If you have been around here for any amount of time at all, never mind the full two decades that I have been at this blogging thing to some degree, then by now you should know that I don’t work on my birthday. I used to explain it at job interviews and other than the years that my kids were little and there’s no choice (and one year at the June Retreat in Port Ludlow- but that’s hardly the same kind of work) I don’t do it. That means that technically today should be spent in traditional fashion, which is doing as I darn well please, but I am breaking away from my regularly scheduled festivities to tell you about this year’s Team Knit for the Bike Rally, because there is nothing I would like more for my birthday than a donation to this terrific cause.

Now, I know there’s a small chance that a few of you don’t know me very well (hi instagram) and so let me take a minute to explain what the Bike Rally is, and what’s going on anyway – we’re going back to basics. The Bike Rally is a 660km (bike ride, not motorcycle) from Toronto to Montreal, in support of three great ASOs. (AIDS Service Organizations, that’s people that help people with HIV/AIDS. The one here in Toronto is called PWA, and that’s short for People With AIDS.) Every year a couple hundred people get on their bikes and ride that great long way (they’re the riders, like me) and other people move their stuff and mark the route and cook the food and keep them safe (that’s the crew, like Cam this year) and other people donate money to cheer them on, and to show gratitude that they themselves don’t have to ride bikes that far to make a change in the world. (That’s you.)

We’ve been doing this for years and years and years. Ken started it, and the rest of us have been doing it fewer years, but still a really long time. (Every person in my family has done the ride, except Joe, who I think we can all agree is sort of crew.) ALL of Team Knit (with the exception of Fenner this year but she’s practically a baby) hold this cause in such high esteem that we have held some sort of leadership role or in the case of me and Cam and I may have really maxed this out) MANY leadership roles to keep it rolling. That means that not only are we committed to riding when we can – which is a ridiculous amount of time when you think of the training and fundraising and then the week to actually ride… but decided that this needed more of our time when we’re not riding. That’s an endorsement, right?

These ASOs provide practical, meaningful help to people who have HIV or AIDS and were a response to the under-response of the AIDS crisis that began in the 80s, and over the years what they do and who they do it for has shifted. What was originally a tragedy centred on the gay community and the death sentence that was AIDS has become something really different these days, and in fact globally (and here) women make up the majority of people with HIV/AIDS, and the rate of new diagnosis is higher in women, immigrant women, and first nations women, and women of colour. Across the board HIV infection is associated with underprivilege, discrimination, fear, poverty, lack of power, lack of sexual power or decision making ability, and access to prevention/treatment meds.

Nowadays science (with certainty) that U=U, and that means that if treatment for HIV/AIDS has the amount of virus in your blood Undetectable then it is Untransmissible and you can’t give it to anybody. Not everyone knows this though, and grownups and children can face tremendous stigma and shame, not to mention that the medicine that gets you there is expensive and in many parts of the world, difficult to access, or stigmatizing to access. (If you’re not sure about that, just imagine living in Canada or the US, and having to have your whole neighbourhood and community (including the other parents at your local school or the local dating pool) see you turn up at the HIV/AIDS clinic to access meds for you or your child, and know that’s how it is a lot of places if you seek help.)

Anyway, Team Knit thinks that’s trash. Furthermore, I don’t know about you but the world is such a complicated and heartbreaking place lately, that I am relieved to come up against a problem that we’re already equipped to relieve if only we had the money.

This year Team Knit is a group of knitters that are once again going to get on their bikes and try to make things better, and we are:

Me

Ken

Jen

Fenner (that’s Jen’s kid)

Cameron (Cam’s crewing instead of riding this year, he’s still committed to the cause, still giving up a week of his life to be with us, and though he’s not able to ride this year, you can still donate to him.)

We’re regular knitters, not pro-cyclists or anything, and each of us has so far been on ONE training ride (and they were short) so may the force be with us. (This is the first year that the Rally hasn’t just struck fear in the hearts of one or two of us, but ALL of us. Except Fenner, who has the strength and enthusiasm of youth, which is a whole other kind of amazing thing. You know many teens who would do this?) We ride August 3rd and we would love your support. For years I’ve been writing about the magic of cumulative action, the concept that while one small donation might not mean much, many small donations can make a whole sweater, I mean… an entire cultural shift, but you see how knitters are particularly good at understanding this. Absolutely anything helps, and for years and years we’ve stunned people with what Team Knit (that’s us together with you) can accomplish, especially when we remember that there are many, many ways to help.

It seems like such a good time to come back to basics doesn’t it? People helping people, making change where we can, relieving suffering where we are able. (Sounds like a birthday party to me.)

Let’s go.

(PS I am 57, for those of you who like to donate my age out of sheer moxy.)

Sometimes when I talk to people about these blankets they ask me if I ever get tired of thinking them up, if it’s tricky to come up with a different blanket for each baby in this family and Finn, let me tell you this – it is never. You are so unique and special to me that your blanket ideas came as quickly as they ever do- even if your blanket didn’t. (Sorry about that, your birthday bunched up with another baby blanket that needed knitting, then you were early, and your blanket was late and then Canada Post/PostNord Denmark both have some answering to do.) When I thought about you and your parents and family, it was so easy to dream up a blanket as special as you all are.

You, sweet wee Finn, are the baby in this family I am the farthest from, have ever been the farthest from. I am here in Canada and you are in Denmark, and the stitch pattern I chose for the centre of your blanket is my attempt to reconcile that. Some people see a flower, others a bee, and I bet a few years from now you’ll have your own ideas – but I see (and knit) Polaris, the great North Star, a symbol of what the places we live in have in common. I was just going to type “did you know Finn…” and then I remembered you are new here and certainly do not know, so I’ll just tell you.

The North Star sits over the celestial North Pole (and Santa’s house, we’ll get to that later this year) and because of this, the way it sits at the top of the world, it appears mostly stationary in the sky – all other stars appear to rotate around it and it makes it easy to navigate by if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. Find that star, and straight down from it is true north.

