Square 74: Genie

Yesterday I brought home some shiny Gatsby Lux yarn to incorporate into this blanket. I got infected sitting next to Rachel at Luttuce Knit's knit night recently. Rachel likes glittery yarn, and somehow I came away feeling this project needed some, too. I'm a bit of a natural fibre snob, so this is a new departure for me.

The yarn looked nice with purples and rich browns, colours that immediately make me think of magic. I don't even believe in magic, really, so where do I go from there?

If I found a magic lamp and the genie gave me three wishes, what would I wish for? I suspect most of us would have a hard time resisting the lure of riches, but my first thought was: "Please eliminate all my debt forever."

I didn't have to think about that one for long before recognizing the catch: the underlying problem is my own behaviour. No magic could erase that.

When I was a boy I had everything I needed, most of the things I wanted, and more. My parents were careful. They always had enough money for a comfortable home, new clothes, good food, family vacations plus a lot of things that many people would consider luxuries. And they never went in debt.

Somehow I did not learn from their example. I habitually spend money I don't have. It's not that I live lavishly, certainly not. Most of the time I worry about paying the bills and spend very little money. Then once in a while I feel rich, but instead of working on that debt, I immediately spend what money I have and a little extra.

At the time it feels like I'm rewarding myself for hard work, but in the long run, having no money is no reward. Someone recently pointed out that this behaviour is self-destructive, and suggested I perpetuate the problem because it is familiar and I wouldn't know how to act if I didn't have to worry about it. She was probably right.

When I was a boy I had a little plastic cylinder for banking all the quarters I got from my allowance. I would save money to buy something special every once in a while, usually a new fish for my aquarium. I've always liked pretty things.

Meanwhile I wanted to run away (most children think about it, don't they?), and imagined I could save enough quarters to get by on for a while. But nothing was more terrifying than the thought of being on my own without anyone to look after me. Nowadays I live alone and spend most of the time looking after myself. It's still terrifying sometimes.

I never saved enough to run away, and I never make much progress paying down my credit card, but if there is one thing I could change to make my life better, that would be it. No, a genie couldn't help, but recently I took inspiration from Leo Babauta, who blogs Zen Habits and claims to have changed a "laundry list" of problems and gotten out of debt by simply changing his behaviour. It's going to take some hard work, learning to keep a budget, and changing the way I think about a lot of things. It's a problem I'm ashamed to talk about, but lately I've been putting the word out to a few friends, and with this square I'm going on record, drawing a line in the sand.

Square 73: Water

I grew up on the shore of Lake Erie, but it was a much smaller body that formed my first intimate vision of water. The golf course across the road had a water trap by the thirteenth tee, alongside a marsh. There each summer I would collect a pail of ripe water with a few tiny black polliwogs in hopes of raising them to froggy adulthood (I had a book that showed how a particularly clever boy might do it). Invariably I would forget the pail in full sunshine where those cute amphibious progeny met a swift demise. It was a harsh lesson in good intentions. People fancy themselves stewards of nature. In fact we are her subjects.

To no other aspect of our physical environment are we more indebted than the hydrological cycle, and we are at its mercy.

Until the 1970s scientists believed sunlight was the single most important requirement of life. Then we discovered entire ecosystems thriving around deep sea vents, food chains utterly independent of sunlight. At the base were microbes deriving energy not through photosynthesis but chemosynthesis, from chemical reactions between sea water and gases erupting from the vents. Considering this, astrobiologists suggest that we might find extraterrestrial life in our own solar system, particularly in oceans or caves under the surface of moons such as Jupiter's Europa.

Meanwhile we're having a hard time finding enough water to survive on our own planet. Since 1990, 1.6 billion people have gained access to safe drinking water, however a United Nations report predicts the quantity of water available to everyone will decline by 30 per cent in the next 20 years. And climate change is expected to intensify the hydrological cycle, causing drought in near-tropical areas, increased precipitation near the equator and in higher latitudes.

Water is another one of those things we tend to overlook or take for granted until we don't have it. If the threat to biodiversity is not enough inspiration for us to be more careful with our water resources, we should at least recognize that mismanagement is ultimately self-destructive.

The colours in this square remind me of wetlands, considered the most biologically diverse ecosystems. Historically people couldn't derive much economic benefit from them, and drained them. Belatedly we learned the cost. Wetlands are powerful water purification systems. As the world's need for clean water grows, governments and industries have begun to cooperate in conserving wetlands and constructing them artificially.

Since the days of my childhood, I've never been happy living far from water. I miss the lake, but have learned to find inspiration and solace around smaller bodies. In Guelph the Eramosa River has become for me a personal symbol of the journey of life.

