New Photo!

I love this photo of my cat, Romeo, taken by Joe. The colors are wonderful and his expression priceless. So I just had to change my opening photo because, well, it looks so good. So no one will know what I'm talking about in my first post about the Abbey Chapel window. Such is life.

If you are patient, you can watch the slideshow through all my yarn stash and projects and there is a photo of the rose window in Abbey Chapel. There are also some really fun photos from my trip to China last summer. Those are worth waiting for. Please bear with me as I figure out if there's a way to disentangle my knitting stash photos from the China ones that are much more interesting.

Love is in the air ...

I started thinking about what I'd written in my very first post ... about lately seeing people differently somehow; perceiving them as wonderful, interesting beings. The more I thought about it, the more I realize that it has to do with the state I'M in while I'm looking at them. I'm in love. With a capital L ... Love. I don't believe that I have ever TRULY been in love in the way in which I presently find myself in love. In the past it's been being in love with love and now, something is different. I am seeing my love (Joe, by name) as a whole person. I'm not seeing him as someone I can control or who controls me or someone to whom I am attaching myself so as not to be alone. He is infinitely fascinating to me ... occasionally trying ... periodically challenging and yet, he's my love. He's the one I want to be with at the end of the day. Well, OK, he and my cats, and his two amazing kids.

Those of you who know me know that my road to love has been rocky at best. I suppose it is for all of us, really. So this is a new state for me and I am "in process." I don't think I realized it consciously, until now, that loving is a process ... and what a wonderful thing that is. It is in motion, not static. And there's something constant about it, too, even as it is in motion. So my having Joe in my life is creating a wonderful energy for and around me that is then reflected outward towards everything I see and to those with whom I come in contact.

Ok, so you all, out there in cyber-space, have probably already figured this out eons ago. What can I say, I'm a late bloomer!

The other thing that has grown into a (near) obsession for me lately is knitting. What's not to love?! Great designs, great fiber, something fun to do on the train to work every day, new projects to look forward to, new gifts to make (for myself and others). Something rather mystical ... an ancient art that is also very new and fresh with each new pattern or each person who tries it.

These are the thoughts that are ambling through my brain as I sit at my desk, watching umbrella tops go by my office window. It's OK, I'm eating my lunch now so I figure I'm allowed to write a little and then it's back to work.

If a Sarah falls in the parking garage, does anyone hear?

I fell last night. In a parking garage. There was this little "step" ... it's in quotes because it was a silly little step and WHY it was there, at the entrance to a parking garage, I don't know. It wasn't a REAL step, which is why I tripped over it. Had it been a real step, I would have seen it and therefore not have tripped over it. Who NEEDS a tiny, 2 inch high step going into a parking garage, I ask you? Not I, for one.

Anyway, I went down HARD. And it hurt. My backpack went flying up over my head. Tears sprang into my eyes and I just sat on the ground clutching and gently rubbing my injured knee. There was no one around so I just sat for a moment to collect myself, working at not crying from the shock and pain. And then a funny thought popped into my head. "If a Sarah falls in a parking garage and there's no one around to hear, does she make any noise?"

My right knee and left hand are much the worse for wear today. I can't turn doorknobs and going up and down stairs is painful.

I'm here to tell you ... when Sarah falls in a parking garage she DOES make a sound.

What is there in life ...

I set up this blog spot a number of months ago and never used it. Today, 5/8/08, I decided that I want to use this blog as a means of exploring my life, travels and interactions. I enjoy writing and have often felt that I should "be a writer." I have plenty of interests that keep me busy (thus the blog sitting idle for months) and just last week, I joined the knitting web community Ravelry and am inordinately happy about that. Many people have their own blogs so I have decided to set mine up and will include the link on my Ravelry page. This is an entirely new medium for me so bear with me as I learn the ropes.

My title photograph is the rose window at Abbey Chapel at Mount Holyoke College. I love that window. The rest of the chapel is very simple so the rose window really shines. I am a spiritual person, although not a particularly religious one. I like sitting in churches, chapels and temples because the energy is somehow different from the rest of the world; the quiet is palpable. I find it a good place to commune with myself. It's the same sort of quietude I experience when I'm knitting.

The other thing of which I've been very aware lately is just how many really wonderful people there are on the planet. Strong, courageous, kind, giving, compassionate, loving people. It's really amazing. I live in Manhattan but am from Vermont originally. I like smiling at people in the subway because it surprises them. People learn to keep a poker face when they are out and about in the city. I've been occasionally (pleasantly) surprised when someone I don't know flashes a smile at me so I've started doing it. It's really fun to see how people respond. Try it!

My slideshow is mostly from a trip to China last year (with a few of my cats thrown in--can't have a blog so titled and not feature my cats, now can I?!). I went with the Mt. Holyoke College Alumnae Glee Club. We had a wonderful time and most of these photos are from our trip to Xi'an where we visited the Terra Cotta Warriors. I still feel a great sense of awe about these statues ... they are like snowflakes, each unique. And awe at the size of the army created to protect the emperor in the afterlife. They've been excavating for 30 years and have barely scratched the surface. This is a monument to human ingenuity and creativity. I feel very fortunate to have seen it (and the Great Wall, of course).