This made me think of you because that’s the way it goes in families, for a time now while you are little, you are the star around which we all rotate, and then for the rest of their lives, you will be the most important point your parents navigate by. From the day you were born everything changed for your mum and dad, and from that moment forward they need only look at you to know the way. Further to that my sweet guy, though you are far away you are a child of the North like the rest of us and somehow that makes you feel closer.

Around that is the ring stitch – and this little Finn, is the only stitch that has appeared on every blanket that I have ever knit. It is a circle of tiny perfect rings that goes around the whole blanket, meant to be a symbol of your family and their love around you. If you need help any day of your whole life, look no farther than your amazing grandparents, great aunties and great uncles, your aunties and uncles and your cousins and everyone else in this family by birth, or because they belong and we chose them. They are a team that is always here for you. (Btw I’m great at unusual solutions to problems, and your great uncle Joe is absolutely who you want to call if you’re in jail. Don’t worry about the Denmark thing, he’ll figure it out.)

Around those little rings is a border you share with your cousin Maeve – the last baby in this family who felt far, far away to me. (By the time Sasha came along, I was a bit more used to them being all the way across Canada.) It’s suns and moons, a little nod to the idea that no matter how great the distance is between you and the rest of us, it’s still the same moon we look up at, still the same sun we play under. That you share a border with Maeve also turns out to be a bit of kismet, since it looks as though she may love you more than almost anybody, something I hope is a hint of a fabulous bond down the line.

Past that (your blanket is as big as any of them ever have been, despite my attempts to restrain myself) a border that means something to me, though I have as much trouble articulating it now as I did when I sketched it. There are large motifs with nupp centres and larger circles, giving way with each generation to something less complex, until the last round has just an encircling of little nupps. My idea here was to stretch and try to represent the unique moment your larger families are in… so many generations. Your maternal Great-grandmother counted her progeny for me one day before I knit this, noting that you would be the 28th person in her family because she and Old Joe got married and I tried to visualize all those people, and I know that your dads family brings so much more complexity to this – all these people who you come after because of dates and dreams and accidents and effort. You are the icing on an almost 60 year old cake, and you and your cousins are that newest cute little generation of nupps at the last. It’s a snapshot of who your family is right now and how remarkable that is.

After that (I told you it was big, we’re almost done.) A little chain of daisies – because like your dad Adam you are Danish, and that’s Denmark’s national flower. Also partly for the synergy between your mum and your aunt Savannah and all their Canadian summers trying to make daisy chains. One way or another the two of them will have you in a field with these flowers in your hair sooner or later, and when they do you and your dad can beam with nationalistic pride.

Finally darling Finn, the last border. Like so many of these blankets… it is a wave. First for the wave of love that welcomes you, for the waves of strength that encircle you, for the wave of luck that brought your parents together, but mostly for the wave of strength in your mum, my niece Kamilah, and the wave of water she brought you forth on, sweet and strong and rather obviously no longer the little girl that skips in my heart when I think of her. Your border is knit in garter stitch, and not to geek out in the knitting department too much, but the symbolism in that is safety, strength, comfort, resilience, endurance and shelter. You’ll find a lot of garter stitch in your blanket if you look for it Finn – and it’s there for a reason. I hope the magic of knitting acres of it brings all those charms to your life and more.

Although we haven’t met, my little darling… I hope that every time you are wrapped in your blanket or it is laid over you on a cool day, every time it is spread beneath you so you can watch the leaves flutter or see the birds swoop by – I hope you can feel so much love in all the stitches.

Welcome wee Finn. You are a most wanted, hoped for and dreamed of child. You are perfect.

Love always,

Great-Auntie Stephie

(PS. Please thank your talented grandmother Kelly for taking the beautiful pictures of you enjoying your blanket. You lucked out in the grammy department.)

We haven’t met yet – but as we speak you are far away across the country, wrapped in a symbol of my tremendous affection for your wee self – your baby blanket. I know you’re very, very young and quite new around here and you don’t know much about knitting, but but let me tell you a thing or two about having a baby blanket. They take a long time to make. Many, many hours, days and weeks go into making a knitted thing for someone, and that means that whomsoever made the knitted thing for you thought of you for all of those hours and days and weeks, and thought that you were deserving of having that much of their life and time dedicated to you. You’re that important, wee Jack.

In your case, I also think particularly well of your Mum and Dad. Me and Joe (you’ll learn about him later, he’s very fun and loyal and rather hairy, sort of like a very big, very clever dog- You’ll learn about dogs later too) met your parents when they’d only recently come to Canada, and they were so young and nice and their own parents were far away, so we took an interest. We know we weren’t going to be a huge help because Joe and Lucy (you might have heard those names, that’s what we call your mummy and daddy) were still quite far from us too. We were at least in the same country though, and we thought that might be something. Turns out that really you’ve lucked out in the parent department, and they’ve got on perfectly. We drove across the country for their wedding and gosh, what a day. I know you probably have other things on your mind, but know that if you grow up to be as kind, funny, loving and constant as your father, you’ll do just fine – and if you turn out like your loving, thoughtful, sincere and charming mother that wouldn’t be a crime either. They are just the best sort of people -Anyway, on to the blanket, eh tot?

I have made many baby blankets Jack, and each and every one of them is unique. I think long and hard about how you got to be here, the things I think will represent your special story and things that will (when you are bigger, I understand that symbolism is lost on most people who are only days old) help you build a sense of the family you were born into, and the person you will become.

I start with the centre Jack, and yours is a field of leaves – meant to invoke the out-of-doors your parents love to be in, no matter where they roam in the world. Everywhere they are- in Norfolk or Banff, Queensland or Ontario, all places of the world I know they will share with you as you get bigger, a canopy of trees is overhead, gardens grow nearby and the smell of green and growing things drifts over your family. I know it’s coming to the end of a long Canadian winter and that’s all you’ve known, my wee beast – but the sweet and brief summer is coming, and you’ll love leaves when you meet them. These leaves also are a nod to your growing family tree – the branch that your parents have started, and the new leaf that is you.

