Emily Carr, "Old Tree at Dusk" (oil), 1936
Well, that went well! Monday night's rehearsal was good, but very intense. I still have some work to do this week to tidy things up in a couple of places, but I got through the whole thing fairly comfortably and that's a great relief.

I can laugh now, remembering what a nervous wreck I was when we did the partial preview with piano accompaniment last fall. It's great that we did that because it cracked the code for me. I became familiar with this composer's idiom, her own musical language.

Each composer has their own style, their preferred scheme of meters, rhythms, harmonic progressions, and melodies (or, sometimes, lack thereof). Once you crack it, it's like you've learned to speak their particular dialect and learning their work in future becomes much easier. I found the piece difficult to learn last fall, so much so that the composer built a lot of doubling into the chamber ensemble score, with the oboe or viola or piano often playing my line as I'm singing it. But we found that to be largely dispensible last night so she's taking a lot of it out now. It's okay - she says she's glad because it's always easier to take something out than it is to put it in at the last minute.

What a whirlwind! I can't believe we got through the whole score in a 2-hour rehearsal (union musicians), and with only minor bumps in the road - amazing, especially since everyone got their parts from the composer just in the last few days.

Still, it was INTENSE! It's incredible how much energy this work takes. People who aren't in the arts (or don't have someone close to them in the arts) often think we are all a bunch of lazy slackers who work a few measly hours here and there and then take extended naps and personal time. This society has some false underlying moral standard that says you have to be busy as a beaver for 8-14 hours every day, and if you're not you clearly have poor work ethics. It's so insidious that I even have to remind myself on days like this that I'm not slacking, I've just worked my @$$ off and I'm too f^#*ing tired to see straight or safely chew gum.

I'm making a pot of tea and then probably going back to bed for a couple of hours. Then I'm going to the doctor to have my ear checked out and probably get some antibiotics (blech!). I had some sinus problems and itchy runny eyes late last week, probably allergic not viral, but with the all excess fluid build up I developed an ear infection on Sunday night. Fortunately, both the nose and throat are fine, so my singing wasn't compromised (Whew!).

It was very painful for about 24 hours, and especially last night with all the loud noise both inside my head (when singing) and outside it: oboe, horn, viola, cello, piano, and lots of percussion rehearsing in a smallish studio makes for some serious loudness. I took Advil to get through the rehearsal and it helped a bit. Then, blessedly, the pain eased a lot last night around midnight while I was waiting for the adrenaline to dissipate. There's still pressure and a blocked feeling there so I want to have it checked out

If I feel well after seeing the doctor I'm going to treat myself to a visit to the SnB at The Purple Purl. I need to inhale some fiber fumes and be around warm and fuzzy string-loving people today. I'll try to keep the acquisition to a minimum (though I do get one day off month, I might want to save it for the DKC frolic later in April).

Emily Carr, "Blue Sky" (oil), 1936
Helloooooooooo!!!! Is this thing on????

Sorry (again) for the prolonged absence. I know I've been a bad blogger. There's been so much going on around here and I promise I will get around to telling all about it but it will probably have to wait until after April 20th 'cuz I'm just a little busy until then preparing for the WORLD PREMIERE OF AN OPERA THAT WAS WRITTEN FOR ME!!!!!

If you're in the Greater Toronto Area or anywhere in Southern Ontario, I am cordially inviting you to come: EMILY, THE WAY YOU ARE by Jana Skarecky and Di Brandt, a one-woman opera exploring the life and work of Emily Carr, will be premiered on SUNDAY, APRIL 20, 2008 at 1:30 p.m. at the McMichael Gallery Canadian Art Collection, in Kleinberg.

A bold visionary who articulated much of the imagery by which Canada knows itself, Emily Carr was a woman of exceptional courage who defied the conventions of her upbringing as she struggled to define herself and her country. Born into the strict confines of Victorian society in western Canada in 1871, her quest for independence and artistic truth took her from the studios of Paris to remote native villages deep inside the west coast forests on a lifetime journey of mythic proportions. The two great themes of her work were the native culture of the Pacific coast, and the power of nature expressed in images of rain-forests and seascapes.

Presenting Emily Carr’s story at the McMichael Gallery which has long been home to some of her art work highlights the connection between her achievements as a visual artist, her writings, and the inner drama of her life.

The concert, part of the Canadian Music Centre’s “New Music in New Places” program, will feature The Talisker Players chamber ensemble with conductor Gary Kulesha will include other music by composer Jana Skarecky performed by pianist Joseph Ferretti, as well as poetry and prose by Di Brandt and by Emily Carr. The concert is free with gallery admission (adult $15, student/senior $12, family $30).

This is an incredibly wonderful opportunity and artistically very exciting: I get to create a new role that's been written with me in mind and has never been performed before! It's been in the works for a couple of years now, but even after all this time I'm still a bit stunned when I stop and think about it: Dudes, they actually wrote this for ME.

GULP.

Really, I'm fine. I just need a minute. And maybe a shot of Scotch.

Okay, I'm just going to go breathe into this paper bag for a couple of minutes...

...

No, really - don't go - I'm still here!

So, um,... I need to admit this whole thing is a wee tiny bit nerve-wracking. Lest you think it's ALL sunshine and roses (and believe me I am NOT complaining at all, just releasing some anxiety), here's how it's going: I just received the last section of the score TODAY (emailed from the composer at 4:00 am this morning), I have a rehearsal TONIGHT with the pianist, and then with the chamber orchestra and conductor on Monday, which is the only rehearsal before the “dress” rehearsal and the performance next weekend.

No pressure.

Actually, I think I am amazingly calm under the circumstances. I really should be running naked through the house (or street) babbling obscenities or rocking in the corner and winding and unwinding the same poor overworked skein over and over again while drooling silently, but alas I haven’t got time for my nervous breakdown right now.

