My friend Debbi – she’s pretty great in general, but there’s a few gifts she’s given me over the years that are shining stars of enrichment in my life and one of them is the phrase “Don’t panic early” usually followed by “I’ll tell you when to panic.” Well, I haven’t exactly explained my circumstances to Debbi, but for a few days I’ve had this sneaking suspicion that if I did, she wouldn’t tell me not to panic. I think she’d raise a single eyebrow, then whip out a notebook for planning purposes and say “Ok. Let’s panic as constructively as possible.”

That’s what I’m going to try and do – panic really constructively. This year is the Bike Rally’s 25th Anniversary, a big milestone for the scrappy little fundraiser that’s grown to be the sustaining fundraiser for the whole of PWA – an amazing accomplishment considering that it was started by a couple of people with bikes and a barbecue that they moved around on a pickup. In my head, this year wasn’t just the anniversary, it was also the year that it was all going to come together. The last few years have been full of compromises and people doing their best and rising above, and I felt like this year it was more important that ever to get out there. Without being an epic downer- it’s been a really crappy year for the people who are most vulnerable. At a time when it can feel like many human rights are moving backwards, it seemed like a great time to go as boldly forward as we can, and the Rally is such an amazing metaphor for that.

So, I was excited, and Team Knit set a big fundraising goal, and then… well then things started to go a little bit wrong. First, heartbreak those of you who’re Team Pato, he’s had surgery – Don’t panic, he’s going to be just fine, but Team Knit will be down a member for this year.

Then I had a torn biceps tendon (it’s better now, thanks) and I kept saying that I was going to get out there and train and I did, but definitely not as much as I should have. When that was healed enough to ride I gave myself a stern talking to, and then the wildfires happened and the air quality wasn’t something you could train in. I got out there on a few days that the air was good enough, but it wasn’t enough training – and not only that, it wasn’t enough fundraising. I struggled with Ken being far away – usually we train together quite a bit, and I lay awake the night before I was going to fly to Port Ludlow for the Strung Along Retreat and I thought about it being so close to the Rally – and I went over the whole thing top to bottom in my mind. I kept telling myself it was going to be okay, but was it? We’re short a rider, none of us have met our fundraising goals, and the Ride is just weeks away – is that okay? The answer was a firm maybe, if I got my scene together. The next day I flew to work, planned a post like this one, and the day after was my 55th Birthday. I ran 5.5km on the hotel treadmill to celebrate and to try and keep a bit of training going on. I told myself that if I ran every other day while I was away, and then got into the big training rides right away when I returned I’d be okay – it would be a bit of a stretch, but it would be okay, and I’d get on the fundraising too – it’s hard to fund raise when you’re not riding, but I would be riding so … okay. It was going to be okay.

Saturday morning I was sicker than I’ve ever been. After three years of dodging the thing like a ninja, I finally had covid. I spent the whole retreat with a raging fever and wicked cough, feeling absolutely horrible about not being able to teach. I still had my fingers crossed for the Rally though. Most vaccinated people are only sick for a few days, right? Wrong. Not this one. I was too sick to go home for more than a week, and when I got home it was another week in bed, and even now I’m just recovered enough to look in the general direction of my bike. In 31 days the Rally starts and I’m supposed to be one of a few hundred people who will ride their bikes 660km from Toronto to Montreal, and this morning I’m aiming to ride for 50km which is way, way, way too short, but possibly way longer than I can manage. I’ll pop back tomorrow and tell you if I live. In the meantime, while I’m out there trying to train, I know Cam and Ken have their fingers crossed for me, and all of us would love some help making our goals for this year.

This year’s Team Knit is:

Cameron

Ken

Me

I’m thanking you in advance for anything you’re able to do to make this possible. I’m worried about the riding but really it’s the fundraising that changes people’s lives and makes the ride worth it. If you’re able, please give generously.

I’ve also decided on a return to Karmic Balancing Gifts -they’re a lot of work, to be sure, but I feel like with time so short I need to pull out all the stops. If you donate to anyone on our little family team and you’d like to be in the offing for a gift, then please send me an email letting me know you’ve done so. I’ll choose names at random.

Make the subject line “I helped” and send it to stephanieATyarnharlotDOTca. (Note the .ca it’s a Canada thing.) Include your name, address, and whether or not you spin.  (For the love of all things woolly, please use the subject line. It makes your email go to a specific folder and you have no idea what a difference that makes to my sanity.) You don’t need to say what you gave, or include proof. I know you’ll do your best, whatever that is, and I know you wouldn’t lie. (If you’ve already given this year, obviously you should send an email.)

Now, we know not everyone has money to help with – so we’re taking all kinds of help.  If you can figure out some other way to do that, that counts.  Maybe you can tell a friend. Maybe you can post about it to social media. Maybe you can forward the email to people in your family who will give…  There’s lots and lots of ways to help, and if you can figure out a way? Send that email, letting me know you did. No money needed. (Of course, money is always good too, and even the smallest gifts make a big difference.)

*If you want to contribute a gift, I’m trying to make it easier -I have a better shot at getting it all done if you do this: Take a picture of your gift. Email me with the subject line “Karmic Balancing” with the details, picture and a link, if you want me to use one. When one of the helpers is chosen for a gift, I’ll email you the address, and you can ship it right to them. (It’s not a bad idea to let me know if you have shipping restrictions –  I’ll keep track.) I’ll try to get through them all, though it can be overwhelming. Thank you!

I’m off to panic as constructively as possible.

My apologies sweet child, that it has taken so long for me to write your blanket letter, though I suppose it’s your grownups who have really been waiting for me to do it. Your mum in particular has been wrapping you in a blanket she knows nothing about for months now. I’m grateful to her for the patience she’s shown me as I struggled, who knew it would be this hard? I will spare you the details and just say that I’m glad I got it worked out before you were old enough to pester me yourself.

