We kind of do birthday months in the Burch household. On your birthday day you choose a treat and we all partake of it (Brooklyn chose pineapple whip and I chose Loblolly), but the whole month is a sort of ongoing celebration. There were Just Peachy balloons , a small outdoor gathering with grandparents (she agreed to share her party with Juniper on the condition she choose the cake - vegan vanilla chocolate - and the theme - unicorns), and general scattered sparkliness. It's a good way to start the summer, I think.

First project of the month, the cardigan I started in January ! It is precisely what I wanted it to be, and I'm very pleased to have finished it. I used Hannah Fettig's Brise cardigan pattern  (Rav link), but lengthened the body and the sleeves to make it more like the one I was replacing. I got to work on part of this sitting outdoors at a coffee shop with another knitter, which was really really nice. I miss social knitting. Semi social was an interlude to make a Perun Cowl   (that link goes to Shannon's site). I made one several years ago, but there's currently an online knit along happening for this so I joined in. This color reminded me of the glow sticks my childhood roller skating rink would give out as prizes for Red Light Green Light and made me very happy. This is such a great versatile piece, I don't mind having more than one! A thing that was made but not by me was a new deck. My partner took a couple weeks off work (ended up being during a round of sto...

Ten years ago I had my first impactful  experience  with community. When a recent micro essay course  prompted us to write about what it means to be together, my mind immediately traveled back to Park Slope. I mapped the space as a warm up (another exercise we did in the course) and was amazed at how many details I remembered - but I shouldn't have been, because my mind returns to that place often. The books were the first thing I noticed. There was a bookcase, and a shelf full of books above the couch - books were also stacked under the couch, under the bed, and on top of the kitchenette cabinets. Books took up more space than furniture. The next thing I noticed was how she packed the ten of us in like a game of human Tetris. Two at the table, one perched on the counter, four on the bed with our backs to the chipped plaster walls, and three slender volunteers squeezed onto the couch. More people than furniture, too. We complimented her book-stacking skills, then opened o...

During my monthly Whole Thoughts retreat, I thought about how much of my processing is done in solitude, and made a point to meet up with a friend I hadn't seen for awhile. We sat between a coffee shop and a busy trail, me knitting and her weaving in ends, and talked about anything and everything for three hours and it was a deeply satisfying encounter. I recognize change as necessary for growth. I've always wanted to be right (as contrasted with not wanting to be wrong, completely different thing) and part of that has to include the willingness to change if confronted with a previously undiscovered error of thinking. I read and I journal and I listen to others - but there's another element in that process. A necessary element of developing ideas and ideologies is being able to safely discuss those thoughts with someone else. Change is a process, and an idea (optimally) goes through several drafts before it's enacted. In order to do that properly, I need books by and co...

In her essay "Feel me. See me. Hear me. Reach me." Roxane Gay writes, "I don't know that there is someone in world with whom I have a lot in common, especially not in the ways that would make sense on the kinds of websites where you enter some key characteristics and preferences and might somehow meet your match. I haven't even tried, which I do not see as a bad thing. I love being with someone who is endlessly interesting because we are so different. Wanting to belong to people or a person is not about finding a mirror image of myself." When I read that, I felt like I could have written it.   I love being with someone who is endlessly interesting because we are so different.  One of my first jobs was at a yarn store, where the owners and almost all of the customers had kids and grandkids my age. I relished sharing a table with them and listening to their stories. When I spent a summer working in New York City, my coworkers, roommate, and church all took pit...