Whew. Okay. I just needed to get that out of my system. I'm feeling MUCH better now. Thanks.

Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Is there something wrong with the fact that when the firemen knocked on our door this afternoon and requested that we evacuate the premises due to the intense smoke billowing from the house fire three doors over (a mere 45 feet away in a row house attached to ours), the most pressing worry that came to my mind was "what project should I bring with me?"

In defense of my claim to sanity, though I briefly considered the problem of how to rescue all the yarn in the house, I quickly dismissed that notion as impossible and calmly focussed on getting my husband and myself and the teddy bear (who is something of a surrogate child to both of us) safely out of the house, bringing only my purse with my wallet and cellphone in it, the phone's battery charger in case that phone became our primary means of communication for a while, and yes, my knitting bag with a couple of socks-in-progress and half a dozen balls of chunky wool and bulky alpaca, both of which are in the process of deciding what they want to become. I have my priorities straight.

Addendum: The cause of the blaze hasn't been established. The fire was quickly subdued by the capable actions of fire personnel, with damage to only the one house at the end of our row. Tragically, there was one fatality, most likely due to smoke inhalation. We lost a neighbour, a woman in her sixties whom I did not know, though another neighbour has said he knows her son. I feel oddly sad in a surreal sort of way. She died less than fifty feet away from me. I wish I had known her.

Then one little push, bang goes the door, clang!
Then the wicked witch will be done to a T!
Hi, there. I'm back! Sorry I’ve been out of communication. Whew! Two shows in one day yesterday and insane prep leading up. I’ve got a massive hangover today from the post-show adrenaline crash - and we even didn’t go out and party after the show (the usual opening night m.o.).

Oh, the shows? They went splendidly, thank you! I'm happy to report that both shows were a resounding success and went off with only the usual sort of minor deviations from the plan that are part of every live performance - the ones that only those onstage and backstage know about and adjust accordingly, while the audience is sublimely unaware.

But enough about that. I bring you some knitting news. And some pictures!

Woah... deep breaths. In and out. Nice and slow. Feel better, now? Good. (Sheesh!) I know it's been a while. Give me a break. I had some things going on, you know. Can we proceed, or do you need another minute to collect yourself? Okay.

When I had a spare few minutes off-stage during rehearsals, I was working on a little forensic and reconstructive knitting for a friend. Lynne, aka Dollymop (formerly known as geekzilla) had managed to knit up a gorgeous version of Rogue just past the arms when she decided that she would not be able to live with the little mistake in one of the side cables. Here's how it was supposed to look - the good cable: Unfortunately, the offending curlicue was down in the 12th row of the body, a very long way down the mountain Lynne had just finished climbing up row by row, so when she called out a knitting 911, I offered my services to give this poor little malformed cable a makeover. I am happy to report that sweater surgery is almost done!

The initial deconstruction went smoothly: I put the rest of the body onto some waste yarn, isolated the cable panel and frogged it back down below the glitch. Then I reknit the whole first chart, so it's now about halfway back up to the top. I’m bringing it to SnB tonight. Figure I can keep going up the narrow cable part, or pass it on to her and let her finish it herself to share in the satisfaction of hands-on participation in the recovery.

Often, when performing this delicate cosmetic procedure, the undoing lets slack creep in and the other parts start to sag progressively more and more away from the section being reworked. It's a slippery slope. Each row above the bottom of the frogged part can add a little more slack, so if you've ripped back down a long way and you reknit it, by the time you reach the top there's a lot more yarn there and the result looks much looser than the rest of the garment. You have to give it all a mini-stretch to equalize the yarn distribution into the safe sections after every two or three rows when knitting back up. You can also tweak the stitches around the reworked part with a crochet hook to make it all look smooth and seamless. That’s really the part that can be been the biggest pain in the @$$ when doing this kind of sweater surgery.

And the great news is that there was very little slippage from the unravelling! The yarn she's using is just slightly felty when you knit it up, effectively velcro-ing itself in place, which made the frogging procedure a bit delicate, as I had to gently unpick some of the stitches from the row below, especially at the edges of the cable panel. But it kept the rest of the garment from spreading away from the frogged section. As long as I work the cable panel back up just a little loosely, I'm not introducing much slack into the reworked section, and it's going smoothly and quickly.

BTW - the yarn is Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair and it's fabulous! I have to get me some of this stuff as soon as I’m off my yarn diet. I’ve been reading about it on Knitter’s Review and it’s brilliant! It'll have me drooling over it all summer, waiting to whip some up into some delicious fall/winter woolly goodness!

Witch Hazel, from "Bewitched Bunny"
(Looney Tunes, dir. Chuck Jones, 1954)

Just in case you were worried, I am still here and doing fine. I'm just totally swamped right now with prep for the coming show and haven't the spare brain cells or the time to blog about anything.

Rehearsals for Hansel and Gretel are going very well! I'm doing two roles: the Mother and the Witch and I finally got my music learned properly (Whew!), with reassurances from the cast that everyone else they know who's sung the Witch struggled with it too. And now that I know the role, I am having a lot of fun with it!

This weekend is crunch time with costume fittings and music rehearsals yesterday, final staging and a run-through today, and the dress rehearsal tomorrow. I'll recoup vocally on Tuesday (it's a big Wagnerian honker - well, my parts are, anyway, the others are sweet) and just mentally review everything. Then I have two shows on Wednesday. On Thursday I expect to be vertically challenged (post-show-itis), but I hope to crawl out to SnB in the evening.