You – dear light, are a special beast. I know you’ll grow up with a sense of that, as all children should, but in your case it seems ridiculous not to acknowledge that you have arrived after a time of crisis. You are the baby born to us after we learned that not all babies live. I have worried that this could come to be the most important thing about you – that none of us would be able to separate our fear and loss from the experience of being with you, that there could be no joy or happiness that weren’t edged with an anxiety that spoiled it – but it turns out that it works in a way that I wasn’t expecting. (I will spare you too much foreshadowing of the life you are about to live sweet Abby, but spoiler alert: almost none of your time here is going to work in a way you are expecting. Wait until Elliot tells you about escalators.)

You are one of the most supervised, guarded and protected babies who has ever lived, and we appear helpless not to do this – I’m sure that I owe you a personal apology for the number of times I’ve poked you while you were peacefully sleeping, but I don’t regret a one. We have tried to counter our paralyzing and oftentimes illogical fears with with careful thinking, planning, conversations. Not in a single moment with you my darling Abigail, has anything been taken for granted. We rock and hold and take a million pictures of you while we understand completely that there is an another reality possible. Each person in the family is so thoughtful about your existence, so aware that we could have empty arms, that each choice is lovely, intentional and deliberate, and centres on who you are as an individual. I worried that you would live in the shadow of Charlotte, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. We remain grateful for the glimpse we had of her, and simply grateful for all the time we have with you.

First things first, your blanket is to the others as you are to Elliot and Charlotte, a sibling. It is the same size and made from the same yarn – so that they belong together as a family. Like families (and siblings) some of the elements are about you, and some are about the family together and your connection to them.

The centre of your blanket is a beautiful pattern called Candlelight. I chose it because of what lighting a candle symbolizes to us. In our family we light candles to celebrate, to remember, to spark beauty and hope and brighten dark moments. Sweet Abigail, this is what I knew you would be before I even knew you were you. After your great-grandmother died it was your brother Elliot that taught me what a balm babies are for broken hearts, and in some very dark moments the wee spark of you was enough to to be our candle burning in the dark. You were promise, and with every little flame I knit I knew you would be light – and like Elliot, you are.

Around the flickering centre field, ring lace. This is the only element that has been on every blanket I’ve made for babies in our family. It’s on your brother’s, your sisters, on Frankie, Luis, Maeve, Emmet, Myrie and Sasha’s. I knit it on all of them because I want you to know that like them you are part of something bigger than yourself – the ring of this family encircles you with love and support. We are your home.

Past that – something just for you. I swore that I even though your mum tells me you are a rainbow baby (a child born after a loss) I wasn’t going to lean too hard into the whole rainbow thing, not get caught up in a whole cutsie scene and besides… well, you know how I feel about it. Still there is no denying that you are indeed the rainbow that comes after a storm, and so…a panel of rainbows just for you and your mum. Those rainbows are made of curved branches of Lily of the Valley – a nod to my own Grammy. She was wild and fierce and powerful, beautiful and strong and (I thought) maybe a little dangerous. Kay McPhee made me feel so loved that even now, on the cusp of my 55th birthday, more than forty years since she last stroked my hair behind my ear, I still wish for her and aspire to be one little bit of a Grammy like her.

The border before the edging is roses on a trellis, and this is an element your blanket shares with Charlotte’s. It is for my mum, your mother’s grandmother, the indomitable Bonnie McPhee and a nod to the matriarchy that runs this scene. I was torn about repeating something, but you and your sister are the first babies in this family who didn’t have the privilege of meeting my mum, or each other. We have pictures of my mum and Elliot together, and Elliot and Charlotte together, but you are on this side of the great divide, you come after your sister and after the reign of the mighty McPhees. Tupper always said that we are very good at keeping people alive in this family, with storytelling, legends, and pictures and so this motif for my mother appears on your blanket to draw a connection with her, and with your sister. I hope you’ll see it there when you are a bit bigger, and ask me to tell you the story of your blanket, and when you do I will tell you about Charlotte’s perfect day, and my mum, her roses and her magnificent thorns.

The edging lies beyond my mother’s rose garden, and it is something else that you share with your siblings. Like a last name, you all have the same one. It is a very old pattern called Print ‘o The Wave. I put it on your brother’s blanket to symbolize the water we all love to be in and on, and the wave of love that carried him to us. On Charlotte’s blanket I put it on there for those same reasons, and for the water that she and Elliot were born from and into – beautiful soft waterbirths. For you my Abigail, it is on there for all those thing you have in common with them, and because of all the things in the world, water is the softest and strongest, and a beautiful metaphor for overcoming difficulty. The hardest rock can be carved by water in time, and the largest obstacles swept away. Water is powerful, water is enduring, and water seeks level over time. I don’t want to get too mushy, but it is the perfect symbol for your parents love for you, the journey that it took for them to be able to welcome you, and the gentle, brave way they have found to parent you despite their fears. Wee child, you are carried on a wave.

Finally, two things you cannot see, but are in your blanket anyway. First – there are mistakes that I didn’t fix – and that’s new. In the past I have worked hard to make blankets and other things (like life) as perfect as I possibly can, believing that perfection is equivalent to beauty, and mistakes anathema to joy. After the last few years I want you to know that I am really, really sure that they are not related at all. Sometimes bad things happen and everything is (eventually) beautiful anyway. While I can’t see it in you at all right now when every inch of you appears to be faultless, I am sure that you are imperfect. I know you will make mistakes. When they happen, my sweet one, look at your blanket and remember that the things that go wrong, that you get wrong, those things can still be part of a beautiful whole.

