I took my driving test. I’ve never loved driving and it made me as nervous then as it does now so I was super surprised when I passed. So was my mum – it took her three tries to pass hers as a teen and I think you could have knocked her over with a feather when I walked out of that place a legal driver.

That evening mum loaned me her car so that I could go out. I grew up in Bramalea (it’s a suburb of Toronto that’s called Brampton now but it’s Bramalea in my heart forever) and like all teenagers in the ‘burbs the only place I ever really wanted to go was the city. It was also the only place that mum said I couldn’t drive her car. No highway, no city, no way.

I agreed, and immediately got on the highway and went to the city, straight to Ken’s house. Ken’s a little older than me and had made his break to freedom and lived in an absolutely craptastic and tiny bachelor apartment that I thought was just about the most incredible thing. It was so cool that you had to take the coolest highway in the city to get there, which was to me was the Allen Expressway. Back then it had yellow/orange low sodium lighting – the only route in the city to have it and driving the last leg to his place was like driving through a cellophane world and felt so grown-up. I didn’t stay long because I had a curfew, and I never asked my mum if she knew I’d broken the rules right out of the gate like that. I’ve always thought that she probably knew because she always knew everything, but then again I wasn’t much of a rule breaker so maybe I got away with it. If she did know she never said anything, probably because by then she’d worked out that trying to keep Ken and I apart was pointless. I was a moth to a flame – except that flames are bad for moths and my life has never, ever been anything but better for getting close to Ken.

The rest is history really. Ken and I went right on being “Steph and Ken” or “Ken and Steph” and those few years after he moved away from Bramalea and was 40 minutes from me is the furthest we have ever lived apart. I moved to Toronto a few years later, and then we always had homes close to each other – and for a long time Ken lived downstairs from my mum. Not in 40 years has Ken had a home more than an hour from mine.

Until yesterday. Yesterday was the beginning of a different thing – Ken moved away. Four hours away to Ottawa. When he told me he was going I cried. I tried not to cry much because it is very selfish to want to keep someone who is making a good and right decision with you for no reason other than than that you like your family tidy, but honestly change is not my best thing, and it is so much easier to be close when we are all… close, you know what I mean?

We went to his place all together yesterday (or at least those of us who could get there) to see him off and give him a box of things that come in handy if you are moving (like toilet paper and napkins and snacks for the car and champagne and plastic glasses to celebrate his new home with his partner and a bottle of scotch for just in case, and Elliot wrote a card and Amanda ran around finding all the best things and Meg made him a cross stitch) and we took it over and surprised him on his porch and then we all tried to say goodbye and were predictably terrible at it. As much as I’m used to having him around that’s how much the girls are used to it too, and Elliot I think doesn’t quite get the magnitude of what’s happened, but that’s okay. We’re all going to learn how to do this new thing.

This is another pandemic lesson, for sure. Ken said until the this thing came along he couldn’t imagine moving away from the family, but for much of the pandemic we haven’t been able to gather as we liked despite living close to each other – and now we’ve had some practice finding other ways to connect, other ways to feel close even when we can’t be, so if you’re going to make a bold move, we’re better equipped now.

There is so much about this decision that changes everything. No more last minute meals or walks together, no more popping by to drop things off – no more weeknight suppers on the porch for Ken and Amanda. (They’ve had a weekly outdoor porch dinner together just about the whole pandemic. Even when things were at their worst, you could find Amanda and Ken and outdoor heaters and electric blankets and takeaway on his porch, the snow swirling around them.) No more training rides together, no more quick park trips with Ellie, no more deliveries of warm bread or things from “Elliot’s Bakery.” (If I know Ken, the impact this move would have on his access to fresh bread and baked goods was a factor he considered a great deal before going.)

On the other hand, there’s so much about this decision that changes nothing. The phone still works (and Ken and I are old enough that we use it.) We all know how to FaceTime and Zoom now, four hours on the train isn’t that far really, and we will figure out holidays and special things just like we always have, no matter what goes on. It’s funny – I know so many families that are so spread out that I’m sure this doesn’t seem like a big deal to them, but it’s only the last year or two that there is any space between our crew at all, and we’ve got a lot to learn. We’re going to get the hang though. We are. We’ve got this.