Meanwhile - because I haven't enough to deal with right now - my bedroom ceiling is cracked, crumbling and leaking snowmelt (right by my side of the bed, of course) because of an ice dam that's built up in my neighbour's eavestrough. Sheesh! But I refuse to let it get me down - I have a choice: either cope or don't. I choose to cope (because the alternative is to sit in a puddle, sulking, while I wait for my house to fall down around me).

It’s all seriously cramping my knitting and designing time (though I can sneak in a few rows while some other scenes are running without me). And the great decluttering and organizing has screeched to a halt, but that's temporary.

I owe several of you a shout-out for various reasons (you know who you are) and I apologize for the delay. I hope to get back to knitting and blogging and correspondence late next week or by the weekend...

"The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well."
Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Pardon my recent absence. February 2008 has been an adventure. I've been spelunking in my psyche, and if I had been able to make myself blog about it during the experience, I believe I would have started with something like, "Help! I've fallen down and I can't get up." Metaphorically speaking, that is.

The confluence of my ambitious agenda to reclaim my life on numerous fronts simultaneously combined with a biochemical tendency for depression and anxiety to raise a little too much emotional baggage for me to process all at once. Actively engaged in decluttering my life, eager to eliminate excesses both in my home and my body, thoughtfully untangling my relationships, and particularly trying to practise a new paradigm for a healthy and authentic relationship with my mother, all had me rather abruptly facing many of my personal demons at once. I was stirring up a lot of feelings, sadness for some lost dreams, old suffering and regrets that I need to own and grieve. At some point, I slipped a little too far and I became profoundly mired in my misery for most of the month of February.

With perhaps less than ideal coincidence, in the time leading up to this my doctor and I were discussing possibly changing my medication and I was being weaned off my current SNRI to facilitate the transition. I just happened to be on the lowest possible dose of antidepressant/anxiolitic medication at a time when I probably needed a wee bit more in the way of biochemical support to sustain the emotional clarity that would allow me to dig myself out of the emotional morass. All this left me in the centre of a perfect storm of depression, and it's taken me a while to regain my balance and then get my act together to fulfill all the obligations I dropped while I was down the rabbit-hole and then climbing back out.

It was a bit like an internal spring-cleaning: I was forced to look deep into the corners of my psyche, under the old appliances and furniture of my inner house, and finding lots of painful emotional residue, old lingering hurts that needed to finally come up and out. It doesn't require a degree in psych to see the connections between the hoarding of excess possessions and of excess body mass and the hoarding of emotional baggage, old habits and patterns of behaviour. Letting go is letting go, and once begun it's rather frightening, because there is an emotional investment associated with all the stuff we hold onto. It all once had and still has meaning and purpose, and though they may not serve us well any longer, they are familiar. The status quo is comforting, even when it doesn't work for us anymore.

When this happens, the only way through - is through.

I spent many days wallowing in the mire, with intermittent breakthroughs when I was actually able to let some of the pain out and cry. In between, I had occasional periods of energy and positive impulse to tackle a handful of small self-care activities: I cleaned my desk around the computer, repacked and stacked the collapsing yarn avalanche, cleaned out the science experiments in the back of my fridge, dug through my closets and my kitchen for more things to donate or discard,...

But often I felt paralyzed, waiting for the part of me that's still so scared of all the associated feelings to let some more of them come all the way up and out. All I wanted to do was sleep, read, and (sometimes) watch TV and I had very little appetite. It was very hard to function and to get anything done, especially if it had a deadline. It felt like I was stuck between gears.

I have to confess to one particular blunder of which I am not proud, though I believe I handled it fairly well once the initial damage was done.

I was supposed to have an important rehearsal one Sunday afternoon mid-month. However, I couldn't make myself even begin learning the music for those scenes until the day before, Saturday. I gave it a good effort, but eventually realized there was just no way I could prepare the material in time for the next day. After a few deep breaths I decided the best thing to do was admit the truth and face the immediate problem head on. So I called the director on Saturday night to let her know that due to my recent emotional distress I was not going to be ready, so at least we could discuss how to salvage the rehearsal, maybe rearrange the schedule to do other scenes which I could be ready to rehearse on that day.

I am lucky that I have worked with this director twice in the past, so she knows my work and that I am a competent and conscientious colleague. I am lucky that she is the sort of person to whom I could confess my blunder without losing all professional credibility. I am also certain that someone or something was looking out for me, because fortuitously she was in the process of deciding to cancel the next day’s rehearsal due to the forecast warnings of freezing rain and hazardous driving conditions. Hence, I had a reprieve. And procrastination to that extreme is not something I can allow myself to do again in a professional situation.

Depression and creative endeavours are antithetical, because the depressed state is really one of fear: fear to face the authentic feelings below the depressed surface, the depth of sadness and pain that is struggling to come out which was originally deemed too overwhelming to permit myself to feel. The true creative process by its nature opens cracks in that protective shield and subjects the artist to whatever is coming through. Usually, that is tolerable, if the intensity and/or quality of emotion is manageable, whether positive or negative. But when the damn bursts, like mine did in February, it is terrifying and depression is a handy way to avoid feeling too much all at once. It's a coping mechanism, if not a very good one.

While deep in the personal muck, I was not up for creating anything - musically or otherwise. I scarcely even knit anything, nothing more than a few rows of a plain sock in the whole month (it has since been frogged). That’s not good, because knitting is usually a great source of comfort, providing solace and meditative space when I need them. Furthermore, I was in the process of a couple of personal design projects and also committed to developing two new sock patterns for fundraising activities, one for a friend who will need extensive reconstructive surgery which is not covered by our provincial medical plan, and another to offer as incentive to my sponsors for the 2008 Weekend to End Breast Cancer.