Second – invisible but there – every hope, every fear, every wish, every dream I hold for you is in this blanket and all the stitches you can see. I often tell people that I truly believe that knitting is a love container, and in this case it is not just love that I have knit in. I want you to think of it more like a talisman and a shield I have brought into being. As I knit it, I thought about you, and ran my hands over your Mama’s belly. As I knit it, I looped an incantation for protection and saw you whole and here. As I knit it, I worked a charm for safety and wished you into our arms. As I I knit it, I cast my own yarn spell for happiness and waited.

As I knit it I imagined you small but strong, growing, laughing, being with us always, our Abigail, here just as you should be, where you belong, and where you are wanted.

You are loved beyond measure, welcome beyond belief, and you are magic beyond knowing

Love,

Grammy

Recently I’ve been a little flighty with my knitting. Having Abigail and Elliot here has meant that knitting happens in little bits and pieces, a row here, a row there -our crazy sleep (or not sleep) schedules made for times that were well suited to bashing out little accessories of a newborn nature, little hats, long baby socks, stuff like that. I had plans though – mostly for baby stuff and socks.

I even had this big idea that I’d keep my advent knitting going – I got the advent socks from Cozy Knitter this last season. It was 24 stripes all leading up to Christmas and it was so lovely and peaceful to get up each morning and knit my two stripes (one on each sock) while I had my coffee and planned my day. I thought to myself that I would very much like to be the sort of person who gets up each day and begins with a small bit of sock. I imagined it being meditative and lovely and a really good way to get 12 pairs of socks in a year. I told myself I’d try it for this year, but really I meant for the rest of my life.

I have fantasies like this all the time. “I shall knit sixteen rounds of sock each morning so long as I live” is right up there with “Henceforth I shall dust everything weekly” or “From this day on I will always make my bed” or “I will have an empty inbox at the end of each work day”. Lovely habits that seem like they’ll make me into a really impressive person but never really seem to work out. Still, the sock thing seemed reasonable and honestly I’m more likely to meet a knitting goal than a cleaning one, so I decided to give it a go.

I wound my yarn, got out two sets of DPNs (even though I was going to knit two socks at the same time I would rather lick a cat than use two circulars) and got totally ready to ring in the new year with my new meditative and inspirational daily sock practice. Enter Abigail, and suddenly the whole thing seemed impossible and I was immediately reduced to watching each day zoom by as I thought “Holy cats where did that one go and have you seen those socks?”

Since that baby turned up I have in total managed about 5 days worth of daily sock knitting and the socks aren’t even equal. Every day I think that I’ve got to get it together and get back on track and I sort of vow that I’ll catch up and make it happen before the end of January and well. I thought it might happen once there was a little more knitting time.

So today I woke up, and there is more knitting time. Quite a bit more, actually and I was so incredibly happy about it, and I spent about a half hour working on all the other stuff that’s fallen off the rails over the last 23 days (and not knitting) while planning the amazing blog post that I was going to write to you today, about how I was going to spend the next year being this amazing person who did this cool sock thing. I even had it all tied into what today is – which is the nineteenth anniversary of this blog. (I know, I can’t believe it either.) I was pretty sure that by the time I got to my desk to blog I’d have the socks caught up.

Then two things happened. First, I had rather more work to do than I thought, then I had to go to the dentist (which is not celebratory at all but good oral hygiene is important) and then I had to do the groceries and then Meg texted and then I realized I never put in that laundry and then … then just a few minutes ago, something amazing happened.

I picked up my socks to work on them (I was going to knit several inches on them in ten minutes, as one does) and then I was overcome completely by a case of startitis so bad that I actually went to the stashroom, got two sweaters worth of yarn down from a cubby, and then shot off an email to arrange buying another sweaters worth. I was helpless. (They’re not even baby sweaters which would at least make some sense. They’re for me.)

I got out the ballwinder and swift and started rooting around for the pattern and then stopped and realized that I was in the process of wrecking my perfect blog post about my amazing sock thing, and I tried to make myself pick up those socks, and then I realized that it was okay. I still had a blog post, and I actually had a way better point.

There is absolutely nobody in my life that I can call and explain this bout of startitis to.* There’s nobody who wants to hear that I was helpless in the face of a nice DK, that I don’t knit socks on two circulars because I find DPNs more satisfying. That after a lifetime of knitting the idea of a new sweater still makes my heart skip a beat. That the words “self striping yoke” are enchanting. That I think I’ll finish socks without actually knitting them – These are not gripping ideas outside of this space – and regular people aren’t going to understand that this amazing sock plan is GARBAGE NOW, BECAUSE I AM GOING TO KNIT A SWEATER I DON’T NEED IMMEDIATELY.

I can say it here though, and know that you won’t just read it, you’ll understand it. You’ll maybe leave a comment telling me about when it happened to you. That you love self striping things, that the way that I feel about DPNS, that’s how you feel about circulars, and while we may continue to be poorly understood as artists in general, here we walk among our own kind.

I am simply understood in this space, and I feel normal here, and for nineteen years it has felt more like a home than a writing thing, and I can’t thank you enough for making that always true for me. No matter how negligent or sporadic my posts. I’m going to go knit a sweater now. Maybe I’ll love the sock thing tomorrow. I’ll let you know.

*This is a lie. There are absolutely people I can call and tell that too, but you know who they are? They’re some of you. We’ve been doing this long enough that most of my oldest and dearest friends… they’re you.

** Also, today is the day that it’s traditional to kick off my Bike Rally fundraising, and this year is no different. Also, it’s traditional to freak out the accounting people over there by making those donations in an amount equal to my years of blogging. If you’d like to keep the weird going and you are inclined and able, you can make a $19 donation here.

Abigail Carol Wolf was born early in the morning on the last day of 2022.

