k-brow: saying what needs to be said

Worlds Collide, or This Entry Has No Pictures

I haven’t blogged in awhile, except for backdated entries in an attempt to make some acknowledgement of the passing time. Now, as I try to compose an entry and get back into the habit, some thoughts come to mind. This entry is for me, mostly, but want it here in The Knitted Brow, as a reminder of sorts.

I’m making the transition to life in the Urban Forest/Glop fairly well. Urban Forest is the term I gave, back when I was living in Arlington, to those places we’ve always made it a point to live; wooded areas adjacent to a large city. The more wildlife, nature spirits and trees, the better. “Glop” was a term I borrowed from Marge Piercy’s book “He, She, and It,” that lovely dystopia. It is used to describe urban sprawl, specifically all up and down the East Coast. Let’s say from Boston down to Miami, all linked by freeway. In Piercy’s book, the Glop was solid urban sprawl, and one needed to take a bullet train to get through it, but here and now, we’re still dependent on the dinosaur ooze of fossil fuels.

So. Transition. Living in the house I’ve come to call the Atomic Lodge, due to its 60’s modern construction, redwood ceilings, and woodsy setting. All our stuff’s been delivered from Hawaii, and we are in the process of unpacking, putting away, weeding out, and throwing away, giving away, wishing away. I purged personal possessions in Nuuanu before the move, but am feeling the need to continue that process, in this different house, with less space for storage. Everything is being re-evaluated, its value, useful or sentimental, weighed. The space issue, and the fact that we are looking at a probable kitchen renovation in the coming year, make the purge a good thing. Let’s face it, P and I have a lot of stuff. Some of it could use a new home.

So here, at the end of a summer in which I’ve mostly been alone, mostly been working on breaking down or setting up housekeeping, I’ve come to realize that in doing so, I’ve spent a lot of time on facebook, connecting, re-connecting, and generally defining myself to a hoard of people I don’t see all that often. We’re talking YEARS, kids. It has me thinking about who I really am, and whether this blog reflects that. I don’t give my blog address out to just anybody. Well, since it’s a public blog, that statement isn’t entirely true. But more correctly, relatively few people in my face-to-face life know enough about the blog to find me, unless they hunt me down, via Ravelry or some other such means. It’s not a super-secret blog. It’s a discreet blog. Knitting friends in Hawaii read it and inspired it. (yo, Chris, are you reading? Please read me!) DisKnit reads or doesn’t, but of course, is welcome to contribute. My sister reads. And a whole host of blogfriends, some of whom I’ve met through the blog read it. That said, I’m a pretty private person. I do not desire to share my ramblings in cyberspace with family beyond my sibling, who knows it all anyway. I want to reserve the freedom to write of things that strike my fancy, without fear of evangelism, argument, or judgement, no matter how evangelical, argumentative or judgemental my own entry may be.

In my facebook life, I re-connected with a lot of very Christian friends. I do not define myself as Christian, though, for a pagan, I would say that I am very Christian-friendly. I like Jesus, I like churches, I like a lot of Christian liturgy. I won’t take the Christian label because I do not believe Jesus is the one and only savior of the world and people’s souls. I cannot accept that my acknowledging and honoring other gods and goddesses, an alternate spirit world, and non-Christian practice is going to damn me to hell. This is one thing people need to know and accept about me, and it’s been the hardest thing to share with folks from my Olde Country, high school and past. Truth be told, I always had pagan leanings, and finding other people, books and groups to practice with felt like coming home in a way that nothing else ever has. Even as I define myself as “solitary pagan,” I would say that I enjoy meeting and celebrating with like-minded folk in a circle is delightful, and something that I hope to find here.

On religion, though, if you are family, or of a fervent evangelical nature, I would say I’m of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” persuasion. Moving back into the Bible Belt has me feeling like I just need to put that thing out there on the blog.

I write all this down because I’m trying (if thinking about it and composing entries in my head is trying) to get back into the habit of blogging, and due to a dearth of knitting content, am considering a re-format of sorts. I don’t want a separate blog. I have readers, The Knitted Brow is all tangled up as part of my identity, and I have too much going on to maintain multiple blogs. So as Aunt Pam said, so many months ago, I’m still trying to drop it down, here, without fear of backlash.

I’ve been meeting with a little knitting group, the past couple of weeks at a lovely coffeehouse in the Roswell area. It’s helped take the sting off missing the Aloha Knitters and the splinter groups I knitted with. As with any new endeavor, the challenge becomes one of figuring out how much to share, while continuing to maintain one’s identity, which is ever-changing in the new homeland.

So…dear reader, if you’ve always read me, read on! I hope to be here more often, with whatever comes to mind; knitting, dogs, domestic pursuits, spirituality, creativity. Be forewarned, there might not always be pictures. I’ve been so hesitant to blog, at times, because I don’t have photos to illustrate the entry, and I’ve recently heard and read a couple of remarks made by folk who didn’t seem to be too happy about blog/forum entries that lacked pix. This particular corner of cyberspace is for ME, and sometimes, there aren’t pictures. I’m just sayin’.

Also, if you read something that offends you, rest assured that: (1) it’s my space, my party (okay, DisKnit’s too) and I’ll say what I want to, and (2) I like to write, unedited, at times, and am a woman who changes her mind with amazing frequency. So if you don’t like it, click on outta here, but if you come back, you might find me taking an entirely different tack on things.

All that out in the open. Feel free to comment, or not. Of course, like all bloggers, I’m a bit of a comment whore. Not a very good one, judging from my comment history, and not always good about leaving the comments in other blogs I read. But we’re all trying.
More interesting content to follow.