I am so very grateful that even while I was going through the worst of this, I had wonderful support from my friends and my therapist. DH was and still is terrific - holding me whenever I need it, reassuring me that I am safe and valued and loved. Friends were open to listen and let me cry. When I am "in here" it helps to know that caring folks and friends are out there. And I'm relieved that I could open up to my director about how I'd been struggling lately without being judged, that I could be my authentic self in the moment and I didn't have to armour-up or choose to pretend that I was fine on the outside, while silently screaming in anguish on the inside.

Meanwhile, I'm working with my therapist on exercises to help me loosen and adjust the valve on all the residual sadness and pain that still needs to come out, but in a manageable way so I can get more done and get back into living a more balanced life. I am who I am and I firmly believe that no matter what has come before to get me here, I am exactly where I am supposed to be, poised on the brink of the rest of my life, and whatever I make of that is up to me.

P.S. I am delighted to report that I had a terrific rehearsal yesterday!

Also, my knit-mojo is back - just in time to squeeze in a last winter project or two before I start some cheery spring knitting.

"That's all your house is. It's a place to keep your stuff while you go out there and get more stuff." - George Carlin

I gave away some of my stuff yesterday.

Specifically, I spent about an hour and a half spelunking in my closet (ie: digging through the monumental pile of clothing that cannot even get anywhere near, let alone into, my closet), looking for things to give to a friend who needs some clothes to make her life more comfortable for the next few months. This woman is bravely in the middle of an astounding journey of body recovery. Due to the rapidity of her weight loss since having a gastric bypass last spring, she is not any one size for more than a couple or a few weeks, so it makes no sense for her to be repeatedly buying and discarding new or even second hand clothes. Thus we went shopping in my closet, which as I have mentioned before, contains a full spectrum of garments in sizes from 14 to 24.

My friend is very intuitively astute and, when we had finished in the ladies apparel department, she looked me straight in the eyes and asked what she could now do for me. Once I paused from the scramble of activity, coughed up the dust and took a real breath, I realized that I was a bit of a mess emotionally. There was so much more than just an episode of closet-organization/clutter-management/home-reclamation happening here. This was bringing up a lot of baggage, and not the physical kind.

It's no surprise that I have a lot of sadness and pain tied up in my possessions and my clothes in particular. There's everything in here from body issues (when I will be that size again...) and self-esteem, to past vocational aspirations and missed opportunities attached to all the stuff I have hoarded over the years, which is precisely why it's taken me a long time to be able to let go of it.

So I did a walking meditation yesterday about all the stuff that is coming up about all my stuff. And I feel a lot of sadness and wistful longing which are welcome, as well as leftovers of old guilt and shame that need to be released. A lot of the feelings are still more in the nature of amorphous emotional residue that I am not yet ready to articulate. But the one most surprising thing that keeps coming back to me is that while I am upset, I am not really as upset as I thought I "should" be. This is not as hard as I expected it to be. In a nutshell, I am FINALLY really ready to let go of the false lingering hopes and stagnant unfulfilled dreams that all the extraneous stuff represents.

Those dreams and hopes are gone - though many of them have been reframed into new ones that are perhaps superficially identical but fundamentally healthier in motives. And I am not grieving the lost hopes - I see now that they were never real, but came from an unconscious place that wasn't my true self. However, I am mourning the lost years, the uncounted and unaccounted time which I spent less than truly conscious, and especially the vital passion wasted during those periods.

I do believe and honour the truth that those years weren't wasted. I am precisely where I am supposed to be in my life right now, in a perfect place from which to accept what was, be with what is, and move to what I want my life to be.

I'll have to continue the work in fits and starts, every few days a little more, another corner or section or a couple of bags full. It's rather too overwhelming to do everyday, and also I have the small matter of work coming up, so my days really need to be spent studying my music and preparing for upcoming rehearsals and auditions.

And as I proceed through the whirlwind I have chosen to embrace, I need to remember through all of this to give myself the time and the space and the TLC to reflect and heal, while gently and persistently continuing to purge the excesses, and feeling the associated emotions that rise up as all the accumulated things pass through my hands and my life one last time.

Acme Tornado Kit, from "Whoa, Be-Gone"
(Merrie Melodies, dir. Chuck Jones, 1958)

My 2008 kicked off with rather a lot of upheaval (*cough* - understatement) in numerous areas of my life. Though it seems excessive to set off on so many changes all at once (and it was a little overwhelming), I really felt I had to go with the impulse to initiate sweeping changes. I am highly motivated to reinvent or renovate my life in almost every way possible:

Housekeeping & domestic repairs: organization and cleaning and more décor plans, elimination of clutter and excess stuff, continuing the epic saga of our bathroom repairs (now the tub enamel is worn through in a few spots so I need to decide whether to have it re-enameled, get a liner put in, or replace it with a nice deep soaker tub - that's my dream choice, if I can afford it), building a wall of kitchen cubbyholes to use as a pantry and for small/medium appliance stations, and better yard maintenance.

Social and family life: reestablishing contacts with friends and family, even planning to entertain at home (and not just in the summer when the backyard is our living/dining room). And as for family - I am attempting to build a modicum of sanity and stability into my on-again/off-again relationship with my Mother (we are going for "couples-counselling" together!). I am also working at building a connection with my half-sisters who haven't really been a part of my life in the past (excepting a brief period when they were very young and I attempted to connect with my father and his family).

Health management: cooking more from scratch and eating healthy foods close to their natural state, detoxing some excess heavy metals, getting my blood sugar levels and blood pressure off the risky borderline, planned R&R and fun playful exercise, adding new activities and building them into my routine, as well as more scheduled training for next September's 60 km walk -- The 2008 Toronto Weekend to End Breast Cancer.