Her birth was lovely, quiet and peaceful, another beautiful waterbirth for Meg, and another birth I was privileged to attend. She – individually as a person, as an isolate being in time apart from all other things brought me nothing but pure happiness. Her safe arrival and the safety of Meg were a relief that felt like bricks were being lifted from me.

I know I haven’t spoken much here about Charlotte’s death, and I don’t think I will either – it was an intimate and terrible time that’s kept in the hearts of the people who lived that night and the days and weeks afterwards. That experience and its traumatic events somehow became then entangled with the unfolding pandemic and its isolation and to say we are changed would be an understatement. Some wounds – even once they are healed, just leave scars.

We knew this leading up to Abigail’s birth, that we were scarred and frightened people, and that it wasn’t going to be an easy time for any of us, but Meg and Alex especially, of course. For all of us the idea of putting her down to sleep was unimaginable. The idea that something might happen to her or that Meg would have to endure something more wasn’t anything my grandmothers heart could seem to manage, and I know her parents were certainly more scared than I was.

After speaking with grief counselors and mental health professionals, we came up with a plan. It was loose, but it was a plan, and it was this: As a family and a team we were going to do whatever it took for everyone to feel as safe as possible for as long as it needed to happen. I know. It’s a plan that was a little loose on the details.

The day Abigail was born – so was her team, and our willingness as a family to lean into each other and this experience has been one of the most amazing periods of my life. After her birth Megan, Alex, Elliot and Abigail came here to live with us, and for the first sixteen days of her life, around the clock, day and night… at every moment… we held Abigail.

We watched her breathe, we touched her sweet cheeks. We supported each other and passed her off from loving arms to loving arms as we each got too tired or needed sleep. Meg would tend her while she was awake, then when she wanted to sleep, her father would take her. When he got tired, Alex would wake Joe, Joe would wake me, I’d wake Alex again, and all of us would trot her immediately to her mother if she made so much as a peep.

While our first goal was always to take care of Meg and Abigail, so much more happened. We cooked, we talked, we cried and told each other what we were afraid of. We supported Elliot as he worked through his own fears for his sister and every one of us was gentle, and kind and grateful and scared. Each one of us held that wee sweetness in the night and smelled her hair and breathed her in, and willed her with our own steadiness. Please be able to stay, please stay.

Shortly after Charlotte died, another baby was born in our family and from our place of grief we couldn’t figure out how those people could possibly be relaxed. We asked and were told that they had been frightened, but that after a few days it had been so clear to them that the baby was healthy that they’d relaxed and stopped worrying. Maybe, we thought, maybe that will happen to us.

It didn’t, or I guess it would be fairer to say it hasn’t. Maybe it’s coming, but so far Abigail’s hearty good health just seems so irrelevant. Charlotte was perfect too, and it was no protection.

Around the two week mark, we started talking about what would happen next. How long could we keep doing this? How long is it realistic to live this way? Every time it came up the answer was the same. As long as it takes. We can do this as long as it takes, and until we are all ready. Over the next nights, deciding that we were kinda sorta ready (or as ready as we ever would be) Alex started putting Abigail down, but still watching her as she slept. When he needed to sleep she got passed off to me or her Poppy, and we still stayed awake and held and rocked her. Over a few more nights we transitioned to sleeping when she slept. None of us were forced, none of us were pushed. If any one member of Team Abigail didn’t feel ready for a next step, it wasn’t taken until we were all there. (Joe and I are immeasurably grateful that Alex and Megan gave us this gift.) Each one of us (including Ellie) were allowed the time and the space to work through everything we needed to without judgement or pressure, and in return, we all did the best we could.

I know that some of you reading this will think we’re bananas. I know that because there are people in our real life who think we’re bananas, and I kinda see it. We’re talking about a team of people sleeping in shifts to prevent something unpreventable but this has all made so much sense to all of us and in my heart I know that supporting my child as she learns how to live after loss, as this family learns how to live with this sort of fear has made so much more sense than asking people to buck up – to even expecting myself to buck up. That first night, if you’d have told me that I was to put Abigail in her bed and walk away you’d have had more luck convincing me that I should leave her in a snowbank. The idea terrified me, and no amount of therapy, good thinking or resolve has changed that. This time we’ve spent together though, not only did it feel like the only right plan for us, it also turned out to make it possible to have something other than the fear – to be able to enjoy Abigail and celebrate her as much as we have been. Oddly, this bananas plan has ended up with everyone being the least bananas.

Last night we had a lovely dinner together and thanked each other for this remarkable time, and today after 22 days in the embrace of the team, Meg and Alex and Elliot and little Abbie went home to all sleep in their own beds, and I am not going to say that all of us feel safe, but I am saying we all feel ready, and I am so proud of Meg and Alex.

Someday when she is big enough, I look forward to telling Abigail the story of her first few weeks, and how very loved she is, and how far the gift of her life inspired us to go for her.

* Honourable mention to our sweet Amanda who isn’t in the team picture, but was here almost every night for dinner, for every phone call, for all we needed. We couldn’t have done it without her.

**I’ll post about Abigail’s blanket soon.

This place is trashed. I’m sort of surprised that it’s trashed because with the baby arriving at any moment I’ve been really good about keeping the house in order. I know once the bairn is here I’ll have much less time to do dumb things like clean up, so I got it really sorted in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and then somehow it all came undone over the span of two days.

Our little bubble all stayed here over Christmas and Ken drove from Ottawa (coming a day early and dodging that blizzard, thank goodness) and that many people in an itty bitty house was enough to unsettle every room.

I like very much to have the house in good order for the New Year and this year I really feel the need to have it (by it I mean everything) tidy and well organized.