Around that field of leaves is a tiny border of bitty hearts – for the month of February you were born in, and because even before you were born Jack, you had become the centre of your parents hearts – their dearest little love.

Sweet bairn, around that is a border of an old English pattern called Rose Trellis. See the roses climbing on the diamonds? This pattern is meant to invoke an English garden, and to remind you of your grandmothers. I am a grandmother, and I am here to tell you that their love is something you can count on now and every day that they live. There is an Italian proverb that says “If nothing is going well, call your grandmother” and Jack, this is great advice. I’ve met both your Grandmothers and I can tell you this: Not a day will go by that they will not wish to have you with them, and not a day that either of them would be willing to cross the sea if you asked them to. Distance is nothing to a grandmothers heart, and having a little grandson myself, I don’t think it’s much to a grandkid either. Your grandparents are going to be your strongest supporters and your biggest fans and you can count on them. I know that they feel so lucky that you have been born.

Beyond the very English garden looms the very Canadian Rocky Mountains. You are a first generation Canadian Jack, the child of immigrants and now a native citizen of the most beautiful country in the world (at least most Canadians think so) and you’ll grow up with those very mountains looking on you every day. We met your mum and dad because of those mountains, They live here because of them, and they were wed on the side of a mountain with the glorious range all around. Your parents are at home here – amongst the bears and the glaciers, the snow and the wildflowers, the striking blue lakes, the shimmering rivers and the spectacular peaks and trees. I am quite sure there will be some considerable debate about if you will be a skier or a snowboarder Jack, but Joe and I have already decided to stay out if it. Your orientation won’t matter to us at all and we can love you no matter who you are or what you love. I can’t wait to see you grow the same sense of belonging for the great wild places of this country – just as your folks and many aunties and uncles have. You live in a remarkable, beautiful place, and it is the sort of place that shapes people.

The border of your blanket- the part that goes all around the outside, is made up of waves. Great cresting waves, to symbolize how much of who you are and were you come from is reflected by your relationship with water. It goes without saying that your parents have a wonderful connection to the water around where you live – if your mum hasn’t already thought about when she can get you in a canoe I’d be surprised, and already you’ve met a great deal of water- albeit rather frozen. These waves are for the water near where you live, that your parents love to be in and on, they are for the water they crossed to come to Canada and the waves are to remind you that this is all that separates you from your English family – who live across the pond and many, many waves. For the English seaside you’ll visit, for the beaches and oceans you’ll see – and finally, for the water you came from yourself, born on a wave, already shepherded by your strong and lovely mum.

All of this together in one knitted thing is all that I hope for you wee Jack. The strength of mountains, the constancy of lapping waves. The sweet green leaves of the world all around you, and the enduring help of a family, as beautiful as roses and your own garden. This blanket is soft and it is big enough that you will fit under it your whole life, and I hope it’s a long-serving reminder of all the gifts and strengths you were born with.

You are a most welcome, hoped for and loved child, welcome, welcome, welcome.

Love,

Stephanie

I was just sitting here wondering how I catch you all up on everything from the last little bit because there has been so very, very much and I thought I’d start there. Holy cats, wing of moth, what a lot has happened – or maybe it’s not really that much and just feels like it because of one enormous thing that’s made everything else so much trickier.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been feeling like trash. No- wait. Hot trash. I’ve been catching everything that goes by for ages and never feeling like I catch up health-wise which leads to me feeling really behind on everything else (because I am) which was stressing me out and making me feel worse, and then I had several really scary … episodes, is I guess what you’d call them, and the whole thing culminated in a really terrible trip to the ER on Family Day weekend, which then wound up being emergency major abdominal surgery two days later. 0/10, do not recommend, and it was such a traumatic experience that I don’t even want to write about it yet.

I do recommend having fantastic kids and a great husband who all busted a move taking care of me and replacing my efforts around the house once I got home. I felt so crummy for the first week afterwards that not much of anything happened, though when conscious I did make really decent progress on that baby blanket I was working on the last time we spoke.

I was supposed to fly out for a visit to a friend just a week after surgery, and then go on to the Spring Retreat at Port Ludlow, but my surgeon said I couldn’t fly for two weeks so I rearranged everything, cried into my pillow a little, and then put all my efforts into making sure that I was in the best possible shape to go and work at the retreat. (Also, I finished that baby blanket, I’ll show it to you when the recipients are in possession of it. It’s still making it’s way to them and I don’t want to spoil the surprises.)

Let me tell you – the day that I headed to the airport to wing my way west, I was not my usual chipper self. I managed to get it together by the time I got there, and Debbi’s a formidable powerhouse who made the whole thing possible but I am convinced that it was the power of my will and how much I love the retreats and the knitters that come to them that got me through that thing.

When I got home I went to bed and… well. I stayed there for about 24 hours – I think I slept almost 14 hours straight, and when I got up I was determined. I was saying all sorts of things like “enough is enough” and “time to get it together” and boy was I sick of not being well. I was tired of the restriction that I can’t lift anything, tired of being exhausted by the end of every day – absolutely fed up with wasting time on crap like naps and early bedtimes and stupid rests with lame cups of tea. I got up and I gave the week my all. Determined to muscle through we celebrated Charlotte’s birthday and gathered to observe the anniversary of her death, and I cooked and cleaned and organized and I suppose what happened was predictable.

It didn’t work. All I’ve been trying to do is go, go, go, and all I hear from my body is no, no, no, so for the next few days I’m going to give up, as gracefully as humanly possible. I’m going to knit. I’m going to work quietly at my desk. I’m going back to rests and naps and lame cups of tea. (I actually like tea, I don’t know why I’m so mad at it.) I’ve started another baby blanket, if you can believe it – one more epic and then I think there’s a lull in the baby train for a bit. I’m only at the centre for this one, if I can truly rest and knit today then I’ll be blocking it tonight, and pick up all around for the edging tomorrow.