Yes - I am revving up to walk another 60 km to support the fight against Breast Cancer. And yes, I will be offering a new sock pattern (just as soon as I (a) finalize the design and (b) get my intrepid test-knitters/tech-editors to sign off on it). But you can go ahead and sponsor me now for 2008 if you want to beat the crowds. Or, better yet, go check out Knitters for Knockers, then click here to join us for for this profoundly empowering life-altering experience. Let's work together to make cancer history!

Creative pursuits outside of my career: more knitting, returning to assorted arts and crafts I used to practise (sketching and drawing, prints, acrylic and oil painting, ceramics), even gardening. (Yes, I said Gardening. Stop laughing. I might actually be good at it one day, and until then I could at least try to not kill ALL the plants this year.)

On the professional front: I will shortly start rehearsals for a production of Hansel and Gretel - it’s so much fun! I am playing both the Mother and the Witch (insert joke here: my favourite so far is "how can you tell...?), both of which work for me very well vocally and temperamentally (not to mention the obvious inherent therapeutic and cathartic potential. Can you say "Table for 2, Herr Doctor Freud?"). And I am receiving weekly addenda to the existing score for my opera Emily, the way you are (hoping it is all finished in time for me to really polish the performance for the premiere in April).

And there has been KNITTING (gasp!).

My biggest project at the moment is probably a knock-off of a terrific Old-Navy cardi-vest (no pictures yet - I'll try to get some for you soon). I am rather fond of "Re-inventing the Wool;" i.e., visually deconstructing interesting knits and other garments and figuring out how to make them for myself, an extension of something I have often had to do by sizing things up since until very recently most cute patterns didn't come in my size.

Last fall I was visiting with JenniferC and Miko (aka Purplicious) at The Purple Purl. I admired the construction of this terrific short-sleeved open/wrap-front vest-cardi Miko was wearing and naturally assumed it was a personal hand-knit creation, but when I inquired about the pattern I was disappointed to learn that it was a store-bought number from Old-Navy. So, of course, I proceeded to rip it off her body right there and then, and began madly measuring and drawing and scribbling with a plan to reconstruct one (or a few) for my very own. A few weeks later, after much contemplation of structure, form, and strategy (even some origami paper experiments), I FINALLY began to knit and I am happily reinventing a design and pattern. More on this soon.

Please stand by.
We are NOT experiencing
technical difficulties.
Please note that MezzoDiva is taking a sabbatical from blogging while she launches various and sundry therapeutic activities, recuperative endeavours and positive life-altering campaigns, to some of which she has previously alluded here in exhaustive and possibly excessive detail.

Intermittent guerilla acts of blogging may (or may not) occur in this venue in the meantime, in accordance to the whims and/or articulative competency of the subject. MezzoDiva will continue to post sporadically at her Performance Blog and on Ravelry for your further amusement. ("I'm here all week. Try the veal!").

Semi-regular knit-blogging activities OR a notice regarding further knitblog absence can be expected to appear here on or around Groundhog Day.

Wishing everyone a
happy, heathy, prosperous
and fibre-filled New Year!

On the cusp of transition.

I don’t believe in New Years “Resolutions” as such, but it tends to be a season for reflection and I have been doing a lot of soul-searching lately, reviewing the past year(s), as well as setting/renewing goals and - probably most important of all - figuring out what I need to make of my day-to-day life in order to achieve those goals.

My agenda for the new year (and the rest of my life) consists largely of reclaiming my home and my body, detoxing and purging the excesses and the toxins from both, so that I can have more optimal conditions from which to actively (not aggressively, but avidly) pursue the musical career I want and deserve. For that I need my home and my body to work for me (not against me), to provide the environment and vitality in which I can focus my efforts on career-building: a return to regular coaching and role preparation (esp. for the big Emily Carr premiere in April), arranging and performing as many cross-Canada auditions as I can find, and getting all the details ready for the big NYC opera competition I want to do next winter (aside from the musical prep, I need to get a new passport, get visas if necessary, etc…). And if I am able to teach from my house (even for just a few hours a week) I can supplement what I get from the synagogue gigs and concerts/shows, and that income would be very welcome as the financial investment in coaching and travel will be big.

So getting my home in order is already underway. It's as if the bathroom emergency was the cork in a bottle and since then DH and I have been slowly but steadily purging stuff that's obsolete or delinquent on its rent and organizing the stuff which earns its keep, and serendipitously finding storage solutions that have eluded us for decades! (Goethe was right)

Still, this is a very big endeavour and daunting on our own. (DH is very helpful but, well, let’s just say it’s not his forte and leave it at that - ignoring for the moment his very own 3-D room of "stuff").

It's not easy. I’ve done it for friends (some of whom make me look like the queen of neat) and it’s one of those things that’s so much easier to do for someone else. When it’s your (my/our) own stuff it can be overwhelming. But my wonderful friends have offered to help and that's terrific. I’m not in need of an “intervention” (please don't call Peter Walsh). I’ve already begun to do it. But help will be most welcome.

Meanwhile, I am working on the stash. The mad recent cataloguing of my personal SABLE on Ravelry will make it much easier to either use the stuff (assigning it a pattern from my queue or finding one from the gazillions there) or divest myself of it(if it no longer makes feel me warm and fuzzy - pardon the pun).

And I am setting new firm rules for acquisition – ie: no new stringy stuff until I finish at least one large-scale project (headbands/hats/scarves/mitts do not count) AND absolutely no new project-sized purchases until I finish several large-scale projects (an extra ball or a few of whatever is needed to complete a project is permissible, but ONLY once that project is well underway and thus it won’t become stash).

Weighty issues.

Tish came to SnB on Thursday and the discussion turned to her remarkable experiences with GBPS and recovery. Hearing her talk about it and mirror so much of my own experience with food and weight was exactly what I needed at the exact right time. I am deeply moved by her struggle, both for her sake and for mine.