That means that unless a baby comes along to interrupt me, this week is going to be all about the clean and purge, restoring order and then some. As a human I’m not someone who really enjoys cleaning.

I mean, I don’t hate it -but I like it less than about 187 different activities I can think of so this morning I lay in bed making a plan for which rooms I’m going to work on when, and how I’ll approach it, and then came downstairs, made coffee and promptly fell off the cleaning wagon.

I keep going into the kitchen and washing three things and half heartedly wiping things with the minimum of enthusiasm, and then wandering away to ponder my knitting, which is sort of what always happens with cleaning and is more than a bit ironic because one of the things I should be cleaning up is my knitting. I have four unfinished Christmas presents scattered around and a better woman would knit all of those and try to start the coming year with a clean slate, but I am still not her.

So I’m going to chuck it all and knit a baby sweater. Maybe I can bribe her out.

Years ago, when my first book came out, I eagerly some reviews and instantly realized my error. When I was a teenager and worrying a lot about what people were thinking of me, I remember my mother assuring me that they were as concerned with what I was up to, as I was with them. “They have their own problems Stephie” she told me. “How much time are you spending thinking about their faults?” The truth was, not very much at all. In fact – most days… none. This rather comforting belief system worked well for quite some time – right up until I read those reviews, in fact.

Here suddenly was proof that people were thinking about me – or rather my writing, and I realized right away what peril lies there for writers – that if you’re the sort of person who cares a lot what other people are thinking, the truth is that there’s nothing you can write that 100% of people are going to like. There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like it, doesn’t think you’re funny, thinks jokes about alpaca are inappropriate and that you’re a bigoted alpaca hater. (It is true that I don’t like alpaca sweaters but I don’t want to talk about it.) When I started reading what people thought about my writing, I realized that this had the power to dilute my ability to write pretty quickly. I caught myself editing to try and “fix” what was wrong to please those people, and if you do that then pretty soon you’ve got a list a mile long of things you can’t write about or can’t write about in that way and eventually (like in an hour) you can’t write at all. I have learned that reviews are not my friend, that they close my mind to writing possibilities, and that in order to not care what people are thinking, I need to not know what they are thinking, at least about my writing. I have continued to struggle with wondering/ knowing what people think or feel or say about me or my behaviour, and this has never been truer than in the last several years when it has seemed that much of the time, I simply cannot put a foot right.

Now, I know that right now there’s lots of you thinking “Holy crap Steph, who cares what other people think, feel or say about you? Be yourself and don’t worry about it” and to this I say – Bullshit. That there is one of the biggest lies ever presented to me in my life. Of course you have to care what other people think, say and feel. It’s one of the roots of empathy, for crying out loud and I can’t think of anyone who just goes stomping around doing completely as they please without the slightest thought for how it might hurt someone else or damage a team they’re part of or… well actually I can think of one person I know who truly doesn’t care what other people think but they are broadly thought of as a jerk who’s damaged others far and wide.

I know that the last several years have been challenging for most of us – and I am not going to posit that our family has had the hardest time of all, I am certain that it is not accurate. I am going to say though that for a recent talk I gave I did some research on trauma. It’s a word we’ve been throwing around during the pandemic and some of that is worth repeating here,

Trauma is a word we heard a lot about during the pandemic, and most of us have some ideas about what it means-about what constitutes trauma, about how people get traumatized, about who has trauma and what it takes to get it, and the world is full of people who think that perhaps something really terrible like bombs falling on your house or being the victim of a shocking crime are are the only things that are “bad enough” to cause trauma. That’s not what it is, that’s not how it works, and that’s not how it is decided who has it. Trauma is a persons emotional response to terrible experiences, and is the result of events – any events, being more than their nervous system can process at once.

Since trauma is related to our individual experiences, circumstances and abilities, we can’t say who will experience trauma and who will not. Two knitters in the exact circumstances (with the same amount of yarn) will have very different responses. Also – the pandemic was very different for each of us. Some of us kept our jobs and were at least financially secure during the pandemic, and some of us lost our jobs and were financial endangered or threatened. – some of us lived with people we loved during the pandemic and had the comfort of being with them, and some of us lived alone, and felt isolation even more keenly. Some of us have been isolated with people who are sweet and support us, some of us were forced to shelter in place with people who were unkind or abusive and some of us (you darling hearts) were quarantined with teenagers. Some of us had access to zoom and the internet and some of us had crap internet and no devices and three kids trying to do “virtual school” from one ipad and a basement bedroom apartment. Some of us were low-risk and experienced more freedom. Some of us were high risk and even now have to weigh every decision. Some of us went to work every day, some are still waiting for work to be the same. Nobody can say where the line of trauma exists for each person or family. Most people who are traumatized will heal. We humans are resilient beasts, and we have myriad skills and experiences to help us get back on track, and time is all most people need. (Note: this is not true of PTSD – the nervous system is stuck in that case, and it needs help to heal.)

This means that nobody can decide for another person or family what they “should” do about trauma or how to cope while it heals. We now enter the part of this post I’ve taken in and out a thousand times. I have settled on damning the torpedos, it’s not usually my style but I feel like this moment calls for an uncharacteristically direct approach.

Over the last while, I have received a very great deal of advice. Most of this has been unsolicited and uniformed- especially as it pertains to family matters. I shouldn’t grieve too long, that my grief is inappropriate, that I have too much grief, that I am too careful about the family getting sick, that I should get over the fear. That I shouldn’t wear masks, or I should wear a mask even outside. I should seek help. I shouldn’t worry. That I shouldn’t be vaccinated or that I should rely on my vaccines and see that the pandemic is over and put my life back. I should keep being afraid, it is not over at all. That I should go on holiday or that I should go back to work, that I work too much, that actually I do the wrong kind of work. I should post to the blog, I should post more to instagram. I should stop posting to instagram. I should post instagram posts here for people who don’t use instagram. I shouldn’t do Patreon. I should do Patreon. I should knit more.I should knit less. I should knit yarn everyone can afford, I shouldn’t be elitist. I should buy different yarn, your friends yarn. I should actually spin. I should show you my knitting on the platform of your choosing at the time of your choosing. I should explain myself. I should do it now. I should be fun, like I used to be… and most recently, I should close the blog if can’t do those things. I should update you. I should say goodbye. I should take all the time I need, but it shouldn’t be too much. I should try harder.