Square 72: Small

On Sunday afternoon Danny and I took in the Guelph Studio Tour. In a typical Bohemian apartment on Suffolk Street we encountered a new artist to the roster, Ellen Jewett. Her website is Creatures from El, and her sculptures feature a menagerie of creatures—dragons, phoenixes—or the more mundane—dogs and snails—transformed in clay by El's whimsy.

What caught my (and Danny's) eye the most were two "two dimensional" works, actually sculptures bursting out of their frames on the wall, depicting the forest floor. It looked like she had sawn off part of a rotting stump covered with an army of lichen, tongues of fern and spritely mushrooms. It was a miniature landscape utterly familiar to me.

In one of my earliest memories of Lake Fletcher, our friend and neighbour, Joyce, had given me a few of those little ceramic animals that used to come in packages of tea. She took me and Mom on a walk over the ridge to the darkest, moistest part of the forest where the ground is coated with rich moss. I collected some and brought it back to the cottage where Joyce gave me a dish in which I could arrange it and create a verdant home for the tiny sculptures.

To this day it is the tiniest plants and fungi that enchant me most. With my daughters' help I have created a moss garden in one shady corner of our cottage property. Lichens don't transplant so well, but ferns do nicely, and every summer a new host of mushrooms volunteers itself from the surrounding carpet of mouldering leaves.

The rippling lake is a grand lady of peace, and the sunsets are oh so breathtaking, but the most intricate vistas are the ones right at our feet. Look out so you don't trample biodiversity!

What are the small, powerful things most people overlook, but that engage your imagination?

Square 71: Sibelius's Second Symphony

As promised, this time I chose yarn first, then started knitting and waited for the colours and textures to suggest a story. I began juxtaposing intense purple Noro Silk Garden with some dark, rich browns. The combination was unusual, but the story came to mind more easily expected. For months I've wanted to create a square for my favourite musical composition, but didn't know how to describe it in colours. Now this was it.

Friday on Tempo, CBC Radio 2's midday Classical music program, host Julie Nesrallah launched a feature called Music that rocks your world. She described how her grade seven teacher took the class to see the movie, Fame; when Julie heard the final movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, it changed her life forever. She asked listeners to write and tell her about similar experiences of their own.

Later the same day, same station, different program, Rich Terfry described how some music actually affects us physically. It can make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

I've had that happen. I wonder what causes it: dynamic tension, I suppose. My favourite symphony used to do it practically every time I listened. Over the years the effect has worn off, but still I am profoundly moved.

Unlike Julie, I grew up drenched in 19th Century music, especially Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, Chopin piano pieces, a little Brahms, and the music of Fantasia. Every day my parents listened to WQRS, the Classical music station from across the river in Detroit. I began finding my own favourite composers, like Schubert, Dvorak and Sibelius, and exploring their repertoire.

I don't remember how or when I first heard Sibelius's Symphony Number Two in D Major, but it became my favourite composition by my mid teens and has remained so ever since. In the evenings when my parents watched TV, I would close the door to family room, go down the hall to the empty living room, put on my vinyl recording of this symphony, turn up the volume, turn off the lights, and go on a long journey. It was only 45 minutes, but also a lifetime.

In those days I experienced music intensely visually. The symphony seems to begin on a sunny hillside, traverse wide open country, move through stormy winter darkness, shift to a windswept mountain cliff, and plunge into deep, mysterious shadows. At the end of the darkness, the traveler glimpses a shining city and slowly approaches. The finale is resplendent and transcendent.

This square is not a literal description of the landscape I saw with my inner eye, but an impression of the music's deep, enigmatic qualities.

I have always related deeply to Sibelius's music without understanding why, but recently came to realize it is because he was deeply inspired by nature. I was an isolated and lonely teenager, and I suppose this music also gave me hope. To my mind, Symphony Number Two suggests all fears and trials are worth enduring, and life is an adventure of inestimable richness.

Square 70: Brenna's colours

While I was knitting at the cottage on Thanksgiving weekend, Brenna started pawing through my bag of yarn, picking out colours and twisting them together. The first combination she picked included a new skein of ivory Berroco Lustra, the misty green from Tanis Fibre Arts, and some unknown apple green wool. It was delicious. I was struck by the fact that Marian, Brenna and I each have a knack for colour. Our tastes are different, and the yarns Bren combined were unlike anything I had thought of (I like green, but Bren loves it even more!). I was immediately attracted to her selection, and decided to use it in this square. I also incorporated some variegated green and red yarn from Pat Leclair, which I had purchased a few days previous at The Black Lamb. Some of Brenna's ideas are also reflected in the previous square about Thanksgiving (she has a good eye for pink).