These issues are right on the front-burner for me too right now and it is tough to deal with them “alone”. I know my friends all support me and I am truly not ashamed of my body or my weight, but I do feel lonely about it: I am alone dealing with my body and what I need to do about it, and though we all have our own body issues and assorted related syndromes, nobody in my circle of friends is in a similar condition. I have acquaintances who are women of larger sizes (some knitters, some in singing circles) but not one of my close friends is actively dealing with this right now.

Don't get me wrong - I don't expect or even want to be what anyone would refer to as a skinny or svelte. I am not biologically destined to be a slender sylph in this life. I will always be a bodacious babe, and I am just fine with that - very good, in fact. As I’ve mentioned before, I am a zaftig woman of surprisingly good health so far, despite having spent 40-something mostly sedentary years on this earth (except for that brief period of relative fitness from 2000-02, achieved by somewhat obsessive means). Due to my varying Rubenesque proportions, I have a rotating wardrobe in every size from 14 to 26. I love myself and my body at all those sizes, though to be completely honest I have to admit that I am most comfortable in my skin somewhere in the middle, around sizes 16/18.

I am also politically motivated to combat the zeitgeist of fat phobia - the last permissible bigotry. With the onslaught of reality shows and "helpful" talk shows, from the fashion industry to news reports of the latest studies on obesity, it is very easy to become caught up in the media frenzy and buy into the myths of fat vilification. The word itself, "fat", has become overloaded with anxiety and negative values. It has taken on disproportional connotations of shame and mortification, and no longer functions as noun or adjective, but is used almost as a swear word. Women in particular are bombarded with the message that if we are fat, then we are physical, emotional and spiritual cripples and I refuse to participate in or perpetuate that mythology. We owe it to ourselves and our daughters to combat the tyranny of our fat phobic society and how it targets and denigrates women.

But, politics and social issues aside, I do want to live a long and healthy life. I want to enjoy my body in all forms of physical expression and I want it to work for me as I pursue my other goals in life. I am currently about 40 lbs lighter than Tish was when she had her surgery, and I am grateful that my health hasn’t yet gone too far down the river. But it is sending up lots of flares (my blood pressure spikes last spring and summer, I’m prone to infection, etc.) and I am paying attention because I refuse to let it get dangerous and inaction now guarantees it will get worse. I am definitely not going the surgical route (despite my mother’s urging and offers to pay for everything a few years ago).

I have vowed that I am never going to diet again. Yo-yo dieting and the inevitable deprivation/obsession mindset it creates are how I got up to this size in the first place! Instead, I am determined to take better care of my health and to eat a fairly well-balanced selection of foods, mostly from the healthier ends of the dietary spectrum. I have already revamped a lot of my home cooking and I’m back on the exercise wagon I tumbled off when I was sick in October.

Still, I recognize that I need an emotional support system especially for this process, over and above what I get from DH and my excellent therapist, and I’m not going to go to a program (One day I’ll share more about my history with some supposedly helpful weight-related programs, but for now suffice to say that I have learned that they are not for me). And it is hard for me to reach out for support about this - or most things, actually. I am usually the one providing the shoulder for others, and though I do share my story with people openly, I tend not to let the feelings really come out (except for my husband and my shrink). I need to learn to reach out more because if left to my own devices I will just internalize all the issues that come up, especially those about weight and food and all the associated baggage.

So (deep breath), here goes: I would be very grateful for any and all support and encouragement, and especially now while I get used to actually asking for help if you check in on me once in a while (here, by email or by phone) I’ll be grateful.

And on that note I need to go defrost the fish and clean some vegetables for dinner.

Deck the halls with Malabrigo!
Fa la la la la, La la la la!

I'm revelling in Ravelry, frolicking in the fibre and celebrating my stash. In the last few days many (MANY) blissful hours have been frittered away cataloguing my valiant attempt to accumulate a respectable SABLE (I've got about half of it entered, but almost no photos yet), as well as exploring my options in the pattern galleries and setting goals for future projects well into the new year and beyond. Okay, so I actually have enough in the queue to get through the century. If these clever people would please press pause on all the new and nifty patterns for a while, maybe I could catch up. (Heh, heh. Heaven forfend!).

O.M.G. this place is wonderful! It feels so good to sort and organize my copious collection of string stuff and finally get an honest accounting of what's actually in there. And I am very excited by the ease with which I can cross-reference between the stash, my library, and my immense wishlist of (*cough!*) imminent and future projects.

There's not much to show for knitting around here. Lately I've been swatching and scheming and scribbling notes, and doing a lot of origami to help me visualize some design ideas that are rattling around in my head.

Still I do have one little FO from earlier in the fall. These are some super simple hand/arm-warmers I whipped up for Stella recently. MezzoDiva's simple fingerless mitts with a twist:

These are very simple 2x2 Ribbed arm/handwarmers with a cable twist at the thumbhole to reinforce the opening. Twilleys of Stamford Freedom Spirit, Blue/Gold multi on 3.5mm needles (I find magic loop best, but if you like juggling DPNs go for it!) Here's the recipe:

Using needles a little smaller than typically called for by the yarn-band (to create a nice dense and warm fabric), cast on a multiple of 4 stitches (about 1.5 times the number you would use for a simple stockinette mitt; e.g: in a DK weight I'd cast on 36-40sts, 36 x1.5= 54, so these were made on 56 stitches which is the next number that's a multiple of 4) and join to work in the round. Work a 2X2 ribbed tube (in the round) until you reach the desired length before the thumbhole, ending with the two stitches of a purl column.