Now – again – I am not going to pretend that me or our family is the most traumatized family in the world, or that the things that happened to us are the worst, or that we deserve the most latitude. For the sake of anyone else who has been traumatized or is supporting traumatized people in their family – I am going to say that the “shoulds” read completely like pressure and judgment, even if they are offered as help or in the spirit of support, and as someone who has always struggled with what people think, feel and say about me, this situation – a period of extreme challenge coupled with lots of feedback about what I “should” be doing – attempting to get any of these “shoulds” right has been paralyzing. While I know that you would all like to know what I did on Wednesday, it has been far better for me to just do Wednesday without knowing how I should have done Wednesday. I am fine, but being fine is complicated and takes time and we – collectively, as a family are on it, but it is our focus. Being okay is our focus. Getting the proper shit of life done in a way that makes it possible for all of us to be happy takes extra time and I love all of you, and I am still more than happy to share my life and knitting with you, but know this now, my little poppets. I have no idea what it will look like. Maybe it’s instagram for a while, maybe next week I’ll blog every day. I don’t know, and I’m not promising or pretending I do. I’m not going to even say that I am going to try, because down that path lies failure and disappointment in myself and there is nobody who can do the work of healing with that kind of crap raining down all around. I know, I’ve given it a shot.

A few weeks ago I saw some dumb meme on … I don’t know. Somewhere, and it went like this: “Hey, what do you do for a living?” and then this woman turned while juggling kids, coffee, a hot mess – and said “MY BEST BOB. I DO MY BEST.”

That is me right now. I am doing my best, and I know we’ve been together for a long time, and I hear you say you miss me, and I know what you think I “should” do, and I have read the comments that say that I should just say goodbye and close the blog “properly” but that is not what it is going to happen. (Although there is another “should”) I have always said that the blog is my online living room. It still is, and if you’re feeling bad about there not being much to see here, you should know that there’s not been anyone from outside the family in my actual living room in almost three years either, and there’s lots of people who have “should” feelings about that too.

Now, off I go – and I’ll be back when I am able, when I feel I can, and when have a gap in the list of musts that come before shoulds. I must make dinner. I must knit for a while. I must work on the Patreon. I must wrap the ornaments Elliot made for the rest of the family. I must help Joe with the tasks he can’t do with one arm. I must listen for the phone because a new baby will be born in our family at any moment. I must do something about the fridge.

I will see you in this space soon. If you miss me, look for me, I’m around. (Instagram, Patreon)

I have no idea what happened there. One day I was packing my stuff for The Rally and having a minor anxiety attack and then a lot of things happened really quickly and I just kept packing and unpacking until just now when I was I was sitting down to do the meal plan for the week and thinking “someone should really clean this pit of a house” and I wrote the date at the top and was stunned. September? How is it September? Can anyone tell me what the H E double hockey sticks happened to half of August? I remember dashing from one thing to the next, I remember being happy… and the house is thoroughly trashed with a camp stove in the kitchen, and if I flip through the photos on my phone I think I can piece it all together- but before I tell you anything else, I want to tell you the story of the Rally.

Leading up to the thing I was a ball of anxiety, but I was playing it cool. (Here, if the blog had volume you’d be able to hear my friends and family laughing uproariously at the idea that I’ve ever been able to mask even three seconds of anxiety but it doesn’t so whatever.) Setting aside concerns about a surge or a variant making it hard to hold the event at all, the realities of the Rally taking place during the seventh wave of this thing made everything a little harder. I was anxious about training, anxious about fundraising, and it wasn’t just me. As a group, Team Knit was, as I said last time I posted, undertrained, underprepared, and kinda freaked out. The first Rally back in three years and while we were all looking forward to being together, to seeing people we hadn’t seen in years, to shaking off a little of the inertia that’s been over all of us like a blanket, complexity was everywhere and I know we were all hoping the pandemic would be a little more over before we gave it a go. Our gallop towards a glorious return was more like a limp.

Then, seven weeks before the Rally, Cam got Covid. At first it seemed like it might just interrupt his training (or delay starting it, more like) but Cam’s a strong healthy guy (also vaxxed to the maxx) who rides his bike most days. He could squeak by. I’ll spare you any details of his illness – all you need to know is that he was still feeling horrible at the five week mark, and when it came to riding, he simply could not. Two weeks before the rally a 20 minute bike ride left him flattened and feeling like he might perish entirely. A week before every time he tried the same thing happened and I suppose that’s when we all started wondering if he’d be able to do it at all. If you can’t make it to the corner, can you make it to Montreal? He mentioned switching to crew – and then we talked about not trying anymore. Giving up on training. Almost no training can happen in a week, we hypothesized, but a lot of healing could, if he really leaned into resting. (Like me, resting is not Cameron’s best thing, but he did have viral help.) When the day of the Rally came, he’d get on his bike and… try? Fake it till you make it, we said. Cam rested. We all crossed fingers and toes and knitting needles.

At departure nobody said anything about it. We hugged and were all so glad to see each other and we were so thrilled to be able to see people we hadn’t seen in years, and even though Ken had only been gone a little over a week I was so delighted to see him, and I was proud of Pato for committing to turning up at all. (Pato remains young, and has super limited time off work, he was able to join us for the first day only.) We got on our bikes and rode. It was hot.