In just nine days, Ken will get on the train and come back to Toronto so that Team Knit will still be able to ride together, it’s a big bother and he’s had to leave his bike here so that he’ll have it in the right spot, so no more training for him for now. (I don’t know if I should be jealous or not.) If you’ve been waiting to donate to him then today’s probably a good day to fling a little love his way. (His link is here.)

I’m crazy sad that he’s gone, and super proud that he went. I know it was the right thing, but I also know that didn’t make it easy. I am responding in typical fashion. I’ve started him a pair of socks. There’s just no way it won’t help.

(Photo by Elliot – who had zero enthusiasm for holding my knitting but was quite keen to take the picture. Not bad, either. Yarn is Indigodragonfly’s Bike Rally yarn for this year, and the pattern is Show-off Stranded Socks, with a few changes.)

PS: If you look closely you can see that I finished my new top. I’ll get better pictures later but I love it.

PPS: Look at me! I blogged again!

*I’ve always known the phrase “sea change” – my grandparents used it when talking about big changes in perspective or attitude (especially as it related to us kids and our behaviour) but it wasn’t until I was an adult and saw it in a book that I realized it was “sea” rather than “see”. Up until then I thought it was spelled the way it was used… as in “I’d like to see a change”. Anyway. It’s not.

Yesterday I fell off my bike. (Spoiler: I’m completely fine, nobody panic.)

I’ve been struggling with training, not so much the riding itself, but how alone it is. For a bunch of reasons all related to &^%&ing covid, training has been lonely this year and I get worn down by the idea of hours and hours on the bike alone and it takes a huge leap of will to get me out there. When I first learned this about myself a few years ago I was pretty surprised. For the most part I enjoy time alone and find myself pretty good company, usually that time recharges my batteries and stokes my creative fires. (Why, yes gentle reader, this has been a challenge over the last few years as Joe has worked from home and is able to supervise me all day.) I’d have imagined these long rides, hours and hours on the bike (unsupervised) easy for me. I’d hook up with a good audiobook and fly off, but it turns out that really only works for the first three hours or so and then it’s like the whole thing triggers whatever part of my psyche is responsible for self-esteem to start working against me. (“Alone again eh? Where are your friends? Don’t have any? Shall we spend the next 50km reflecting on the disastrous elements of your personality and past mistakes that have left you here?”) I know it’s a trick of the circumstances and I just have to endure it, but I am truly surprised that I am so bad at being alone on the bike when I am so good at it everywhere else. This realization has made something crystal clear for me -there is only one thing missing when I am on the bike, only one element of who I am as a person that I don’t have with me when I ride, and that is knitting.

It turns out that I am not good at being alone, but rather good at knitting alone, and this means that my best friend is knitting and knitting is what I find to be good company, and I know that this would sound bonkers to any other group in the world, dear Blog, but I’ve known this for a while. I’m a dork who’s best friend is inanimate and rather yarnish – but has always been there for me and never let me down, not in the fifty years we’ve been together, so knitting (and how I wish I could be with it while I ride) was what I was thinking about as I left the house yesterday for a 70km cycle. (That’s about three or four hours on a bike – depending. Can you imagine how many socks I could finish the Rally week if it were possible to knit and cycle?)

In no particular order, I was thinking about:

-How the Team Knit fundraising yarn that Indigodragonfly dyed for us this year had arrived and I need to wind it and start knitting – It’s going to be my Rally knitting this year. (I have four skeins and clearly, high hopes.)

-How happy I am with the Deschain I just finished and I wonder what else I could wear it with besides that black dress although that’s sort of working.

(Yarn is a fab 100% cotton from Berrocco called Estiva. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would – it’s got a tape/chainette construction so it’s springier and more fun than I usually think cotton will be. It’s also sadly discontinued but maybe you’ll find some around.