Do a cable twist (to reinforce the opening at the thumbhole) as follows: Slip the next FOUR stitches to a cable or spare double-pointed needle and hold them in back. Knit the next TWO stitches, then purl the next TWO (formerly knitted) stitches and knit the last TWO stitches (formerly purled) from the holder.

Work another round, but the next time you get to this cabled bit, knit the first two stitches (which were crossed over on the previous round and then work only the next purl stitch. Now TURN YOUR WORK and continue working flat (back and forth, instead of in the round) for about 1.5 inches, working the stitches as they appear to continue the 2X2 ribbing.

The purl stitches between the crossed-over twist will become selvedge stitches, finishing the edges of the thumbhole nicely.

When the thumbhole is long enough that if you pinch the edges together they form a slightly snug fit around the thumb, rejoin the edges to work in the round and do another cable twist (as above) to reinforce it at the top. Then continue in the round for as long as you need and cast off.

Voila!

Oy to the world!

Forgive me, Blogger, for I have sinned been remiss. It's been 25 days since my last confession er, blog posting.

'Tis the season to find that time keeps getting away from me without me having a clue where it went or what I did. It's really all a blur. I'm still not sure how I managed to miss SnB last week. I had plans to go and then...? I never even made the annual batch of Potato Latkes promised for the DH every Hannukah. (I owe you some, my love!)

Still, it has been a good several weeks with some ups and some downs: reconnecting with "real" life after the last of my fall gigs were done, reclaiming the house from the fallout of bathroom-and-kitchen madness, and a minor medical issue that could have been much (MUCH) worse. But where has all the time gone? I am stumped. Sigh. If you find where my time has gone, please do write and let me know.

I hope to have a nice long blog about it all, if I can figure out WTH I've been up to! (And my sincere apologies to the grammar police for ending the previous sentence with a preposition)

I've (finally) come to terms with the notion that I can whole-heartedly enjoy Xmas as a winter festival of light returning from the dark. This is the first year I've been able to really get into the seasonal spirit without feeling even a bit guilty for somehow betraying my own cultural/religious roots: Fa la la la la - Oy, vey, let's make merry! Most of our seasonal traditions go back much farther than any Judeo-Christian appropriation of the rituals, and all northern hemisphere cultures have our own variation of the same holidays, so let's hunker in together and celebrate the return of light.

Wishing you all a belated Happy Hannukah &/or Merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, Diwali/Deepavali, Yalda, Dong Zhi - just celebrate Winter-Solstice Festival(s) of your choice. I've decided to enjoy them all!

(And if I've left anyone out - it's not intentional, please forgive me and let me know about it so I can learn more about your culture's seasonal celebrations.)

BTW, there has been knitting. Lots and LOTS of knitting, but most of it is swatching and pattern drafting and there are no pictures of any interest yet, but stay tuned in the New Year. There WILL be goodies to see and goodies to share!

Reno Redux - or - Welcome to my Nightmare.
Pardon my mood. I am not a very happy camper right now and not fit for human company. I have one lonely and frayed nerve left. Please don't step on it if you want to live.

I am shell-shocked and feeling rather violated after three days of demolition and reconstruction in my house. There are clouds of dust and a mud trail from the front door up the carpeted stairs to the bathroom and back, accompanied by a continual sound-track of loud banging, crashing ceramics and screeching power tools. They’ve been ripping out my kitchen ceiling and my shower tiles (the bathroom is above the kitchen), repairing the ceiling and walls and retiling the shower.

The whole tiled shower wall was crumbling and the kitchen ceiling was caving in below it. There was horrendous water damage because there was no water barrier behind the tiles, just regular drywall, so the three walls around the tub and shower were completely rotten - like compost - disgusting.

The kitchen walls and ceiling have been peeling for years and we haven't done much about them because the bathroom had to be fixed first and then the kitchen ceiling and walls, or we'd just have to do it all again as water damage from upstairs trickled down. Blogger is not permitting me to load the pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it.


Basically, it means we have no shower for the week and during the day we have very little access to the one and only toilet in the house. Since we both are home during the day, this is not the best scenario. We are using my very gracious neighbour’s bathroom occasionally (often) this week, but it's still been a pain in the - well, you know. The house is filthy and covered in dust and grit and, despite some daily attempts to clean up, it really isn't going to get better until after the work is completed.

DH does not handle these things well - he hates having his personal space invaded and he hates to be left alone with workers in the house. I’m not particularly enjoying the process either, but it’s necessary and I am definitely looking forward to the results. Because then we can (finally) continue with scraping off the rest of the peeling paint in the house and refinishing the walls and painting the kitchen, and building a pantry and organizing the cupboards, etc., etc... and ultimately reclaiming the various spaces in our house that have become permanent staging areas for the interim storage of our stuff (gradually over the next many months – give us a break! We’ll need to recover from this part first).

This renovation is NOT about aesthetics, but I am allowing myself to ponder the colour scheme. The new shower area will be white tile (instead of the 80's "dusty rose"). I'll probably do more white and maybe a medium french blue in the kitchen, to go with the blue-&-white mottled Italian floor tiles (we did the floor in 2000, then stopped).
The good news is I am falling in love with my cute little house all over again. It may lack some space, but the individual rooms are a good size for this sort of house and with some TLC it will be quite charming... eventually.

Oh, yeah... I have been knitting. The condition of my home (and my nerves) are not conducive to any project work, so I've been scheming about some new design ideas and knitting swatches. Lots and lots of swatches. But there's nothing to show and tell yet.

I saw this quiz on Rochelle's blog and I had to try it right away:
Which Superhero are you?

You are Wonder Woman
You are a beautiful princess with great strength of character.

