But it's also satisfying because it does take a fair amount of concentration. One problem I have with doing the more "autopilot" type of knitting these days is it's very easy to brood about things, and the stranded knitting means you are (a) paying attention to what row you're on, (b) counting so you get the colors in the right places (or looking at the row below as you go to make sure, and (c) paying attention to keep a loose hand with the yarn so you don't foul up your gauge.
And there is something fun about seeing a pattern appear.
It wants to roll up at this point so it's a little hard to photograph but here is the first band of "small" owls...the upper part of this band has a pair of spectacles worked onto a background, then there is a band with a "big" owl that is more complex, and more spectacles....It is kind of satisfying to work on even as I know it will be a long time until it's finished.
***
Tomorrow is my "morning off" (of sorts; I am working on something for someone else). It's assessment testing (you can't spell assessment without "asses," my inner wag says) and so morning classes are canceled, which is a bit of a breather. I'm also not getting up early - did exercise (and mowing) yesterday, did exercise today, so tomorrow gets to be a rest day.
It's nice to be able to get into bed and not have to plan to be up at a particular time. I never sleep in so very late - it is unusual I sleep much past 7, even on a dark day - but it's nice to wake naturally rather than either be startled awake by the alarm or, as is more common for me, to wake every hour or so between 2 am and 5 am and then sit up and peer hard (I am very nearsighted and it is across the room) at the clock to see how much longer before I have to get up.
***
I have decided to put Moby-Dick on hold for a bit. It's kind of....an intense book (I just passed the point where Queequeg sort of foresees his death, and has them make him a coffin of sorts, only for him to recover. (I more or less know the ultimate outcome, though) and I just....I can't take that kind of risk and death and terror at the moment. So I pulled out The Greenwitch (Part of Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence) and re-started it - I started it and never finished it this past winter, and it is going down a little better.
I find that - some books, even books that maybe aren't unusually awful or unusually violent or depressing, get to me. I had to put Gulliver's Travels aside because the pessimism about humanity got me down too much. I may come back to that some day, maybe not.
I do plan to finish Moby-Dick soon; just not right now. I am tentatively planning on Emma as my next "bigger" read; very different style and I find Austen cheering rather than depressing. Or maybe I pull one of the many Trollope novels (perhaps The Warden; I have read Barchester Towers, which succeeds it in the series) and read that. I think I need a comedy of manners after all the whaling and stove-boats and men falling overboard or going crazy or nailing gold dubloons to mainmasts....
I think in general I need to find more "gentle" classics of a sort (comedies of manners or drawing-room stories or rural tales where nothing too terrible happens) for a while; the horrors that seem to happen regularly in the wider world seem to call for escaping into a world that is more orderly and where manners and kindness are more valued.
(And yes, suggestions will be welcome. I probably already own many of the books you might suggest and just have not read them yet....)
I also may want to re-read Cold Comfort Farm and similar books.
No comments:
Post a Comment