grip

nerves rick-racketing undulating tumultuous
waves
gut filled with air that punches
outward
against walls
knees awkwardly bent
tucked beneath
eyes trained.

fabric

Fabric excites me. This statement wouldn't sound so strange if you hang around fashion types and crafters. Weight, hand-feel, weave, fibre, texture, drape, luminosity, colour, print (there is so much going on!)... Fabric conjures an image, tells a tale, invokes an emotion.

White linen pronounces summer, wool tweed says autumn.

I remember, for instance, the pale blue and white narrow-striped cotton/polyester material of my kindergarten uniform, trimmed in white rick-rack. Now, seeing similarly-patterned beach cabanas almost always brings back memories of those early childhood days.

knit. sun.

I've been trying to finish this sweater. The basic pattern is named Solaris and is available for free HERE from Berroco (whose knit patterns, I've found, are among some of the most accurate and reliable free offerings online). Its simple design lends well to gentle adaptations. I'm using a mustard green cotton/polyester yarn that I found randomly in Dresden.

(picture via Moonstitches)

I came across this beautiful finished example of Solaris from Alex, who is based in Japan. I appreciate the quiet elegance of her aesthetics and her works. Moonstitches is her blog.

Every year, about 10 seconds after booking my flight for my annual Christmas trip to Germany, the knit-itch begins. I was a voracious knitter while in Buffalo. Nothing matches the tactile pleasures of knitting, the satisfaction of creating - yarn to weave, fibre to fabric - and the soft click-clacketing of needles in a quiet room. The dreadful move to Singapore has all but sapped the enthusiasm out of me. Sitting with bundles of yarn in perennial 30C weather is not fun.

That, perhaps, I can still deal with. But I'm not going to find autumnal air here.

revived

I feel like an old soul around these quarters. Afterall, I had last posted 2.5 years ago. Who said the web changes faster than we can catch up? This blog stuck around. That makes for a plenty good reason to revive it.

This picture was from Berlin, somewhere along the streets, on a greyish day in early June 2005. Berlin is forever under construction, though history is stuck in its crevices for good.

Much like this blog I supposed. After the longest hiatus yet, it's back again. Changed and changing. Will not escape its history either.

random thoughts

I attempted to begin my annual spring cleaning ritual a few days ago when I picked up my tassel from the graduation cap I wore in May 2004 for my undergraduate commencement. Since the ceremony, I hung it from the switch of my bedroom lamp. Its deep navy blue has faded (morphed?) into a dusky lavender. It's difficult to imagine it's been three years... commencement season has rolled around again.

Quite a bit of travel coming up. First to New York City May 17-20, then to Las Vegas May 30-June 6.

New York is an old friend. I think of it and I smell stale water evaporating, stifling wafts of it hit me with every turn of a corner, from sewers, basement storerooms accessed with steep creaking steel steps, and clanking Chinese kitchens (just a hint!) as the delivery boy swings the door open holding a cardboard crate of savoy cabbages. There is so much on the street in New York. Just as much behind closed doors. Sneak a peek into the Chinese kitchen the next time you're in town.

Vegas oh Vegas, the embodiment of hedonism. Fabled. Forbidden. I have been sarcastic towards and about it. Half the fun lies therein. Self-mockery (although it's a business trip).

I 've been lagging on taking photos. This very festive season culminating from graduation/weddings/babies/spring/fond farewells may just be the trigger I need. Taking photos (much like writing poems and painting) forces me to compose my subjects as much as myself. Its absence from my life in recent months may be a parallel of my present reality. Perhaps then, in it (or a re-engagement with it) lies my key for halting the drift I've languished in for so long.