Your results:
Wonder Woman 80%
Superman 80%
Spider-Man 75%
Green Lantern 75%
Supergirl 70%
The Flash 60%
Robin 60%
Batman 55%
Iron Man 50%
Hulk 40%
Catwoman 30%

Hey!!! Cut that out. Stop laughing! Yes, I mean you!...
Okay, get it out of your system if you must.

Sheesh.

See there where it says it's a superhero PERSONALITY test. Nobody said anything about the physique.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

So. Far. Behind.

To everybody who is waiting for a swap-package/contest-prize/blog-post/reply acknowledging your existence/query/
magnanimity (and perhaps a word or two about my knitting) - please please PLEASE accept my heartfelt humblest apologies and assurances that it's all still underway or on the way.

I am having a little trouble (*ahem* - understatement) digging out from the (literal and figurative) avalanche of obligations and the piles of debris (not to mention the basic life-supporting chores) that were dropped when I was sick and then compounded by the recent spate of concerts.

Soon, my friends. Soon.

Wow! Last night was intense. Terrific. A TKO - for the audience and for me! So I am happy, but hibernatory. I slept until 1:30 p.m. and my greatest ambition for the rest of the day is to sit in front of the TV and knit until my next nap... I hear my sofa calling me.
Three down - one to go. I get my life back after this week!

Announcement:(with my apologies for the very late notice)
If you are in the GTA and happen to be free tonight, I'd love to see you here! (psst: bring your knitting - and any Campanula socks you have made or are making)
You are invited to a 50th-Birthday Concert of
Compositions and Paintings by Jana Skarecky
Saturday, November 10, 2007, 8 p.m.
at Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave., Toronto
(in Yorkville, just north of Bloor, east of University)
Admission $15
featuring a preview of voice-&-piano excerpts from her one-woman opera (a work-in-progress, with libretto by poet Di Brandt) about Emily Carr (with libretto by poet Di Brandt), Emily, the Way You Are, sung by Ramona Carmelly, with a cameo as “The Child Emily” by Juliana Colwell.

concert approximately 1 hour, to be followed by refreshments and a birthday party for the composer (cards only please!)

* EMILY, THE WAY YOU ARE, a new lyrical portrait of the boldly nonconformist visionary Canadian artist and writer Emily Carr, will premiere on Sunday April 20, 2008, at 1:30 p.m., with mezzo soprano Ramona Carmelly and The Talisker Players chamber ensemble at the McMichael Gallery Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario through the Canadian Music Centre's New Music in New Places program.

Lest we forget.

I have mentioned before that I used to keep Brunnhilde in my wallet. I found her in a newspaper many years ago. Sorry, I don't recall where, or who the cartoonist is - the series title was "Bent Offerings". She reminds me how very much I love what I'm doing.

Last night I sang a fun and frivolous program at a gala fundraiser celebrating the 20th anniversary of Hospice Thornhill. This is a very worthy, underfunded and underassisted thread of the social fabric. Our society is so deeply afraid of the whole idea of death that we go to great lengths in our denial, shunning this ubiquitous fact of life (which is, to the best of my knowledge, still a terminal condition) to the extent that in our haste to forget our own potential demise, precious little attention is paid to the needs of both the dying and those whose loved ones are dying. Except, that is, for the wonderful work and programs offered by hospices, their caregivers and volunteers. I was honoured to be a part of this wonderful event and I believe a lot of money was raised for this cause (I hope to find out later in the week).

I have two more concerts coming up whose subjects bear remembering (well, three actually, but one is a partially repeated program). One program for Holocaust Education Week is tomorrow night, then there's a concert with a preview of a lot of material from the Emily Carr project next Saturday, and another Holocaust Education program is early the next week. Both the Holocaust programs and the Emily Carr work contain vast amounts of contemporary music which is either brand new (composed for this event) or recent (mid-late 20th Century) and thus it's a lot new repertoire for me. I usually love this stuff - in one case, I actually chose the rep, so it's a self-inflicted challenge and I can't (shouldn't) complain! However, please induge me briefly - I need to get this out of my system.

It wouldn't be a problem, but I hadn't planned for a rather extended interruption in my learning curve (insert sound-effects of a major glitch here). I caught the nastiest flu and was out of commission from the last week of September for almost a month. Even after the first couple of weeks, when the worst of it was over and I slowly started to get better, I had absolutely no ability to focus, no concentration and no energy. About all I could do was sleep 14-16 hours a day to recover and watch a little TV when I was too tired to read. That whole missing month was supposed to be learning and practicing time, and I got nothing done. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Heck, I couldn't even knit a straight line, let alone grasp complicated new music.

For the past two weeks, with a few almost comically unpredictable lapses due to my lingering post-flu diminished stamina, I have been desperately scrambling to learn and rehearse all this new repertoire, dashing around the city and meeting with pianists, and altogether feeling quite pathetically overwhelmed by everything (except the aforementioned Thornhill Hospice gala, which was almost too much fun, comprised as it was of silly and fabulous musical theatre, some cabaret songs and "popera"). Adding insult to injury, all this frantic preparation for my current spate of musical engagements is even getting in the way of my knitting, the usual pressure valve and comforting soother of my frazzled soul (well, except for one day when I couldn't take it anymore and I played hookie to go and sit with Haley at Knitomatic and blissfully knit the day away).

So I decided to invite Brunnhilde back to visit here again. Because there's one thing I need to keep in mind when the going gets tough: No matter how difficult, hectic or stressful my musical life gets from time to time (and boy, it does!), I have to always remember that I am blessed to be doing something I love with my life and to be able to share it with others in meaningful ways.

P.S. for those folks seeking a summary of stitches: please stand by. There will be knitting content here eventually, sometime after the middle of the month. I hope. And if we can get the new camera battery to work, there might even be pictures!