How much of our shared passion for colour is in our genes, and how much have I passed on by exposing the girls to my geekish, artsy behaviour? It doesn't matter. Colour is one of my delights, and I'm happy they can enjoy it in their own, unique ways.

In this blanket, I tend to think of a story and then choose yarns to communicate it, but Brenna's experimentation encourages me to approach the colours for their own sake. Perhaps for the next square I'll choose the colours first, start knitting and wait to see what story the yarn tells me.

Square 69: Thanksgiving

Things I am thankful for.

The gift of two unique and beautiful daughters. Being in love with a man with whom love-making has never—not for an instant—been boring. My dad being alive and well and happy.

My laptop, my camera, my apartment, the new houseplants I’ve kept alive for the few weeks since I moved in.

My cottage, especially my cottage when the sky is clear and the lake is warm, the water blue from above and golden underneath.

The two aunts who encouraged me to bring Danny to my mother’s memorial, the cousin who has cheered me on, my friends.

The places where I like to hang out and write like the Red Brick Café and the Green Room. Community hubs like Out On The Shelf, the Rainbow Chorus, Writers’ Circle and Rainbow Knitters.

The insight that allows me to derive my own meaning in a universe that is inherently meaningless. Depression that taught me to treasure each day. Creativity that allows me to create treasure. Eyes to see beauty, ears to hear music.

Especially Sibelius’ Symphony Number Two. Also Schubert, Brahms, Dvorak, Rachmanninoff, and Vaughan Williams.

The intimacy that comes as two strangers learn to trust, the joy that comes from trusting myself enough to be alone and enjoy my own company.

Computer games that distract me. Good food that gives pleasure.

Being in love with a patient listener.

Losing my temper. I mean really losing it, for so long that I could almost forget the feeling of uncontrolled anger. The challenge of calm and simplicity that somehow elude me but draw me ever higher and onward.

The words of Stephanie Dowrick, Natalie Goldberg, Annie Dillard and Ursula K. LeGuin; the worlds of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien; the imaginary characters who have kept me company; the real friends who replace them.

My 1920s oak library table.

A grandfather who liked to tell stories and nibble my toes.

All the stars in the universe, meteor showers, the planets, all the things we have yet to discover, all the mysteries that keep us humble, a universe that is far too complicated for us to understand.

Oh yeah, and nature, how could I forget my favourite herbs, shrubs and wildflowers? Let’s start with lilacs, lavender and lemon verbena, the fringed gentians the bloom in August at Singing Sands, magnolias and old-style, fragrant yellow roses, lady’s slipper orchids, sundews and pitcher-plants, the fragrance of a pool of violets in spring, the radiance of a meadow of asters and goldenrod in autumn.

There’s also the birds, especially cedar waxwings, eccentric and gregarious, but also catbirds, all the warblers I learn to identify by ear.

I mustn’t forget pianos, radios or CD players. Cars.

Grocery stores full of familiarity and discovery. Peaches and apricots, mushrooms, shellfish, all kinds of cheese, red wine, liqueurs, pesto, dark chocolate.

My kitchen, my bed, the shower, the windows where sun shines in.

Hardwood floors and stained glass windows, pipe organs, bookstores.

The Eramosa River, Lake Fletcher, Lake Erie, Georgian Bay, Hockley Valley. Towns that enchant and cities that engage.

Live theatre, symphony orchestras. Rufus Wainwright and k.d. lang. Her voice, yes thank you for her voice.

That early memory of running barefoot through the grass with the drone of cicadas in the air.

The memory of my last evening with Mom when we had the conversation I never expected to have, so full of forgiveness. The full lunar eclipse on the night she died and all the full moons since.

The fellowship of lost friends as long as it lasted.

A quiet place on rocks by a stream, deep in the woods, just sitting and watching.

Walking on a winter night on the ice under a full moon, or walking under no moon when the Milky Way is so brilliant I can feel the distance and depth of the stars. The forlorn call of a loon at night, the blinking of fireflies, the choir of toads by a river in Guelph on a mild May evening, the way nature fills more of my life when I let it.

The special way I have of seeing colour and putting different colours together. The way photography, writing and fibre seem to play off of one another.

Square 68: Fall

It's the Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend at Lake Fletcher. Hard frost during the night. Mist rises from the lake, and long beams of the rising sun highlight brilliant maples on the far shore. The dock is slick. Each leaf fallen there is beaded with pearls of ice, or laced around the fringes.

The air is perfectly still. Leaves sift constantly downward, tickling their sisters, whispering, “Come with me!” Two chipmunks chase one another through the undergrowth of bunchberries. A pair of nuthatches visiting the feeder utter soft, staccato syllables to keep in touch. There is no other sound.