This one’s got a pretty epic set of borders, so the middle is comparatively wee. Tonight while it’s blocking (do you hear that optimism it is so impressive) I’m going to work on my SISC socks.

Shocker – I’m behind on these. The rules (they are my rules so I can break as many as I want) of the Self-Imposed-Sock-Club say that I’m to knit 10 rounds per sock per day – but it turns out that there’s an invisible asterisk by that rule, and it reads “unless I am rushing a blanket”. So.. behind I am, and it feels right and valid – at least when it comes the socks.

Sigh.

Dr Seuss said “How did it get so late so soon?” and that my dear readers, sums up my feelings about this year so far. I cannot name a single thing that is on track so far, I feel behind on everything I’m trying to do – Joe finally arrived home from out west after three weeks away, and I was so looking forward to being back on track when he came down with norovirus. (I refuse to capitalize it to make my lack of respect clear.) I’m barely over the last thing I had so I have washed my hands until they’re sandpaper and mopped down the bathroom 87 times a day and slept in another room while muttering “not today Satan” under my breath and so far, so good. He’s well on the mend now so I feel like I might have dodged it, but honestly it’s enough of a mess over here that I this week I’m going to have to drop a few plans out of my queue and prioritize only the things that really matter. Case in point, I have completely let go of any plan to clean anything and am knitting this baby blanket like it’s a job. (Well, except for my jobs and setting up the Spring Retreat, there’s one or two spots left I think if you want to hang out IRL.)

I have two baby blankets to knit in the next little bit and if I had my way I’d be on the final edging for the second one, rather than starting the second border. (I have half a mind to let all the parents know what I think of babies that arrive back to back and so soon after Christmas, but I like babies too much to complain properly or with any kind of heart. This one’s for friends of ours and the next for my niece – no more grandbabies yet.) I’ve knit the centre and a garter border, then a little border and the first big one – today I start the second big border and garter section, then there’s a little one and another garter section and then bingo, I start the edging.

It never ceases to surprise me how slowly this part goes. It seems like it should be so fast – the part I just completed is only 12cm deep and holding the work in my hands it’s pretty demoralizing that it took days, but really, each round went all the way, well… round, and that means that I added 12cm on each side, for a total of 48cm knit, and that means the blanket is now almost a half metre bigger and that’s a load of knitting and no surprise that it took a few days. Ellie is here for the weekend and although he’s a knitter he doesn’t want to spend hours and hours and hours at it, so we will see how far I get. (Abigail is here this evening and her focus in the area of the textile arts is pulling needles out of knitting, so I can’t imagine I’ll make good time then either.)

When I’m not working on the blanket, I’m working on my Self-Imposed-Sock-Club. The plan is 10 rounds a day on each sock each day- and last year that churned out 12 pairs of socks quite handily. I bagged up 12 patterns I want to knit and 12 skeins of yarn that I want to use and matched them up, stuck them in brown paper bags stapled them shut, mixed them around so I don’t know what’s in what bag, and put them on a shelf in my office. (I then instantaneously forgot what was in the bags, thus making it ridiculous that I’d mixed them up to try and fool myself.) The idea is that I pull down a bag each month but I got a late start in January and the rest of the month was on fire and there’s this big blanket and …

I’m not done yet. I need to knit the toes on these, and then go back and put in the heels. It’s a forethought heel, I put a little waste yarn in where the heel goes, and I’ll pull that out, collect the stitches and bob’s yer uncle. Sounds fast, right? We’ll see how quickly I get there – It’s pretty motivating to think about what might be in the next bag I pull down and I can’t do that until I finish these – I wonder if this is less fun if you have the kind of memory that would let you have any idea whatsoever what is in those bags- my memory being what it is means that the SISC (Self Imposed Sock Club) is a complete mystery and a surprise, just like it was being mailed to me every month.

Off I go. Someone has to knit those toes – and hide my knitting from Abigail. (Let me know if it’s you. I’ll work on the blanket.)

This entry comes to you on the auspicious occasion of my 21st Blogiversary, from the rather inauspicious location of my bed- where I’m tucked up with a wicked cold, a parting gift from Meg and her crew.

She had surgery 10 days ago and has been staying here since then – my little grandchildren all over the house, with me cooking and cleaning and doing some of the school run with Elliot. (He loves school by the way, and the only thing we don’t like about it is that it’s turned him into a walking viral vector, and I’m reasonably sure that he’s the reason I’ve been sick for months, including a nasty run with pneumonia and something terrible that derailed Christmas.)

It’s been a blast to have them here, current virus not withstanding and we do like to stick together as a family so I suppose (she says, blowing her nose again) that it is more than worth it. The whole family headed home this morning leaving me alone in the house, and I promptly retired to the bed with my knitting where I’ve slept most of the day and have no plans any loftier – but I’ve always written on my blogiversary, and I didn’t want to stop now

Over the last while, I’ve been thinking a lot about moments and the way we spend our time. I think of it a lot when I’m with little kids. That while I’m just making dinner or doing the dishes, or chatting with them as I clean, or as they’re annoying me while I try and write an email or do some work… that while all of that is Wednesday morning for me, to them it is a series of moments that are making up their childhoods, and I (like the other grownups in their lives) feel a certain responsibility to try and make things magical. I make fancy pancakes, I dance in the kitchen, I read endless stories and play in the park and anytime I feel like this is a burden or interpret it as pressure, I try and remember two things.

