1. Once upon a time.

2. There was a girl named Yarnista.

3. She was one of those right-brained creative types who always liked to make things.

4. She made bagels.

5. The recipe said to boil them in a large stock pot of water before baking them.

6. The bagels tasted vaguely like hockey pucks.

7. She made bookmarks.

8. The bookmarks were constructed of two layers of posterboard suspended between a sheet of self-adhesive contact paper.

9. She painted abstract watercolor designs on each bookmark before applying the plastic.

10. A stint selling the bookmarks door to door proved worthwhile; she made $50 in one weekend.

11. Not bad for an eleven year old selling fifty cent bookmarks around the neighborhood.

12. Her mom didn’t know about her endeavor until it was completed.

13. It’s easy to hide things from your mom when all you do are quiet things like, “painting in your room” and “going out for a little walk.”

14. Yarnista decided watercolor painting was her thing and asked her mom to sign her up for an evening class.

15. The watercolor painting instructor did not agree that watercolor painting was her thing.

16. The watercolor painting instructor didn’t know that Yarnista had already made big money on her paintings.

17. Take that, watercolor painting instructor.

18. Yarnista now paints things professionally.

19. Things like yarn — maybe you’ve seen her work around town.

20. In 2nd grade art class, she was given a sheet of plastic mesh, some brightly colored yarn, and a large plastic needle.

21. She stitched I Love You onto the plastic mesh.

22. Except she ran out of room and the U had to be bumped to the line below.

23. Her dad hung it in his garage workshop anyway.

24. The end.

25. Thank you.

26. P.S. Yarnista grew up in Midwest America, where people say Thank You and Sorry About That and No, You First compulsively.

Thank you.

It is arduous, and full of peril. It is delightsome and lovely. It is exhilarating and disheartening. All of these, at once.

Arduous: hard to accomplish or achieve: difficult. Marked by great labor or effort. As in the thousands of skeins of yarn that pass through my hands each month. This is marked by a great and satisfying labor on my part, and the part of my assistants. (Thank you, assistants.)

Peril: exposure to risk of being injured, destroyed, or lost: danger. As in the sore feet, legs, back, and shoulders that result from dyeing the thousands of skeins of yarn that pass through my hands. As in the burns that inevitably occur on my hands and arms. As in the sickening THWACK that occurs when a yarn winder hits a part of my body.

Delightsome: highly pleasing. As in the joy I feel from looking at my creations in beautifully stacked piles like ripe produce, ready to befriend and nourish their new families.

Lovely: grand, swell, eliciting love. As in the melding of colors on sheep’s hair. I never fail to think this process is swell.

Exhilarating: cheerful, refreshing, and exciting. As in the excitement I feel when I finally get something right, after many many many tries. To have someone else take pleasure in that effort is especially exciting for me.

Disheartening: to lose spirit or morale. As in the feeling that I can never accomplish everything there is to do. Does everyone feel this way? I think they must.

And such is my life, and the lives of many of you: Arduous and exhilarating, lovely and disheartening. Today’s wish: that you find more delight than peril on your path.

That’s me. I’m a late adopter of new stuff. I’m not a bandwagon person. I eschew bandwagons. When people zig, I zag. And so on.

But in the past several months I’ve had dozens of requests for me to post Twitter updates. And so, I oblige. Today, I posted about my assistant cutting her hair in the bathroom of the studio, which she later hated and was upset about. (Although Twitter prevents me from telling the whole story.)

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter, here’s the linkie. It’s OK if you’re a late adopter. We can be late adopters together.

And have I mentioned Facebook? Also another thing I adopted late. What other things will I adopt late? Perhaps I’ll learn how to text by the time I’m 67.

–Yarnista

P.S. If you’re not on Twitter and don’t care about Twitter and don’t want to open an account, you can still follow me (and others, of course) using Google Reader. It will pull all of the info for you, including posts from this and any other blog. Good clean fun.