No – wait. That’s an understatement. It was unbelievably hot. It was so hot that I ran out of words to describe the heat and resorted to simple swearing. There was a humidex of 42 degrees (that’s 107F for our American friends) and I don’t think I’ve ever come closer to melting. There were moments that I really wasn’t sure any of us would make it – never mind Cam, but every time I looked around – all of Team Knit was still present and accounted for.

We made it into camp- a meadow atop a cliff overlooking the lake, and (after getting cleaned up) we took this picture and suddenly I felt the anxiety begin to wash away. Cam was fine. Well, he was stupid tired but he was there and mostly upright – and I started to think he might make it through the next day, and Pato and Ken were fine and somehow I was fine and for a little while, just a few minutes, it felt like the before times. It felt like the rally.

The next day definitely felt like the rally. It was the longest day of riding and helplessly and as per tradition, I had a bit of a weep at lunch. That day is exhausting. It’s 125km (that’s about 78 miles) and if any part of it is a long, dark, tea-time of the soul for me it is that day. I find Day Two so hard that when I am finished it I feel like the rally is “mostly done” even though there’s four days of hard riding ahead. Through the middle part of the day I’m always suffering enough that it takes some strategies to get through. After a few years of less than joyful Day Two’s – I’ve convinced myself it is a good time to purposefully practice gratitude and reflect on my good luck. (I used to practice foul language and reflect on how much my arse hurts but it’s much better this way.) I think on the privilege of being able to raise money this way, on being lucky enough to have a network of knitters who care to help me change things that need changing and help people who need helping. I take good looks at the people around me and consider how wonderful the world is that there are this many people in it who just want to make things better and are willing to sweat for it. I listen for dings on my phone and think about how much I think you are all spectacular people. I stop at every break. I tell my friends I love them and I think they’re great. I try to tell some strangers too.

It takes the edge off. (Also it was hot that day too.)

The third day I reflected on how I’m pretty sure Brandon and Barrett just like taking this picture so they feel tall.

The fourth day Team Knit proudly wore their Top Fundraiser jerseys and we loved the daylights out of all of you. Evey person who helped us stand there – we don’t feel like we raise money at all, but that we’re just lucky that knitters are such powerhouses. (We also enjoy the look on other riders faces when we tell them that knitting is our secret weapon, and knitters our force.) The astute among you will notice that Cam is still upright and even looks pretty good, Long-ish-Covid be damned.

The fifth day I took almost no pictures, except for this terrible picture of a very happy Cameron.

He is happy because this day, he was first into camp. Every year on day five, Cam goes flat out, a little test of his riding daring-do. I had no idea if he’d manage this year or even try but he did, and was first and was so delighted with himself that it was almost obnoxious. (To protect himself from any feelings anyone might have about this prowess Cam set up everyone’s tent before we got there. The whole team. Sixteen tents. He’s got great instincts.)

Day six – the last day, Day six we rode into Montréal, and I cried.

I cried because I was glad it was over and exhausted. I cried out of relief that I was done, but mostly I cried because the whole time I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop and it turned out somehow that there wasn’t another shoe at all.

Usually I tell you what theme revealed itself to me during the ride. There always is one. Some years it’s about friendship, or finding strength you didn’t know you had, or learning how to rely on myself a little more, or the satisfaction of accomplishing something so enormous… for the last two years it’s had a lot to do with compromise, of doing the best you can despite things not working out, learning somehow to (somewhat) cheerfully make the most of a crappy situation over and over and over again. This years theme was more subtle, but I’ve found it to be achingly beautiful in the context of what we’ve all been through and I know I talked a lot about Cam, but that’s because he was a metaphor for the whole amazing realization:

Sometimes things work out, and maybe things are getting better.

There is no doubt we’re still in a pandemic, there was evidence of that throughout – people who missed the ride because they didn’t get better and still had long covid, some people caught covid right before and couldn’t come, and there were vulnerable people who couldn’t take the risk of coming at all, and I know that they probably aren’t feeling as reassured as I am that things are getting better. I know that there are still thousands of people dying of covid in the world every day… I know that 400 Americans died today – and yesterday, and every day of the Rally and I am quite sure their families don’t feel my renewed sense of optimism, and I’m so sorry for them. I’m not saying this is over, or that I won’t keep doing my best not to get covid so I can’t give it, but I am saying that for six days we rode our bikes, we funded PWA for another year with our efforts and your amazing donations, and despite its best efforts, covid didn’t stop us.

After two and half years of cancellations and sadness and grief and disappointment and worrying about what might happen to the clients at PWA if we couldn’t find a way through all this… it worked out, and things were better, and that was our amazing theme.

From the bottom of all our hearts, thank you for helping us hold on. Cam would set up your tent if he was there.

It’s late and I’m so tired, and tomorrow morning we leave on the Rally and even though I’ve been in bed early for months now, suddenly tonight when it would really help to get a big sleep, I’m not tired at all. What I am is anxious. Super anxious. I’m still going to make this short I think because I think the best thing I can do is lie in bed and try to sleep.

The day before the Rally is “Packing Day”. You gather up everything you need for the six days of the Rally (including a tent and a sleeping bag and a chair and a plate and your knitting and clothes) and you take it down to the appointed packing place, and you get two bins, and you put all the worldly goods you will possess for the next week into them, and then you put them on a truck, and then they close the truck. Tomorrow, while all the cyclists make their way to the end of “Day One” the trucks will drive our stuff to that stopping place, and that’s where you’re reunited. It’s a weird day – so many things I always have with me (my bag, my favourite shoes, my sock knitting, my real toothbrush) are all on the truck, and it feels weird to not have them. It’s a ton of pressure too, All I will have for the next week is in those two bins and the only things I can bring tomorrow are what will fit in my pockets.

