It has been over two weeks since my last blog post. Not intentional, but there it is, another example of my lack of focus staring me in the face. Actually, I have simply been focusing on other things, and I should have anticipated that I would not be able to attend to details on finishing the house, moving, packing, the maintenance of obligation and a social life, and also have the mental wherewithal to spend time stringing words together in coherent form. Not so much lack of focus but a form of "your eyes are too big for your stomach", or gluttony -- the ongoing dream that I can have, and do, everything simultaneously. Oh yes, I am human. No point in beating myself up about it.
I move out of the apartment in a week. I have been packing, perhaps not quickly enough. Somehow, there always seems to be more time than one needs, until there isn't. Another human conundrum. There is still a great deal to do. It will be done, of course -- there is no alternative but for it to be done.
Thursday I fell at the job site, banged myself up a little here and there, and bruised the upper end of my left femur. I am bruised and sore, and was moving stiffly. I had trouble walking the first 24 hours or so and went in for an x-ray, but no fracture is visible, although my doctor thought some small cracking or chipping may be possible. It is irrelevant in terms of treatment. I took the weekend fairly easy, ie, less packing, and although still stiff, I am moving much better today. Today I have to pack, but I will work intelligently, and on lighter things.
One thing I did accomplish over the weekend was to go through many accumulated collections of knitting magazines, remove the patterns I still love and might dream of making -- there are still far more than I could actually humanly make, but that is another project, -- scan them, and discard the magazines. I am tired of things that take up so much space. It is easier to find and sort digital files. There is still a 40-plus-year collection of vogue knitting magazines, which will also be eliminated, but I might not get that finished before the actual move date. It will be finished however.
I have long known that I tend to hang on to magazines. I tell myself it is something hopeful, but actually it is something destructive, a yearning that can't be filled for some imaginary life. I have mostly let go, but the knitting magazines remained. Dreams can be good until they become a burden. And I have long known I do not have the mind of a person who archives, or who builds a collection. Yes, things will be lost, but I am not interested in being the keeper of memories.
The good thing about sorting through old magazines is I was reminded of sweaters I knit long ago, and reminded that I don't really need to save the patterns or even the images, that the past is the past, I did not even need to spend much time reveling in the memory, a glance was enough to bring a fleeting smile, and a memory to be released into the ether. I am no longer that young woman. I am always that young woman. Everything is lost, and yet nothing is lost, at least as it a part of the person I am -- always absorbing, always evolving.
Perhaps today I wish I had scanned in a picture of the first Anny Blatt sweater I ever knit, an oversized crochet extravaganza from the late 80s or early 90s, from the first Anny Blatt book I ever saw. I became a devotee. That sweater took me over a year, and I wore it until it was in tatters. Probably good that is is gone now. I would not wear it. I made it in the colors shown in the magazine, deep autumnal colors. In those days I had had my colors "done" and been declared an Autumn. I am not. But in those days my skin was pale and sallow. It is probable that nothing looked good. That was before we learned that I had a hole in my heart, that my skin was sallow from lack of oxygen circulating in my blood. In those days I was miscast as both an Autumn and a Winter, probably depending on how pale and drawn I was. When my heart was repaired I suddenly became pink and mauve. I also later learned that soft summers like myself, those who look good in cool and neutral colors, rather the grayed and muted versions rather than the sharp clear colors, are often misclassified. Now I get to wear the colors I have always loved. I don't always of course. But hey, what can I say -- human.
And just like that, memories are rediscovered and released,in a happy puff of smoke. The relief at being freed of the burden of paper more than compensates. Not that my life is free of paper at the moment. It is filled with boxes. But that too will end. I don't wish my life to be stored in boxes, to be packed in the attic, to grow moldy with regret. For all that it is a pain, moving can be a blessing, a chance to free oneself, to stop holding tight to the past, or to dreams -- to free them and let them soar. Who knows, they may return, trailing something new in their wake.
