I am the Green Hat Knitter

Despite what is often assumed about people who are performers, I am a terribly introverted person. If I got to pick a super-power, I would pick invisibility over all others, no contest.  It's not that I don't like people - generally speaking, I really do -  it's that I would prefer to be on the sidelines, enjoying the world and the people around me by observing them rather than interacting with them. 

I am also a person inclined towards routine, which means that many people whom I've never met have become recurring characters in my day-to-day life, our lives briefly intersecting as our schedules cross. The ones that work on my floor, or go to the gym at the same time, or grocery shop late at night. I look forward to seeing them, and years ago started naming my favourites in my head. They're friends I've never met, and that seems to suit us both.

Dr. McSqueaky works on my floor, so named because of an unfortunate pair of runners he replaced almost two years ago. I am convinced he speaks several languages fluently, even though I've never heard him talk.

Giant Dave and his Entourage (three young clinicians who favour scrubs in solid primaries) are always leaving the coffee shop just as I'm walking in. They are there so reliably that if I miss them, I have a moment of panic, convinced that I must be late.

In my marathoning days, Red Shorts Man, Granola Jim and The Rain Woman and I would cross paths on my bread-and-butter four-miler, and my Sunday long-run training group and I could always count on seeing Silver Fox, Blond Floozy, Big Bird and The Hello Guy. (Hello Guy was our favourite...he was an older, chubby cyclist in a white helmet who, no matter how many lanes of traffic separated you, would wave and yell "Hello! Good Morning!" until you returned the greeting with equal enthusiasm.)

Since Kevin and I bought this house last November, I've started most work days with a new group: the people who ride my bus.  It's a pretty diverse group, mostly professionals and students on their way downtown, but a few stand out as always.

Early on, there's the Poet Laureate (curly mustache, round glasses, beret) and Scott the Smoker. Scott the Smoker just looks like a Scott to me. He reads sci-fi novels at the rate of about one a week. I haven't decided yet if he's a computer programmer or a junior high science teacher, but it's definitely one of those.

Halfway through the ride we pick up French Formula (40ish, suicide blonde, perfectly sculpted bangs). I think she is completely indifferent to her job, but in a positive way somehow, and I would bet big money she volunteers somewhere on weekends, probably with kids and/or animals. I like her a lot.

The Earth Mother transfers at the same bus stop as me. She wears her hair up in the most fascinating assortment of combs. I've sat behind her trying to figure it out. She looks at the teenagers on the bus like she understands and is slightly amused by every feeling and thought they are having. She commented on a fair-isle mitten I was knitting once, and told me she's more of a spinner than a knitter. We just smile at each other now.

I can't believe it took me this long, but it occurred to me recently that my fellow commuters can see me, too, and might be playing the same game. Their knowledge of my entire existence on this planet is, like mine is of theirs, constricted to 22 minutes, five times a week.  To them, I am that black-haired girl in the green hat. I am always wearing headphones (listening to books, or, if I strangle a giggle, Lime & Violet). Sometimes I have a backpack (gym stuff) or a red briefcase (meetings out of the office), and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'm at the bus stop in plenty of time, sometimes I run half a block in heels. 

Other than the headphones, only one thing is constant: I'm always knitting.  A sock, or a mitten, or, during the Knitting Olympics, a grey cardigan. I'm sure that's what would stand out - it's what I would notice. An entire life, boiled down to five pointy sticks and half a sock.
 

She is the Knitter in the Green Hat. And for 44 minutes a day, she is everything I am. 

The End of the Blog's Prorogation

Hi Blog, I've really missed you.

It's been quite the month here in the life-of-me, and I have on many, many occasions wanted to write here about it.  Over the past year, this blog has become a nice little vacation spot for me: a place to reflect, to pause, to ramble and to creatively recharge by sharing my little stories with you.

I really needed those things, because about a month ago, the band broke up.  It had been coming for a long time, we all knew it was inevitable, but it was still sad when it finally happened.  Venus Murphy has been a major part of my life and my identity for the last seven years, and, even though it was the right thing, it still... well, it still sucked.

Just as I was getting ready to write about that, something else happened that, well, made the end of a celtic band not such a big deal anymore. I'm not going to talk about it, because it's not my story to tell. But it was one of those "before it happened / after it happened" sort of events: a weekend that made everything else in my life snap into sharp perspective and made me appreciate the difference between Important and Not Important in an absolutely crystal clear way.  Everything is fine now, but it's been pretty all-consuming. I am changed, in the way I actively treasure the things that are truly important.

But I missed you dear blog, and I'm back now. A little tired, a little shell-shocked, but a little better and a little wiser. Nice to see you again.

When the Student is Ready

I've been thinking a lot about learning lately. One of those "thinking about lately" phases that makes you see everything through a certain lens... like wandering around wearing a pair of curoisity-coloured glasses.

It started innocuously enough. I knit a sweater for my Knitting Olympics project. I was feeling very smug with 36 hours to go, being that not only was the whole thing knit, it was neatly seamed and ready for its button-band.  It was a Sure Top-of-the-Podium Finish... until I turned the page and realized that the buttonband was ...crocheted. I don't know how to crochet. At all.

I am not proud to admit that my first (and second, and, um, third) approach was to knit a buttonband instead. I knit (and ripped out) three different buttonbands. They were all craptastic.(Which is probably why the designer - a wiser woman than me - designed it that way in the first place.)

I am even less proud to admit that my next instinct was to give up.  I don't know how to crochet. This buttonband is crocheted. My bad for not reading the pattern. Oh well. I'll frog it and make something else. I'll apologize to the designer for whom I was test-knitting. I'd feel really bad about myself for a bit (I'm not so good with the failure), then lick my wounds with a nice safe sure thing like a trusty sock and try never to think of it again. (Like I said, failure is not-my-best-thing.)

I am semi-proud to admit (semi- because it took this long...) that instead, I dug out my Nana's ancient Complete Encyclopedia of Stitchery, looked up the chapter on crocheting, and, with 19 hours to go, red-faced at how easy it was once I read the instructions, crocheted my first-ever buttonband, and earned my first ever Knitting Olympics gold.

Caitlin's Cardi by Sweatshop of Love

Paton's Classic Wool in Dark Grey

Since then, I've had a few meaningful conversations that have really gotten me thinking about the willingness to learn, and the ability to absorb the lessons when they do appear.  Last week, a brand new co-worker told me that when I "over-explain" things to her, it makes her feel like I think she's stupid. (I don't.) My "over-explaining" was what I genuinely thought I was "being helpful", and, all the while, I was getting offended by her "yep got its" and "ya of courses", assuming that she was trying to shut me up (she wasn't) because she had no respect for me (she does). The conversation was amazing in retrospect. I wouldn't have had the nerve to tell her that she was offending me if she hadn't done it first, and we cleared up what could have been a destructive and on-going problem.

It stung when she pointed this out to me, but it hurt because she's right: I go on and on, especially if I'm passionate about what I'm talking about. It's a fault of mine. I've known it on some level for a long time, I guess, but until my co-worker presented the heat-of-the-moment challenge - we did have to resolve it to be able to move forward - I hadn't bothered to really learn the lesson.

So I'm working on being a good student.  Whether the teacher is a colleague or a cardigan.

P.S. Please remind me of this tomorrow night after - wait for it - my first golf lesson. Take that, New Year's Resolutions!