Still, Team Knit showed up and we put our stuff in the bins and we all took deep breaths and we tried not to think about the challenge ahead. In one way it’s so good to be together and see each other and have things be “normal”, and in the other, nothing is normal, we’re all under some sort of strain and not a single one of us feels ready, or confident, or prepared for this challenge. Today as I put my stuff in my bins and looked around me at what we’re about to undertake I’ve never felt less ready. As a group, we are undertrained, underprepared, and more than a little freaked out. This Rally feels less like the before-times than we were hoping so far, but it does feel like hope.

I don’t know what else to tell you about what it feels like to be on the cusp of this thing again after so long a break. I can tell you that I am definitely afraid. We’re about to do something really, really hard, and I am absolutely scared – but I tell you something that I realized tonight in conversation with a dear friend – it also feels pretty amazing.

I have – like almost all of us, spent the last few years watching terrible things happen to people and feeling impotent to change anything, to make anything better, to make tragedy stop unfolding, to staunch to hard times for fellow humans, but the Rally changes that and fundraising for this ride has been a wonderful outlet and relief.

The funds raised by this ride go to making a direct and fundamental changes in the lives of people with AIDS. It is help for mothers, food for children, rides to the doctor, someone who cares if they are lonely, support, love, care, haircuts, pet food, hospital visits, childcare… Every dollar you donate makes a real, tangible and important change in the life of another human, and that… Well I guess that I can get on a bike for that.

Team Knit is off – and we are so grateful for every donation, every dollar that you send to support our ride. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, us riding to Montreal makes no change in the world. It is your donations that give meaning to what we do. I’m going to slide our links in here again because we’re not quite at our goals –

Me

Ken

Cameron

Pato

And I want you to know that if you’re able to donate or help in any way – passing this post on to another person, helping spread the word on social media, talking about PWA to anyone, that this action, this thing makes you so important. It means that you as a person chose to change the life of another person, and in a time when we all have so little control, doesn’t that feel amazing?

Thank you. We think you’re important.

PS: I have never figured out how to blog from afar- the best place to follow the ride this week is on Instagram.

PPS: I didn’t even finish the poncho can you believe it.

I don’t know how you handle it, but when I feel things start to speed up I like to sit down with a cup of coffee, make some lists and try to pull things together in a concrete way. That’s what I’m doing this morning as the reality of what I’m doing this week sinks in. Today I have Elliot, the house, laundry and Patreon prep to manage, tomorrow I have to pack, pick up my bike from the shop and film, and Saturday I have to drop off all my stuff for the Rally at packing day and edit the video from the day before, and Sunday we leave. That means I have FOUR DAYS and every time I think about it I get a slightly hysterical feeling in my stomach that I am fixing the way I always have, and that is with yarn. Sure, you might think that packing and organizing and actually doing some of the things on my list would help, but I am taking the edge off of this thing by ignoring it all and knitting on a hemp poncho.

I know, that’s an unlikely sentence but it’s working for me. Every time I think about how much needs doing between now and Sunday, I just knit another repeat. (Pattern is River Ripples, and the yarn is Tokeland Hemp – Rain Shadow Farm. I got mine from The Artful Ewe.) I remember seeing this pattern knit in that yarn as a sample and really loving how it looked – part of that whole “post apocalyptic my clothes are all rags but I look fabulous anyway matrix-ish” vibe that I always aspire to but somehow always ends up making me look rather scruffy instead of chic. I keep trying though and this week I’m plowing away on it like it will be the perfect thing to wear on a week long charity ride. Should I be out riding hill repeats? Yes. (Actually I did that yesterday.) Should I be finding and packing my camping stuff? Absolutely. Should I be organizing the family for my absence? That would be best, yes. Should I be working so that I can ride for a week without the pressure and guilt of abandoning the only thing paying the bills? If I was clever, yes. Should I be doing something about the way the whole house is slightly sticky?

NO SORRY I URGENTLY NEED A HEMP PONCHO.

The poncho is here pictured yesterday at the park, where Ellie and I have been hanging at the wading pool. Today is predicted to be ridiculously hot so after talking it through, we’re going back to the “big pool”. We have decided to return despite injustices perpetrated upon Elliot’s person last week when it turned out that you have to be six years old to go on the water slide, not five- and when we were told that I have to be an arms length away from him until he reaches that magic age as well. Elliot feels (and I think the kid has a point) that pool independence should be based on swimming ability, not age. Last week Elliot made his case to the lifeguard quite passionately, pointing out that letting a non-swimming six year old go on the slide but relegating a swimming five year old to the shallow end seems quite unreasonable and not based in any sort of logical system but the lifeguard was completely unmoved, shrugged, and said “You have to be six, kid.”

Elliot’s rage was complete, though it is worth noting here he is not yet a proficient swimmer. His current record is swimming about three metres without a life jacket and we have an understanding that it needs to be about ten metres before he gets more independence at the pool, but I think he liked the idea that getting onto the water slide would be more about skills he could work on and attain at any moment, rather than something stupid like the sun needing to rotate more times around the earth, which is hardly a thing he can speed up. Ellie felt this was most unfair and arbitrary, and on the way home he bitterly declared that we were never, ever going back, with exactly a tone of voice that implied that this decision would surely breed deep regret in the heart of the callous lifeguard. We’ve talked about it since then, with me gently suggesting that his boycott is likely not going to change many rules but learning to swim 10 metres will mean that he’s ready when he is six, so we’re going back.

Elliot will have you know though, he is not talking to that lifeguard. I’ll be knitting the poncho.

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.