Tragedy

Sometimes things happen that you just can’t control. It’s no one’s fault, there is no one to blame, and there is no place to justifiably direct your rage. It’s just life, and bad things can happen to the best of people. Anyone who has lived more than a handful of years on this planet and isn’t totally self absorbed knows this. But how do you deal with it? How do you handle the tragedy? How can you move past it and grieve when there is no one to blame?

Some people blame anyone they can. They get angry and try to tear down the world for not being angry with them. Some people curl up and cry until everything is out and then there’s no hurt left. Some people have a drink, have a smoke, pop a pill until they’re numb enough not to care.

Do you know what I do? I knit. When the world is deconstructing itself around me, I construct an object of love. Because that’s what knitting is, love. It must be if you can spend sixteen hours winding string around sticks until you have socks. When I’m so upset that my hands are shaking, and I feel like I want to scream at the sky until it falls down on me, I pick up my needles and I make something beautiful. Even when all I want to do is lie on the couch and watch as the moving sun changes the shadows around me. I do it because knitting makes my grief more manageable.

I’ve done it ever since I started knitting. When my high school boyfriend cheated on me, I made a scarf. When I didn’t get accepted to a four-year University straight out of high school, I made a pair of socks. When all but three of my friends forgot my 20^th birthday, I made a kick-ass winter hat with ear flaps.

And now tragedy is rearing its ugly head again. The beast hasn’t bitten yet, but it’s in the process of deciding if it’s going to. I find that the threat of loss is almost as bad as loss itself. You know that something really bad could happen, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. It’s like I’m sitting on a hillside, watching as a wildfire creeps from the forest, closer and closer to the city. I know that I can only watch in horror and pray that it’s either put out, or that everyone makes it out alive.

So while I’m waiting on the outcome, I knit a scarf for someone I love. It’s almost winter back in Oregon, and I intend to be home by Christmas. With every stitch, every row, I am one step closer to sanity, one step closer to getting my emotions reeled back in. It won’t help me to be sad now, I can only be positive and wait for the beast to either bite or go back to sleep.

My grief is productive. My grief becomes love. That’s about as good as I could hope for. 

Remember the good ol' days?

I was puttering around the house today feeling kind of blue, missing my family, when I perked myself up with the thought of: "Well don't worry, you'll be home in time for Christmas!" which got me all happy for the next thirty seconds until my brain caught up and I went: "Oh no. Christmas. Oh crap, I haven't knit anything for Christmas!" Remember that whole Christmas 2012 thing? Well I sure didn't. I haven't made one gorram thing for my fantastic list of Christmas buddies, and that is a bad, bad thing.
For those of you who don't know, Knitters are notoriously terrible planners. If you read this blog then you'll know that I've been thinking about this years Christmas since January. Now it's September and I haven't gotten one single thing done. Normally that wouldn't be too much of a problem, I would just swing by my LYS (Local Yarn Store for those not in the know) and pick up some fun yarn. But I can't do that. Know why? Because the nearest yarn store is over 600 miles away. Yeah, I googled it.
My mom did send me a care package a few months ago (it only arrived last week) and it had some tasty bits of yarn in it, but I need a lot more. She sent another one that hasn't quite made its way here yet, and that one is supposed to be mostly yarn. I might still be able to Jerry-rig some semblance of a knitting Christmas together. Wish me luck lovelies.

P.S. Another shining example of how bad I am at remembering stuff? September 5th was me and Connor's two year anniversary. Guess who forgot? Well... We both did actually. Good thing neither one of us assigns any ridiculous importance to anniversaries. It's cool, it's a good mile-marker, we still adore each other, but if one of us forgets, that's okay too. We're going on a date to celebrate this Sunday. I wonder if he'll let me bring my Christmas knitting?

I feel like little Miss Muppet meets Jack Sparrow.

I know I haven't done an honest to goodness knitting blog in a while, but...

I'm back in black baby.

This is my tough "back in black" face. I should probably work on it.

