It’s been the best of years, it’s been the worst of years. I’ve done lots, and have not done more. One thing I have done every day this year though is the Daily Create.
@NomadWarMachine @dogtrax @ronald_2008 Congratulations! #DS106 pic.twitter.com/77DprNL06h
— john johnston (@johnjohnston) December 31, 2018
It’s been fun, it has done me good, and I would highly recommend it to you all. Happy New Year, all.
As I read Anna’s post about how she is struggling to find the patience to read, I thought about how I knit. Specifically, I thought about how often I turn my knitting projects into races – how instead of enjoying the process of knitting, I rush to get them finished and off the needles. Here’s an example: the shawl above is one that I started in order to have some easy knitting for when my mind or my hands were tired, but I have spent the last few days counting the rows and minutes until it was finished. And, of course, now it is done I am immediately thinking about starting a similar project.
I don’t make resolutions at new year, but I am making a mental note to remember to enjoy the process of knitting, and stop thinking in terms of finished outputs.
There’s so much emphasis at the moment in active learning, often accompanied with the (implicit) belief that this needs to be a collaborative activity. I think both are important, and also enjoyable – but sometimes peace and solitude are just as productive, if not more.
Today I have spent time in my kitchen away from social media – chopping fruit and veg for relish, stirring together chocolate and nuts for fudge, churning yogurt and vanilla for ice cream and then stirring the remainder of the Christmas pudding through it. As I cooked, my mind wandered – thinking about PhD stuff, and presentations I need to write, and things I have read over the last few days.
Bacon says somewhere that there are three elements to learning: reading, writing and discussing. But of course there’s another – thinking is also important, and I worry that this vital element is being overlooked. Today I made space for it.
Today’s dots – a freshly baked batch of oatcakes. Time is of the essence with these – they need to be quickly mixed together and rolled out while the dough is still warm, else the mixture sets and becomes unworkable. In addition, the more it is rolled out, the harder it is to use, so these are imperfect – quickly cut out and put onto a baking tray. They won’t last long anyway – they are too tasty, we have so much cheese in the house right now, and they are also perfect for a quick snack.
Holiday time is a luxury I appreciate – time to bake, time to relax. Doodling, reading recipes, recharging my batteries. Knitting – always knitting – more dots here in the selection of yarns I have chosen for a scarf for mum – oddments from projects made for family and friends (I will tell her the pale blue is from a sweater I made for dad, she will appreciate that).
No metaphors today, just happy relaxed writing.
We’re all thinking about dots. Sheri reminds us that this is not a new conversation. Terry responds and starts teasing out the metaphor. Dots and lines, or overlapping circles? Maybe both, maybe more. We don’t have the words to represent to ourselves this complex conceptual scheme. (A recurring memory: in a philosophy of science lecture we are described as three dimensional slices of four dimensional space-time worms.)
Wendy sees pictures in poems. I see pictures in my head – pictures I can’t translate onto paper because they are too transient – shape shifting wisps of mental smoke that drift at the edge of my mind. Blobs of ink dropped into water – blending with others yet keeping their shape. I try to represent what I see, but I just make a mess.
We bounce ideas off each other and they ricochet off in unexpected tangents (Wendy, again). (Another memory from philosophy of science – Newton’s “billiard ball” theory of causation.) A wirearchy, not a hierarchy.
Mashing together two prompts today: Wendy’s post for #MoDigiWri and the Daily Create also for today.
I visited the Dotsies site and grabbed the bookmarklet up to my tool bar, then headed over to Wendy’s blog and applied it, screen shot the result and pasted the image into Paint to crop it. The resulting image, here on the left, is her poem translated into dots.
Wendy’s post about code and “hidden” writing reminds me of Bertrand Russell’s distinction between surface grammar and depth grammar. Is the grammar of the surface more misleading, as he thought? Is the underlying structure of our thought really dots? (Russell didn’t say that, he was talking about philosophical logic – I am applying a poetic licence to his idea that I am sure he would not have approved of.)
Where is all this talk of dots leading me? Watch this space … and remember that “A Line is a Dot That Went for a Walk“.
Christmas lunch – vege roast and all the trimmings for me, Niall, Niall’s mum and aunt Lesley. Served on mum and dad’s dinner service, reminding me of Christmasses past with family – busy days with everybody piled into mum and dad’s house – a surfeit of food, noise and happiness. Today was quieter, but just as happy. Setting the table I felt so lucky for all we have: our wine glasses were a wedding present from a friend, and the tablecloth was a gift from a student to Niall’s dad. The mats and cutlery were bought with money given to us when we married. So many memories, such good food, and such good company.
Now I am in my study relaxing. I have a new drawing book to inspire me, a new knitting book to tempt me, new pens to draw with, new notepads to write in.
And a cat who thinks it is time for food. She is right.
Two years ago I bought the material to make a pair of curtains for my bedroom, but the holidays passed and the curtains didn’t get made. The material sat around for a while with Lacey using it as a cushion, and then I packed it away in a bag and shoved it under the sofa. Not quite out of sight or out of mind. I could see the bag out of the corner of my eye, guilt-tripping me, but still they didn’t get made.
Finally, this year – almost two years to the day since I bought the material, I have new curtains. This holiday I have more energy (I have been boosting my B12, maybe that helped; I am happier at work, that definitely helped; a few little motivating things happened, I am sure they also helped).
So here they are. Please note that in order to make these curtains I had two apprentices – one to help with the linings, the other to help with the main material. They were diligent with their help and loyal to their chosen material. Note how cleverly each of them takes the smooth material and ruches it. It’s that attention to detail that I love.
And here they are, hanging at the windowsill at last.
My granny loved the colours of the sky at sunrise and sunset. Once, when redecorating, she opted for blue, grey and terracotta. “Like the colour of the evening sky”, she told me. Often when I see the autumn skies I remember her.
This was the view from campus at 8am this morning
