Putting It All Together…

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 4 Comments

No earthshaking moment, but satisfying nonetheless, last night I cast off the second sleeve on the sweater I’m knitting for my daughter, and she slipped the blue sweater over her head.

Verdict? Unravel the hem and lengthen. But this will fit; I can see it now. Whether she wears this or not, my knitting eyes and fingers, a little math, some decent yarn, are pulling together.

I love knitting because it’s functional — especially in Vermont — creative and satisfying, because it’s portable, comforting when alone, a source of interest when together, because fellow knitters are often decent and curious people. Knitting never ends. Sure, eventually I’ll tie in the loose threads of this sweater, decide the length will do, and pass it along to my daughter. She will wear it; if not, I will. The cornflower blue yarn will hold dirt. The sleeves will fray. I’ll repair with a silver needle and scrap yarn. Maybe eventually her beloved cats will claim this sweater, nestling and purring.

The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.

― Alan Watts

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Laughter, Light

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 4 Comments

Standing in mud and slush in the dark last night, we watched women spinning cords with knots of flames. Their faces concealed in the darkness, I listened to the women talking and laughing, each of their laughs remarkably distinct.

Later that night, walking down Montpelier’s State Street, with hardly anyone around, we admired the mighty Christmas tree at the State House. On the capital’s shiny dome, Ceres — goddess of agriculture, grain, and motherly love for children — reigned.

Vermont — realm of wild blackberries, chittering sparrows, lush forests, and the deep, dark winter. There’s no denying this state holds its portion of troubles, but also the willingness to lift fire, spin it around in the darkness, and laugh.

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter….

— Pablo Neruda

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The Physical Good

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / Leave a comment

My 13-year-old’s wild to travel. I see in her eyes, in her schemes, as she wonders where her life will go, which way she can push her boundaries. I understand this sentiment. At 22, I gave little thought to a 9,000 mile cross country trek, save swapping a gas-fueled Toyota for a diesel Rabbit. This was during the first Gulf War, when the price of gas soared.

But now? Maybe it’s the early onset of snow that’s choked so much of Vermont’s roads or — more likely — simply that I’m at the place in life where I think, heck, remain rooted. Figure out this one particular place.

Walking after dark — darkness falls so early, early these days, before I pull out my cutting board to begin preparing supper — I think of Chris Hedges’ line: faith is the belief that the good draws to it the good. I read this good as a verb and not a noun. What a notion — that goodness is a physical force in the universe. I know violence begets violence, that using drugs leads to more drug use, that civility in a house tempers anger, knocks down the edges, and bends dialogue towards decency — and that the inverse of this is true, too.

On our back porch, the wind chimes call in a scatting of cold breeze this morning. Later, in the rising light, cardinals will appear, flashy red against all this white.

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13-year-olds

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / Leave a comment

Returning home just after five yesterday, darkness enveloped our house — deep, whole, profound. Through the windows, I saw my girls had turned on the strings of tiny white twinkling lights.

The winter solstice is weeks away, and three times I’ve driven through snowstorms. Wet snow, crashing from our roof to the back porch, frightens our quivering cats.

Meanwhile, in our house, life swirls on. Each of us goes our own way — to school and to work — separating and returning. At night, brushing our teeth together, we look in the mirror — three different heights, three different females. At 13, the younger daughter looks to her older sister as she always done — mimicking clothes, language, habit — yet different, too. Year 13 marks the chrysalis age, between childhood and womanhood.

This daughter tends her two beloved cats with silliness and seriousness — making them wait patiently for their meals and also carrying them like furry purring babies around the house. Watching her, I take note.

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.

― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

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Our kitchen life….

Sparkles

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 2 Comments

The phone rings early this morning with news of the third snow day in November. Complex math and prediction skills aren’t needed to guesstimate that school for my 8th grader will drag far into June — sweet, rose-scented June. In late June, we’ll be camping on the shores of Lake Champlain in our annual, always filled with laughter camping trip.

I close the Chris Hedges book I’m reading — the book jammed with history and intimate detail — tug on my boots and go out to shovel. It’s so warm, I don’t need a hat or mittens, don’t even really need a coat. As I shovel, I think of Hedges. How right he is the political ramrods my own private family life, too, that the tangle of economics and autonomy and gender weren’t created within my four walls.

Snow falls very lightly, nearly imperceptibly in the light from my house. A whole day stretches ahead, but it’s beginning here, in this pristine beauty.

America was founded on an imagined moral superiority and purity. The fact that dominance of others came, and still comes, from unrestrained acts of violence is washed out of the national narrative. The steadfast failure to face the truth, Baldwin warned, perpetuates a kind of collective psychosis. Unable to face the truth, white Americans stunt and destroy their capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism. They construct a world of self-serving fantasy.

― Chris Hedges, America: The Farewell Tour

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Red Flicker

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 2 Comments

A single cardinal sits in the bird feeder on the wooden pole listing in the old woman’s yard. I pass this way often, where she sits on the glassed-in porch with her friends, a colored paper turkey pressed decoratively against one window.

Her boots have trampled down the snow around the feeder. My eyes search for a fallen crimson feather, but there’s nothing — just a flap of the bird’s wings, and then the bird’s gone.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

 

From Jane Kenyon’s Let Evening Come

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