This right here is the Neon Ski Bonnet by Lacey Volk and it can be found here:

 http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/neon-ski-bonnet

This is the fun, funky little project I mentioned in my last blog but wanted to keep secret.

I don't ski and mine isn't neon, but it was a hoot and a half to make. You just take some fun cabling, a simple rib stitch with some twists, a giant pompom, and voila!

 The picture doesn't do it justice, there's a bunch of cabling going on around the base. I even knit this one to pattern without taking any liberties (which, if you know me and my knitting tendencies, is rare). Well, I did take one tiny liberty in that I didn't do the hat band in the round, but that's only because I didn't have enough yarn to do so. On this tiny island, where sheep don't really exist, you have to save yarn where ever you can. So instead of doing a double band, I just did a one layer thing on straight needles.

All in all, I'd say it turned out pretty well. Perfect for a crisp Fall day in Oregon. You know the only problem with that? We're not in Oregon anymore Toto. This type of adorable bonnet doesn't have a place here. A place where it's 85 degrees out and you think: "Ooh, it's getting a little chilly". A place where if the cerulean waves get more than half a metre high, then it's a "crazy storm". This place was not meant for wool bonnets. Into my suitcase it goes. Believe you me, this sucker will be out of my luggage and atop my head the second we land in Portland come November. I'm counting the days.

Are you there Blog? It's me, Alexis!

Hello everyone! I know, I know, It's been too long. In my defense, I was in Bali. In your defense, I got back a week ago and am just a terrible blogger. But, I'm here now and that's what counts. Bali was awesome, thanks for asking. We had a bunch of super fun time adventures like surfing, and walking through the sacred monkey forest, and biking down a volcano, and zip-lining through trees, and seeing The Dark Knight Rises in theaters. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so we have very limited documentation of all this excitement. We have some pictures that the surf school took of Connor (none of me, because the guys at Big Kahuna Surf School are less than honest about what their "photo package" covers) and then a few photos of us with our friends Adam and Jan that we met on the bike ride, but I don't think Adam has sent those to us yet. We also have a few of us zip-lining but those are in print form and there is not a scanner to be found in Dili.
So what have I been knitting lately? A whole lot of everything. I can't keep my mind focused on a single project. I keep starting new things and then frogging them when I get bored. It's a bad existence for a knitter, not finishing any projects, but we all have our rough patches. Right now I'm working on something that I just might stick with because it's so funky and fun, but we'll see. I don't want to tell you and get your hopes up, just to dash them with another scrapped project.
Something that's seriously cramping my knitting? The lack of yarn. It simply doesn't exist here. I've found a substitute for lace-weight or cobweb, but if I want to make something chunky or worsted, I'm SOL. My mom sent me a few care packages filled with yarn and treats and the newest Nancy Drew PC game (I'm a huge ND nerd, don't judge, they're awesome games), but they haven't arrived yet. Carrick thinks they've either been lost, or more likely stolen. It's not a pretty thing to suspect, but when a package comes into a third-world country with a big sticker that says: "FROM AMERICA" it's more likely than not that it won't reach its final destination. Won't they be disappointed when they come to find that it's mostly just string? I hold out some hope that it's just sitting at the post office, waiting on some kind soul to make it out to this end of town.
Anyway, that's all I've got for now, sorry it's not more intriguing, or with fancy pictures, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. Hope you all are doing well!

Home is... Where again?

As you know, lately I've been feeling pretty down. Missing my family and my friends, basically missing everything. That feeling of loneliness and isolation has increased ten fold in the span of one day. Why, you ask? Because today is the 14th of July. It is both, my older sister Adaira's 23rd birthday, and my oldest friend's wedding day. Being so far away on a day that is so incredibly important back home is actually physically painful. So I'm not going to complain or whine, I'm just going to show you a little bit of my life, a little bit of my family. Maybe then I'll feel a little bit less alone.

From left: Adaira, Jesse, myself, Connor

 Adaira and our dad Mark at her University graduation

 The incredibly talented duo of Sarah (left) and Lauren (right), my baby sisters.