Dear Self,

The last time we spoke, you were concerned about the White House’s inability to spell. That was two months ago. I have many more things to discuss with you — your upcoming visit to Sock Summit, the last day of school (coming soon, isn’t it?), and the fact that you’re in desperate need of a haircut. While these topics do need attention, I have an urgent matter to talk to you about.

The bacon does not love you back.

Hear me out.  I know you have a special place in your heart for bacon, particularly the salt-cured, additive-free,  small-producer variety, but there is a bright line between fondness and problematic behavior. I’m sorry to see you’ve crossed that line.

Tonight when you cooked the bacon for a spinach salad with with mushrooms, I saw you surreptitiously gobble a large quantity of the bacon that was intended for the supper. I saw the furtive glances as you thought to yourself, “MINE. ALL FOR ME! NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE ANY!”

Come now, Self. Do you really think you deserve ALL the bacon? (I know you bring it home, but that’s really no excuse.) Should you really be eating a full pound of pig belly? I invite you to take a look in the mirror before you answer that question.

I say this only because I care about you, and I know the ledge upon which you perch is both high and perilous. It’s a long fall to the bottom, Self. Bacon doesn’t — and can’t — love you back.  I’ve brought a ladder for you. I’ll just leave it over here and walk away. Climb down when you’re ready.

No, there is no parmesan cheese down here. That doesn’t love you back either. But the yarn, that’s a different story. Yarn is both delicious and figure friendly.

I look forward to your speedy reply.

Love,

Yarnista

And by Isabel, I mean Isabel the cat, of Fairy Tale fame.

1. We both have gray hair. Isabel was born with gray hair. My first gray didn’t appear until age 29. Lucky me.

2. We both love breakfast cereal. Particularly Grape Nuts. Organic milk, no sugar, thank you.

3.  We both dislike riding in pet carriers. I find them a bit claustrophobic.

4. We both resist having our pictures taken.

5.  We’re both a little on the rotund side. Isabel a little more than me.  She’s smaller, and has fewer places to hide her bulges. Plus, I wear clothes. And shapewear. 

I know this information will have a profound impact on your life. Go forth and prosper.

Read from the beginning here.

The scenery changed quickly from the lovely hills of the Appalachian mountains to the pastoral scenery of horse and farm country, and then to the bustling suburbs of Washington, DC, where their new life was located.  They maneuvered past the traffic circle at the end of the block and pulled into their driveway.  It had been a long trip. A trip full of cats.

Their house was much too large for two adults and four cats, and the cats immediately set out to hide themselves in the rafters and the nether regions of the basement.  Having lived in apartments all of her adult life, it was an adjustment to have too much space. Closets sitting empty, bedrooms unoccupied. The neighborhood, too, stood in contrast to what they were accustomed to.  Acres of leafy parks, expansive, grassy yards, gauzy flowering trees and manicured azalea hedges.

They had little time to soak in the atmosphere. School was starting. New Teacher Orientation crawled by. A week of heat and a monotone presenter describing the finer points of the disciplinary policy made the experience moderately excruciating.  The girl brushed up on the curriculum she was expected to teach, looked over the book list, shopped for her first day of school clothes, and made friends with her department members. She marveled at the resources at her disposal — having just worked at a school with intermittent electricity, no textbooks, no supplies at all, actually — this school seemed like some kind of teaching Mecca.

What was this? A cabinet full of supplies? And this? A room full of textbooks? Post-Its? Markers? Paper? Functional photocopiers? It was amazing that every classroom had a computer with an internet connection, and that there were multiple computer labs for student use in the building.  She felt as if the other shoe would drop at any time. Where was the catch? Why were these schools so well equipped when schools elsewhere lacked basic anything?

Classes began, much too early in her estimation. August heat still permeated the region, and she glanced longingly at the wool trousers and sweaters hanging in her closet, lonely from lack of wear.  The girl got to know her students, many of whom were the children of diplomats, defense contractors, and government security officers. The school district official who hired her was right when he said people here were absolutely rabid about education.