I used just 2.5 balls for this wonder.) I made it an extra two repeats longer because absolutely nothing about my body, age, or personality screams with a desire for a crop top. (Since childhood I have considered my belly button mine alone and nothing about middle age has changed this.)

-That despite wearing my linen Donner almost daily, I still don’t have good pictures of it and I really need to get that done.

-Also when I get home I really have to order my Cozy Knitter advent skein because even though it is freaking scorching out winter is coming.

-Oh, that if I can find a few hours where I don’t have to ride a bike I’ll be finished my Malaquite Tee.

I’ve knit the body and the sleeves and now I’ve just got to sew them together and knit the neckband. So close, so close.

Also I was reflecting that if I could drag myself away from River Ripples I probably would have finished that tee shirt by now and that really my ability to be monogamous to a project hasn’t really changed much over the years, and as a matter of fact, might be worse.

I was thinking about all of this (and a few other knitting related things, as I turned at the bottom of my street and started travelling in the bike lane to the road that takes me down to the Waterfront Trail. (It’s my go-to for riding alone because it’s really long -more than 3600km, but at least in these parts it’s used enough that I feel like there could always be a bit of help if you were in trouble.) So I’m cycling along, and there’s the usual amount of traffic for the city, and I’m mentally winding yarn, trying on sweaters and mucking with mattress stitch while looking ahead (I should order more of that linen from Espace Tricot it was nice) and I see that the light has turned yellow (I’ll block the pieces of that Tee later so it’s easier to seam) so I automatically start to gear down (I wonder if that River Ripples will be much longer after it’s washed) start to slow down (is that swatch still on my desk so I can do the math?) and gracefully come to a complete stop at the light. (I love knit/purl stitch patterns. I should do one on the Rally socks.)

Next thing I know, I am lying splayed in the bike lane, half on the sidewalk, across the curb, utterly flattened, and before I can figure out what happened I hear the cyclist behind me say “wow.” I start to scramble up but I’m still attached to my bike by my shoe clips and so I have to sort of lift the bike so I can swing my ankles to release it all the while saying “I”m fine, I’m fine, go around me, go around me” and wondering (for the 938356th time in my life if you could actually die of embarrassment, because here, darling blog, is what happened.

I came to an efficient, well timed and appropriate stop, and then – because I was thinking about knitting and not bike riding, I just… stopped. I didn’t unclip, I didn’t put my foot down. I didn’t even try to do those things. I simply stopped, and then as I reflected on seed stitch vs moss, on cables with dropped stitches, and on straight and tidy seams and pretty sweaters…

I let gravity take me.

I picked myself up and checked myself over and aside from a wicked bruise or two and a scraped knee I had to soak rather a large amount of gravel out of, I’m fine. As usual the biggest injury is to my pride – and to my bike since I tore my handlebar tape, but that’s pretty fixable I think. I got back on my bike and headed for home, having decided while lying in the dirt that maybe it wasn’t my day, but as I got closer to the house my knee stung a little less and my dignity (having had much practice) sprang back and I took a deep breath, thought about my goals and how close the Rally is and turned myself around again, and went to finish my 70km. I am feeling very good and adult about that.

The fall did – um, let’s call it “refocus” me on what I’m supposed to be doing, if rather painfully. For the next two weeks until the Rally I’ve got a few goals. First, I’m hoping that Team Knit will meet their fundraising goals. We’ve got a long way to go. Here’s our links for fundraising – our goals are on those pages and you can see that like almost everything this year- we’re behind.

Me

Ken

Cameron

Pato

Second, to inspire you to help me find ways to meet those goals – I’m going to try and blog as much as I can between now and departure, and I’m hoping we can get into a lovely rhythm. I’m inspired by your giving to write – maybe you’re inspired by the writing to help PWA and maybe we can all see that the people they serve have what they need for the next year. I can’t thank you enough for getting us all as far as you have.

Third I am going to finish that Tee before thinking about it breaks my arm or something.