First, while we are responsible for making the magic in children’s lives (and the grownups we love too) children have unbelievably low standards and can show unwavering love and devotion to even the worst of adults with terrible ideas from time to time. Second, you never know what is going to be accidentally magical – when I was a little girl my Grampa (who was a wonderful person and grandparent and together with my Grammy is the model of all I do with Elliot and Abigail) worked so hard on making my childhood amazing. He took me on a plane, I got to go in a hot-tub at the Calgary Hilton. He gave me a hammer and let me smash rocks to find potash in them at the end of a driveway in Saskatoon. He worked incredibly hard and yet some of the most cherished moments of my childhood were watching him in his element when he wasn’t even trying, me sneaking down over the stairs to watch him waltz with my grandmother in the mornings, or raging at the squirrels who were eating the corn he’d planted. (Fair enough, his yield was only going to be four ears. He was all in.) One time while we were out somewhere he said he’d named a lake for me. “Lake Stephanie” he said, as we whizzed by a surely-already-named lake, him gesturing out the car window. Looking back I’m sure we were on our way to something he thought was going to be life-building magic, but it was that one line and a soft wave out a window on a twinkling winter night that did it. It was a transformative moment between us. I am older now than he was when he said that, and I remember it like it was yesterday. You never know what will do it, what the real moments are and it’s not like at the time it was so important, but I see it now.

Funny topic for a blogiversary you’re probably thinking, but hold on, here comes the tie in. This blog was that way for me. Twenty-one years ago my kids were little and I was building their childhoods and our lives and to take a break from all of that and give me a connection to anyone who cared about the things that I did, Ken gave me this blog. I sat down with my little laminated HTML sheet (if you don’t know what that is ask someone in their 50s) and I wrote. I didn’t know it then, but it was one of those moments. It was magical. I mean, it wasn’t then, that’s what I’m trying to say. Right then it was me and a computer the size of a compact car in the dining room, and it didn’t feel magical at all. It didn’t feel like anything other than trying to learn to blog.

Twenty-one years later it’s clear that that moment was a life changer. Probably even bigger than having a lake named after you. That moment created a connection with all of you, and that little stone thrown in has created ripples that are still changing my life every day. I love you all. Thank you for writing back, thank you for your comments, thank you for catching and ordinary moment, and making it magic. You changed my life.

PS: It has become tradition to kick off my fundraising for the Bike Rally every year on this date, and well, why not. To be completely honest- after last year I was a little reluctant to sign up again, and I am starting to feel a little old for it, but I in the end I did sign up, and I’m going to give it my all. Every year we weird out the people in the PWA office by donating an amount that seems random to them and has meaning to us – this year obviously, it’s $21, or a mutiple thereof, if you’re so inclined and you figure the Blog has meant that much to you. The link is here. Some people like to thank Ken today too, after all he’s the guy who set this blog up. If you like, his link is here.

PPS: More later when I’m better, I owe you loads of posts and I have a blanket to explain. (Abigail pulled the needles out. Patrons, thank you so much for your patience while I’ve been so unwell, I’ll be back in that space very soon.)

Joe’s been travelling for work. If you’ve been peeking at things over on instagram you probably knew that – it’s been going on for a while. Every couple of weeks he packs off west for a couple of weeks and I’m on my own. This is not my favourite, and the novelty has long worn off. Sure, there are perks – I do find myself good company and don’t mind being alone (sort of). It makes dinner easier, without Joe here at least I don’t have to figure out the unlikely magical dinner that we both feel like making and eating. (The first few times he was away it was a festival of cilantro around here. I love it, he hates it – I ate it every day. I considered ornamenting my oatmeal with it just because I could.) In the unlikely event I clean something it stays cleaner longer, there’s considerably less laundry, the music I play can lean as far in the Depeche Mode and new wave directions as I like and eyes remain unrollled. I don’t have to watch any movies with explosions in them, and it does free one up to knit as much as one pleases without having to rationalize that to anyone, but this isn’t really a perk since after this many years together I wasn’t doing much explaining about the knitting anyway.

The downsides? It’s a little lonely. It’s pretty quiet (though I liked that about it the first 5 trips, it’s worn off now.) I have to lift all the heavy things and do all the household jobs, even if they are particularly gross (Joe has long been trained up to handle anything like that) and I have to do all the jobs that he does, like going to the grocery store, taking out recycling, and at the end of every day I have to clean the kitchen up, which I really hate. For decades I’ve been making dinner and then just walking out of that room without so much as a glace back. I just cook and leave and at some point in before I go back into that room in the morning, Joe cleans up. I love this, and when we’re separated he always remembers how much he hates cooking, and I remember how much I hate cleaning up after cooking, and we both renew our commitment to living together.

Now, I’ve managed ok for the last several trips, but this one… well for starters I’m sick of it, and second… we’ve begun the ramp-up to the holidays, and I miss what is one of Joe’s most spectacular qualities, his seemingly unlimited ability to do errands. You can imagine how valuable this is for a holiday planning type like me. I dream it, he makes it happen. All I have to say is that I need gold staples, red ribbon, two kinds of tape and a butternut squash and Joe will leave the house and not come back until he has those things. I just keep a running list and Joe keeps going. Elliot wants a specific lego kit for Christmas? Joe will go find it. I tell him I really need black thread? Lo, it will appear. Today I am sitting here with my holiday spreadsheet open and every time I fill in a box I reflect on how much more time it’s going to take to make that happen by myself.

I sort of have it in my mind that I’ll get the bulk of Christmas shopping sorted before Joe comes back. There will be some things he’ll have to do, but he won’t have much time to do it, and I figure the shorter his list is the more likely it is that he’ll look forward to coming home. He can walk in the door, and the tree will be up, the shopping sorted, the decorating done and I’ll be … well I will undoubtedly be knitting, because this is the plan.