Three weeks after the start of school, the girl’s principal made an announcement over the intercom. They were dismissing school early, and buses would be arriving to take the students home in 30 minutes.

Planes had just been flown into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

She careened toward her desk chair, cognizant of the 32 pairs of eyes watching her. Her husband worked four blocks from the White House. They had relatives in New York. Her students had parents who worked in the Pentagon. What do I do, what do I do, what am I supposed to do? This was not something they covered in New Teacher Orientation, or any sort of university class. She felt a surge of adrenaline mix with the fear in her chest. Pretend to be calm, she told herself. Soothing.  She watched as dozens of yellow school buses roared into the parking lot.  There was no whooping and hollering in the hallways as 2,000 teenagers streamed out of the building, only worried faces with lips pressed together.

The girl returned to her department office, where other teachers watched the cable news channels that replayed the horrific images over and over.  No one was answering the phone in her husband’s office. No one was answering her husband’s cell phone. She drove home, listening as every radio station suspended their usual programming to pick up news feeds.

The peaceful appearance of her suburban neighborhood belied what was happening just miles away: jammed Metro trains, clogged cell phone towers. Every available EMT unit called to the scene of the Pentagon bombing. Men driving armored Humvees, others patrolling on foot with machine guns, their camouflage highlighting the black uniforms of the city police officers standing on nearly every corner.

She found herself glued to the television, crying, seeing news of the 4th plane that crashed into an empty field in Pennsylvania. The phone rang off the hook as every friend and relative called when they saw the news. “I’m fine,” the girl said. “I haven’t been able to reach my husband yet.”

Panic began to set in as 7:00 pm neared and she hadn’t heard from her husband. She was sure she had dialed his number 300 times, to no avail.  At 7:30, the key in the lock flooded her with relief.  Her husband had been unable to call because DC’s land and cell phone circuits were so inundated.  He’d been waiting for a Metro train on the platform for hours, trying to exit the city like tens of thousands of others.

The couple later found out that a relative had been in the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. She had been shopping on the first floor and left as soon as she felt the building shake.  She’d gone outside, only to look up and feel screams strangling her chest. She had many friends in that tower.

What kind of life was this, here in this city where people fly airplanes full of innocent people into buildings full of innocent people?  What kind of life did the people here have, with their lawn services and their perfect schools?

School was closed the next day as a precaution. On September 13th, the girl was midway through a class discussion on terrorism — how do you resume a normal lesson plan under the circumstances? — when another teacher walked into the room and handed her a note. It read:

You have an emergency phone call from your husband. Go take it in the department office. I’ll stay here with your class.

The girl nodded, and once again felt panic rising.  “Honey, I’m in the emergency room. They think I might need surgery. I need you to come.”

All of the free Post-It notes were not worth this.  A husband in the hospital. DC swarming with National Guard, soldiers patrolling the city with machine guns, news organizations discussion terror alerts. Driving into the city where her husband was in the hospital took hours, as she encountered road closures and checkpoints, and her own lack of geographic knowledge. When she finally reached the hospital, she found her husband in bed, drugged and asleep.

A nurse informed her that they thought her husband had some kind of painful GI infection, and that they were giving him antibiotics and morphine. He would likely be fine, but would need to stay in the hospital for a few days.  The girl tried to wake up her husband to let him know she was there. He stirred and said hello, but it was clear he had little awareness of his surroundings.

She accepted the police officer’s offer to walk her back to her car in the warm night air.  Home to an empty house.  Home to a house with French doors that overlooked a brick patio and a lush backyard. Home to a place where terror could strike in the middle of a school day. 

Her husband was better by September 16th, and she tried to navigate the newly circuitous route out of the city with him in the front passenger seat. It didn’t seem right. He always drove when they were together.  The noontime sun seemed blinding.  He was much better the next day, and on the 18th, they both returned to their jobs — he in an office building by the White House, her in the sparkling school building. 

And then, on September 19th, amidst the chaos of a new job and a new city in a new house that was yet to be completely unpacked, the girl discovered there was a new Irish baby on the way.

To be continued…