 LaRhonda, my ethereally gorgeous stepmom.

  My incredibly hard to get a picture of stepdad Don, and his lovely sisters Toni and Julianna.

Me and my oldest friend Stephanie, way back in high school.

  A more recent picture of her and her soon to be husband Marc.

Part of our Sign Language Family. At Deaf Nation Portland last year with Ian, Annmarie, and Connor.

This is only a small portion of the people in my life that I depend on and look up to. Just a handful of those that I'm missing so badly. I love all of you and I can't wait until I'll see you again.

P.S. Mom, the only reason you're not up here with the rest of them, is that I couldn't find a single damn photo of you. Curse you and your photophobia. It's like you're a vampire or something, seriously. Know that next time I mean to write a heartfelt blog about my love for my family, I will find a way to get your smiling face up here with the rest of us. Even if that means I have to hire Don to sneaky sneak get a photo of you when you're not looking.

 

Grumpy Gus.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've either been planning for, going on, or recuperating from this trip to Ramalau that happened last weekend (Ramalau is the tallest mountain in Timor, people regularly hike to the top). The whole thing was a giant debacle and a festival of errors. Luckily for you, I had my camera ready.
The whole thing started off fine enough, Connor and I were up and ready to go at 8 Saturday morning. It's about a six hour drive so it made sense that we'd get up early and make it to the Posada (hotel) at the base of the mountain early. The plan was to leave the house at 9 in the morning and have all day to drive there, or at least that's how the plan was described to me. What actually happened was that Connor and I were ready by 8:30 and the others weren't ready until 9:30. Then we didn't leave the house until 10:30. Then we stopped to pick up someone who was going with us, that neither Connor or I had any idea about (Her name is Jaquelin and she's quite a lovely person but that aside...). These are all minor irritations, I get it, but six hours in a tiny mitsubishi "4x4" with only a couple seat belts... You can see why I may have been a bit grumpy. We finally get out of Dili around 11 and then it's just bumpy roads and crazy drivers, all seemingly out to kill me.
The trip really didn't have a good side for me until we stopped here for lunch.

It was a tiny little restaurant up on this hill in a place called Mobessie. It was the last "big" town we would hit before we turned on a dirt road and headed up into the mountains. It was a nice little place, had some tasty rice, veggies and chips. The owners of the place did try to stiff us a bit when they said we had ordered three meals instead of two. We only ordered two but used three plates to share it among ourselves. They didn't like that. Sharanya and Connor talked them down until it was just two dollars over what we should have paid. It sucked, but that's just the way it is sometimes.
After eating, we walked around the garden.

And then we spent some time just happy to be out of the car, gazing out into the magnificent hills.

(Connor is the one standing atop the crumbling wall. My little mountain goat...)
Breathtaking as these views were, we soon had to pile back into the car. The hills and cliffs were still gorgeous, but I find that they can loose a little bit of their majesty when you're worried that your little car is going to pitch over the side of one.