This my petals, is what I’m planning to knit in the next 34 days* and as usual, this feels reasonable. It is: my November Self-Imposed-Sock-Club socks. (They’re almost done but I put them on there anyway because they need doing.) A sweater for Elliot, a pair of size large socks, a pair of mittens, a pair of slippers, a size 1 baby sweater, a dress for Abigail, my December Self-Imposed-Sock-Club socks (they’re in the paper bag I don’t know what they are because I’m 56, and I packed everything into bags a year ago, and so even though logically I should know what it is because I’ve seen the other 11? No clue. Zip. Will be a total surprise) and finally, my advent socks from The Cozy Knitter.

Can I do it? Who knows. Like I said, that all seems reasonable- I mean… I’ve already done a swatch for Ellie’s sweater and it’s November still and that makes it feel to me like anything is possible, even if I do have to run all my own errands. As usual, I imagine it may be fun to watch – so I’ll keep posting here. I do owe all of you about 50 blog posts anyway, so no time like the present.

Ready? Set? KNIT.

*Not pictured are the three pairs of men’s socks which I am forced to admit shouldn’t be on the table because they are wildly aspirational and only a complete lunatic would think that they could get them done. (Note, because I am a partial lunatic they are just on another table in case it turns out that I am so amazing I even shock myself. You have to be ready for greatness, lest it find you.)

I’m sitting at my desk, and it’s “Day Zero” for the bike rally, which is what Ken calls Packing Day. That’s the day before departure, the day that we show up with all the worldly goods we’ll need for the next week (including our knitting) and load it all into bins and walk away from it. The support volunteers will drive it to our Day One stop for tomorrow night, and then we’ll cycle 114km to catch up with it. (That sounds bonkers, doesn’t it?) It’s rather late – or at least it’s Bike Rally late, which means that it’s not even gone nine yet and I’m ready for bed. I have to be awake ridiculously early in the morning – I haven’t quite done the math but I’ve got to be up, dressed, fed, caffeinated and across town with a sunny attitude and a ready bike at 7am and that sounds like such a challenge if I am not absolutely lying in my bed by 10pm.

Ken’s here, he’s upstairs puttering with a few things, and Joe’s watching the Olympics and I’m sitting here taking a few minutes to write to you before I go up and lie down and begin the night before process of anxiously making a mental list of all the things I don’t want to forget tomorrow. My bike jersey has three pockets and Ken has a small backpack that I can put things in- he’ll stash it with one of the drivers. I’ve got to remember to pack my toothbrush after I use it, and to bring three chamois butters in my pockets (one for me, one for Jen and one for Fenner) and I need my ID (whoops, I think I put that in my bins) and I kept out a little bit of knitting – just the socks that I started for my Self-Imposed-Sock-of-the-Month Club, and they’re just a bit of toes but I still want to take them and I’ll need something to knit as we make our way there.

I also have to remember my puffer – a new addition to my checklist. A year after having Covid I still have virus-induced asthma. It’s crappy. I’d hoped it would give up and wander off but despite a perfect lifetime of terrific asthma-free lung function -15 months post-covid I can’t cycle more than a few blocks without wheezing like an old accordion. (Thanks Covid, you’re a jerk.) It’s a whole new thing learning to carry the medicine with me when ride, but I’m getting the hang and it works, so that’s kinda motivating.

As we did a few last minute tasks tonight, putting our license plates on our bikes, organizing our jerseys and shoes and bike shorts for tomorrow and I told Ken that I am officially at the “why do I do this to myself” phase of getting ready. I’ve been there all day – It’s so much work and it’s so tiring and tomorrow’s supposed to be about 40 degrees (that’s 104 for our American friends) and the Rally is hard, so so hard, and and while I do all of it and think about the week ahead of me it helps to revisit all the reasons I bother.

I could go on forever about how important the work that PWA does is. I could tell you about the difference that they make in the lives of people with HIV and AIDS. I could tell you about the people I have met that have explained to me that PWA saved their life. That they got back a sense of belonging and community and comfort, or that it’s the place where they don’t feel ashamed, or stigmatized or that it’s the place that helped them get the meds that they need to be healthy and to get them to an undetectable viral load so that not only are they healthy, but they’re not able to pass it on to anyone else, stopping this beast in its tracks. I could tell you that PWA helped them get a haircut. I could tell you that they helped them with vet services for a beloved pet, or provided the skills and confidence to get a job, or gave them access to the Essentials Market (a much more dignified name for a food bank) to get the food that they needed to feed their kids this week, or provided child care or a drive for a medical appointment.

Mostly though, I would tell you that like almost everyone who rides the Rally, I’m doing it because there is a kind of world I want to live in, and I think that we all have a responsibility to try and build it together, and that those of us who are able to show up and fundraise and make some noise have a moral obligation to do just that on behalf of not just the clients who need the service systems we’re building, but for those of us who simply can’t. Maybe that’s you right now. Maybe the most you can do right now to build that kind of world is read this, and think about it. Maybe the most you can do is donate. Maybe donating is impossible for you and the way you can help is to forward the request to someone who can – putting it on your feed or on your socials. Maybe you are someone who needs to use these services yourself. *

Anyway, tomorrow as I start my ride with Team Knit, that’s what I’lll be thinking about. Doing my best to fundraise, and raise awareness and well… it’s going to be really hard. As always, you are the missing piece. Team Knit”s efforts change nothing without your help, and we are so grateful for you and any help you can give, no matter what it looks like.

Team Knit is:

Me. (Stephanie)

Ken (like always)

Cameron (currently away for an important family time)

Jen (welcome back Jen, it’s been 8 years)

Fenner (Jen’s kid, now a whopping 16 years old and old enough!

I think I’ve figured out how to blog from my ipad, so there’s a tiny chance I’ll be able to do that on the ride or in Montreal- and in my last blog post I said that I would write you an entry for every $1000 we raised, which means that right now I owe you more than 40 blog posts, and I better get on it.

Thanks for everything, please keep helping. I think you’re great.

* a little note about that. Did you know that a very great many (more than a third) of the clients who use PWA are women? HIV/AIDs has always exploited the vulnerable, and these days a client at the agency is just as likely to be a mother with children (sometimes HIV+ as well) as a gay man. The face of this pandemic might not quite be what you think. I’m not just allied to the LGBTQ2S+ community, I’m showing up for those mamas.

I have always been, much to my own disappointment and that of my mother, a person who is a rather vulnerable to criticism. My grandfather thought that criticism was valuable and told you a lot about where you should be putting your energy if you’re trying to improve yourself, and maybe because I’m a bit weak or maybe because I took that a little too seriously, I have always taken the things that people say about me right to heart, and tried to do something with it. I think that this has worked on some things – but there’s a whole raft of other stuff about me that just seems intractable no matter now many times I vow to be the sort of person with a really tidy house who also doesn’t talk too much. Usually, when I confess that I’m sort of vulnerable this way all sorts of people try to reassure me that I’m pretty great and I shouldn’t worry about what other people think, and that’s super nice of them. I appreciate it a lot, while also not being able to really think that’s true. Caring what other people think is important to me and the civil society I’d like to live in, and I care what you think of me, and for the most part I think I’m better for it, especially as I get older and work out exactly which opinions matter, and which are differences of opinion that I’m kinda proud of.

Now, I’ve written before how being someone who takes criticism easily to heart makes it really hard to be a writer, especially one who gets to read her reviews right here on the blog, or in my inbox. It can make me nervous about writing in general and well – I think I’m always going to struggle with that. So a while ago I went to write to you about the Bike Rally and Team Knit this year, and to tell you that I’m going to try and blog about everything as frequently as I’m able in exchange for donations, and stopped, and didn’t. See, I received a comment from someone that said that she felt this blog only existed to be a personal go fund me for the Bike Rally (that’s an oxymoron by the way, you can’t have a personal fundraiser that’s for a charity the money is going to the charity for crying out loud I’m not buying shoes) and I realized that if I posted now she could think I was doing just as she said, and I worried that she would have more criticism that hurt my feelings and I didn’t post. This went on for a while even though this reader said she was deleting me and wasn’t going to read anymore, because I’ve always figured that if one person leaves a comment, they’re really speaking on behalf of a bunch of knitters who feel the same way but can’t be arsed to leave a comment. (This is like me believing that all spiders are hiding a secret ability to jump. You can’t tell me otherwise, despite evidence to the contrary- I said it was a secret.) It doesn’t matter if that’s true or not, because I realized something shocking about it yesterday, and here it comes.

I don’t care.

Even if every little bit of that is true, and I am only using the blog as a fundraiser at the moment, do you know what? That’s a great legacy. That’s an amazing thing for this blog to do. If that is the culmination of twenty years of blogging – that I’ve told you the story of my knitting and this family for two decades and created a platform that exists so that knitters can make the world a better place? Sign me up. Send me the tee-shirt. Cool beans, I’m in, I think that I like that about me.

I have also been kinda bummed about the world lately- and somehow it has felt to me like there are so many problems right now that it is impossible to write fairly about anything. If I write about the climate aren’t I ignoring Gaza? If I write about Gaza then I am a boor who must turn my attention to Ukraine, and how could we overlook the Sudan – do you even care about Niger? Do you know the temperature of the Atlantic ocean? Aren’t politics keeping you up at night? Are you worried about eroding human rights? It feels to me many days like the world is completely out of control and these problems are so many and so big that it can feel hard to do anything about any of it. Luckily though, I am a knitter and so are you (probably) and that means that unlike a lot of people, we have an antidote. Team Knit.

Team Knit is a little group of knitters (mostly in my family) who every year, ride their bikes from Toronto to Montreal (that’s 660km – or 410 miles, for my American friends) to raise funds for PWA. (Toronto People with AIDS foundation.) This year Team Knit is:

Me. (Stephanie)

Ken (like always)

Cameron*

Jen (welcome back Jen, it’s been 8 years)

Fenner (Jen’s kid, now a whopping 16 years old and old enough!)

*Quick note about Cam- he has an injury this year that’s preventing him from riding. He’s still dedicated to the ride and the cause, so he’s signed up as crew and will spend the six days making the ride go from another angle.

How is that an antidote? Glad you asked. In fundraising – what I was just writing about is a big, big part of what fundraisers are trying to overcome. The problem that almost nobody has a spare few million dollars, and that means that most donations are going to be rather smaller than that, to say the least. Now, most humans are smart enough to look at a problem and realize that some money would go a long way to helping, but understand that it would be a lot of money. Then they realize that they don’t have a lot of money, they just can spare a little bit, and don’t donate, because there’s no way that $10 can solve the problem, and so they don’t give anything. There’s other people though – people who understand the concept of “cumulative action” – and those people are different. Those people have learned somehow, through experience or education, that a small action isn’t futile, if it’s combined with many other small actions, and those people will indeed take a small action or make a small gift because they know their little piece is an essential part of something big. Fundraisers love these people – this kind of person creates really differences in the world, and guess what.

All knitters understand Cumulative Action. Every, single one of them. Knitting teaches you that one small action does matter. That one small action, like knitting a stitch, isn’t unimportant. It’s vital. One small action repeated many times is a sweater. Or a shawl. Or a pair of socks to hold the feet of someone you love, and that idea? The concept of cumulative action? It makes knitters the most remarkable fundraisers of all. Other groups, they have to rely on the small part of their community that understands that… knitters? Our whole group gets it. Our whole group sees that one small thing – put together with many other things can create something enormous, and wonderful, and magical.

More than this, there is a bonus, and it is that this feels great. Taking a small action that becomes huge in cooperation with your community is a remarkable way for people to know what it must feel like to make huge gifts, to be a philanthropist, to know that they are actually taking an action big enough to create real, tangible change and difference in the world, to be someone who is shaping that world- to lift the feeling that nothing matters, that you can’t do anything, that it’s all out of your control. It’s not. It’s not at all. You’re just not going to do it by yourself.