Yeah, four more hours of roads that look like that. That is, if they're even there at all and haven't been washed away by heavy rains. It was incredibly nerve wracking.
 Especially when we actually did go partially over the edge of a cliff a little while later. I would have taken pictures but I was too worried about not being in the car if it went over, and then once I was out I was worrying about the car crushing the home that was at the base of said cliff. So was the woman who owned the house, because a few minutes after we got the car stuck, halfway over a cliff, she came up to remind us that we could have crushed her house, and then oh so helpfully tell us that we would never be able to push it back onto the road.
Sharannya called the Posada and told them what had happened and they said they would send someone, but not when. So in case things didn't work out, we flagged down a truck that was going to the base of the mountain anyway, and Jaquelin and myself hitched a ride. It was a long crazy process, but eventually they got the car unstuck by having about sixty young men, lift it from various angles and deposit it back onto the road. Meanwhile, Jaquelin and I were safely snuggled in at the Posada, waiting for them to arrive
When they finally did, it was about 8pm, and as the others wanted to catch the sunrise from on top of Ramalau, we were getting up at 3am to start the hike. We didn't end up getting to bed until about 11, and I was pretty pissed.
Four hours of iffy sleep later, the alarm goes off and we wake up, put on our many layers, and meet the guide outside. It was absolutely freezing. But that was soon forgotten as we started our trek and the heat our bodies were making became so unbearable that we shed our layers and continued climbing in silence.
About a mile up, I was sick. I was sick into some bushes, I was sick into a ditch, and I'm pretty sure I was sick into someone's front yard. Come to find out, that we hadn't even gotten to the mountain yet. We were just on the road up to it. I'm not ashamed to say I couldn't do it. Connor walked me back down to the Posada, being super great, contributing my illness to a combination of poor sleep and altitude sickness. I don't know what it was, but I'm sure glad I didn't go all the way up.
After jogging to catch up with the rest of the group (Yeah, my guy's a champ), they caught the sunrise from the peak and had a good long rest while I lay in bed and nibble on bread far below them. When they finally made it back to the Posada at noon, I was up and feeling a bit better. Connor told me that he was glad I wasn't there with him, because it would have been miserable for me. What we had been told was a mild, three hour hike there and maybe two back, was actually more like a five hour hike up, and four hours back. Yeah, forget that.
After everyone rested their legs for a while, we piled back into the car and headed back down the mountain. back in Mobessie we stopped for gas. I can tell you now, that getting gas from a dark container sold by some guy on the street, was not a good idea. As soon as we were out of town the car started acting funny. Jolting and barely creeping up hills, and making this awful coughing sound. The return trip that should have taken six hours, took eight. I was pretty grumpy by the time it was all over.
It was pretty alright, but does that make up for a trip where I spent a total of 14 hours on the middle hump in the back of a tiny car with no seat belt? Does it make up for a trip where I spent at least 60% of all the time in the car thinking that we were going to skid right off a cliff? Does it make up for altitude sickness and going to a mountain just to sleep at it's base and then going home?

Oh yeah it did.

What a Game...

I have to apologize for my serious lack of blogging lately, but I've been in a ridiculous funk. I never really thought about it before moving, but in Timor I have exactly one thing. I have Connor and that's it. Don't get me wrong, I adore Connor, he is my love, but when you're in a different world one person can't be enough to hold you there. Every day it's like I'm in a fishbowl, swimming in circles going no where. I know the whole deal about home sickness coming in waves, and culture shock taking it's toll and whatnot, but it's more than that.
Imagine you were picked up and dropped off in a foreign country with three things you held dear, three things to keep you happy for your entire time there. Do you know what my three are? Connor, my knitting, and my Jurassic Park Trilogy set. How sad is that? I can't even site the internet as making me happy because the coverage is so shotty here and once you run out, you're out for a week at a time until you can drag your keister to the Timor Telecom office that has a 50/50 chance of being open.
To put it simply, I am incredibly lonely. Because of this, I have been feeling sorry for myself and not blogging like I should, so I apologize. I will try and be better.
On a pleasant note, I might teach Mana Angela how to knit soon. It might be a bit difficult because we don't speak much of the same language, but if we can manage it, it might give me a little bit of purpose. She said she could maybe give me some yarn for my trouble, which is a big deal here because there is not a single knitting store on the whole island of Timor. Just my luck, huh? I'm actually almost out of yarn and without enough yarn to make one solid project I've been working on an entrelac blanket entirely out of scrap yarn. This is what I've got so far.

Not bad, right? It's only a few inches long now but so far I really like the way the scrap colors are working together.

I like the kind of "patchwork circus tent" vibe it has thus far. When it's done it'll be about four and a half feet wide and about seven feet long. It'll be a good blanket for napping on the couch. The sad bit is that I won't get much further without more yarn. My stash is running dry and the care package my mom is sending (full of treats, Nancy Drew games, and yarn) won't arrive for another few weeks. Oh woe is me.