Please give if you can. As always, I believe there are so many ways to help – the wave of cumulative action roars fastest with lots of us. If you can’t afford to give, please help by spreading the word, telling a friend, asking a business, or reaching out to any billionaires you may know. You’re Team Knit, let’s go.

(I forgot to tell you about the deal. For every $1000 we raise, I’ll write one blog post. It’s a small thing, but it’s something I can do.)

There’s quiet music playing in the kitchen. I’ve got a cup of tea and it’s snowing. My sweater knitting is calling me, but the house is a mess so really I should clean instead of knit, but I think we all know how that’s going to end, don’t we?

Truthfully I’ve got to much to do here at my desk to do either, but I’m bucking the feeling of being “behind” on that sweater and want to make some progress. I made a catastrophic error knitting it the first time (just an extra hundred stitches or so, no big deal. Chest measurement was 87″ instead of 40″. Whatever) and I had to rip the whole thing out, right back to the cast on, and in that moment it lost some of its charm, you know what I mean? It’s a super fun knit and I keep mumbling things to myself like “a knit so nice I’ll do it twice” but the truth is that I sort of think of it as a traitor now. Yesterday I brought different yarn downstairs and came within a hair of winding it to make a different sweater before I pulled myself together and reminded myself just how much fun I had the first time, and that technically if I make the big mistake on a piece of knitting that makes me the problem, not the sweater.

The sweater in question- Pattern is the Field Sweater, and yarn Lexington from The Artful Ewe.

When I put away that other yarn (not very far away, I tell you that) it occurred to me that this was quite Yarn Harlotish, blaming a project for my essential nature and trying to start another one instead of being monogamous, and that this is one of the things that has stayed the same over the last twenty years, because poppets, I have been reflecting a lot on things that have changed and things that have stayed the same over the last twenty years, and that’s because today is my 20th Blogiversary.

Twenty years since the day that Ken gave me this blog and explained that the outlet and knitters I were looking for were on the other side of this keyboard, and he was right. That’s something that’s stayed absolutely the same. The path to the knitters I’m interested in is still the internet – that’s the key that’s unlocked everything – although what shape of internet is another question entirely. These days I feel like most knitters want videos and reels more than pictures and words, so you you can find me making little Harlot mini movies (I’m sure that’s going to be a nightmare in a search engine) over at Patreon, and little snips of my life show up on instagram all the time, of course. (If you ever worry I’ve ceased to be, check there.)

Twenty years ago the pace of my life was different -I had little kids and a job as a doula and a lactation consultant and I worked inside and outside my home and I was just starting a writing and teaching and speaking career and now… my girls are grown and making lives of their own. I’m a grandmother and I work at home most of the time, and somehow I feel busier now than I did then, although I’m not sure how that’s possible. I feel like the younger me had more hours in her day, she got more done… How did I do all those things? (I suspect the answer is that I was twenty years younger. I spend a lot of time squinting at things now, maybe that’s taking more time than I think.)

Over the years there’s been thousands and thousands of times that I’ve sat here – well, if “here” is at the keyboard- I’ve blogged from all over my house, from parks, from airports, from holiday, from hospitals, from at least seven countries, from cities all over North America, from planes, from trains, from automobiles, from tents, from deathbeds, from birthbeds, and from everywhere that I was, every time I did it, I was reaching out for people, people like you who understood me and the things I cared about, even if that was the difficulty of getting through a buttonband, or a family tragedy. (They can both take a toll, as we all know.)

In twenty years, there has never, ever, been one time that when I wrote to you that you didn’t write back. Although who answered that horn when I blew it has sometimes come as a surprise. You’ve been wonderful, funny, strange (sometimes all of that at once) you’ve been supportive, critical, inventive, realistic, creative… there were even one or two of you that were scary. There are those of you – so many of you, that have gone on to be real world friends, knitters I met, knitters I corresponded with… there are so many of you that I can not go to any knitting place and not find someone I know something about, or who’s name rings a bell from the comments, or who’s got a picture of us together from some time in the last two decades. I have been blogging so long, that when I look back at the early posts it’s even a visit to so many people who are gone now – not just family and friends, but knitters and colleagues, gone to the great big yarn store in the sky. Change – whether any of us wanted it or not, has happened.

Isn’t it strange then, that with all that change in who is reading and when and where I’m posting, or how often I am called here to talk to you, I still think of you as The Blog. An amorphous collaboration that is here, in this little box, living your own lives, struggling through your own losses and triumphs and buttonbands, but always… here. I don’t know how many of you (because I do think of you as a collective, like The Borg but with more yarn) have been here the whole twenty years. Probably not many, but it turns out it doesn’t matter, one of you, all of you, you are my darling Blog and I am so incredibly grateful to you for everything.

There are not words for how you have shaped my life. I cannot possibly explain what it is to know that you are there, for years and years and years. To have a place I can call out to, to know I will always be answered and (mostly) understood, has been a tremendous privilege and an honour and you should know that it has always, always made me feel so… lucky. I deserve this no more than anyone else does, and I want to thank you for every single time you read, or commented, or donated to something I cared about, or said that you cared, no matter how you did it.

In my life, like in every life, there have been periods of profound darkness. Know that in those times, you have often been my light and touchstone, my hope and energy, my people, my friends and my community. I don’t know how often I will be in this space. Everything changes all the time, and who knows what turn of the wheel will bring me back, but I know you’re here and can’t imagine not coming. You’ll have to lean into the element of surprise.

Thank you for a wonderful, incredible 20 years.

(PS. Another thing that isn’t changing- it’s become a tradition to kick off my fundraising for the Bike Rally on my Blogiversary, and even though I’m closer to 60 than 50 I’m planning on riding again. In years gone by, kind readers have donated the number of years I’ve been blogging as a way of celebrating. This year would be $20 for twenty years. It won’t freak out PWA as much as getting a bunch of $19 donations did, but you can’t have everything. You can click here if you’re feeling it.)