My Father, Myself - Part the Second

Meet my dad - 

These are prized pictures. Albert Stanley was rarely photographed.  

Can you guess why?

Yes, my dad wore cameras the way most people wear watches.

Dad was a geek before anyone knew there were such things. He would have LOVED our digital, virtual, plugged in world. I guarantee it.

They say past behavior can predict future actions (or something like that), so while I will never have hard evidence to prove my hypothesis, I can only speculate on the number of 'toys' dad would have. The answer, based the storage tub full of camera equipment I inherited, would be a s#*t load. 

No, let me take that back ... I only inherited some of it, when he died. The rest came into my possession when he grew tired of the camera/lens/flash or the latest, greatest, new and improved thing was released. Doesn't this sound like someone who would love technology that is obsolete the minute it comes out and begs to be upgraded? 

As it turned out, photography was something my father and I could share (I was just smart enough to let him do all the shopping.)

While my dad had always enjoyed taking pictures, it wasn't until I had gone off to college that he got into it with a vengeance. Because of his health, he had retired early and photography filled that creative void when he was no longer designing for steel mills. (I guess designing mill buildings can be creative — if you're into that kind of thing. I can't say I ever saw the beauty in them, but then, I can't say I was ever all that interested in steel mills period.) 

In my final semester of college, I took a black & white photography class. My dad was over the moon excited. He was more than willing to go on 'field trips' with me to play with the cameras and lenses. We'd both record shutter speeds, apertures, film used, and lighting conditions so that we could go back and dissect why the pictures came out the way they did. I still have many of those records and proof sheets — his and mine. I don't know why...

Imagine my father's delight when I took a job with a professional photography lab and then as a manager of a camera store. And he could barely contain his excitement when I started doing B&W developing and printing in my basement.

(To this day, the smell of Dektol brings back fond memories ... like spending a Friday evening, during college, with a friend in a darkroom to see what developed. Thirty-three years of marriage later, we're still trying to figure it out! But on that Friday night, it was homework for my photography class ... what were you thinking?)

At some point, I gave up photography as a hobby. The camera equipment was banished to the basement. Maybe because my dad wasn't there to share it with anymore. Maybe because, with two small children, a point and shoot was easier. Maybe because, at some point, I decided I had no photographic talent and abandoned it.

Who knows?

The shutter bug has bit, again, and I'm on the hunt for a digital single lens reflex (DSLR). I know what the popular brands are — Canon, Nikon — but these are not what I'll get. Mine will be a Pentax. Because they are still around ... because my dad was a Pentax man ... because I still have a s#*t load of inherited lenses.

Mostly because I will be able to hear my dad's voice. I know he'll be there, guiding and loving every digital moment. And I'll enjoy the re-connection — to photography and my father. 

Once again I will be reminded of his favorite, and oft used, expression: "I've taken hundreds of great pictures. Too bad there wasn't any film in the camera." I wonder how he'd deal with the fact that cameras don't require film these days and those 'great pictures' would be captured?

I'm guessing the delete button would have been his friend. 

I know it will be mine.

Now, off to find a camera and see what develops ...

What Does K-N-I-T spell? Community! (StitchesMidwest Part 1)

SQUEEEE - that's my experience at Stitches Midwest in one word. One made up word, but one word none-the-less.

What an experience and what a community!  I'm thrilled to be a part of both.

It began with a five hour ride with two of my enablers friends from the local yarn store. I don't think the conversation stopped the entire time and made the five hours fly. Am I wrong?

Then there was the Market. Major Squeeee! We entered (one with a color coded map and attack plan, one with some ideas of vendors to visit, and one who basically said "whatever") and were bombarded with the sight (and dare I say smell?) of yarn. Gorgeous yarn. LOTS OF IT! And not your everyday, 'I can get this at the local store', yarn. These were independent dyers who loved to tell you what their inspiration was for a particular colorway or why they used the base they did. I've been to trade shows where employees hawk the corporate wares, but this was a room full of passion. From the yarn, to the hand-thrown yarn bowls, the hand-carved drop spindles, the felted stitch markers and the custom made project bags (to name just a few.)

A community of passionate people who loved what they did. How many of us can say that on a daily basis?

And their passion was (ummm...) contagious...  

(So contagious that one of us walked around the market, for three days, with a broken toe. Not once complaining, even when the other two of us winced at how painful it looked. Perhaps a study on using yarn as a non-narcotic pain medication is needed. What am I saying?! Yarn is addictive!)

Then there were the connections...

Many times the topic of using an acrylic yarn would come up and I'd mention it was the only yarn I gave my mother to knit with. Since this isn't a yarn most of us knit with (see descriptions of market above), there were questioning looks as to why I'd do that to my mom. Tell them it's due to the dementia, and the stories of others dealing, or having dealt, with the same come pouring out. Like the story of the mother, with Alzheimer's, who in her last days, had all of her daughters come and knit with and around her — one last time.

Connections that we all had a story. Connections that we all used knitting to get us through the hard times. Connections that showed us we're not alone.

No matter where you sat, if there were other knitters near, an easy conversation started. "Where are you from?" "What are you working on?" "I've been wanting to make that, would you be willing to help?" "Did you see glass stitch markers in the market?" and the ever popular "What did you buy?"

Connections that make a community.

A community that also includes its own set of rock stars. Yes, there are knitting celebrities. Yes, some of them have egos. No, I didn't meet any of them. Yes, I did try to act normal nonchalant around Franklin Habit and impress him with my creativity (I kind of failed on both accounts, except when I used my Hershey kisses to improvise as the square tiles we were using to create designs. I hated telling him it wasn't so much creativity as it was laziness to get up and get two more tiles. But he took a picture of it because he thought it was cute. This was not how I had intended to impress him.)

All in all, I had a blast. I came home with a few souvenirs (did you not see the picture?), new, as well, as deepened connections with other knitters, and new knowledge about my craft and myself - but more on that later. 

I have a yarn hangover. SQUEEEE!

On the Edge

I'm standing on the edge and my choices are to stay ... 

                                                                ... or take a leap of faith.

Recently, on Brain Pickings (a site I highly recommend), I read about a 1960's experiment "The Visual Cliff." Originally intended to investigate the concept of depth perception in humans, the study revealed much about how we make decisions based on emotional signaling. 

Babies were placed on a solid surface that appeared to end when the checkerboard gave way to clear Plexiglas. The question was, what would the babies do when they reached the edge? What the researchers discovered was the expression on the mother's face, across the way, more reliably predicted what action the infant would take. If mom's look was encouraging, the baby would continue, even though the surface appeared to drop off. An anxious, fearful mom would likely stop the infant when the table 'ended'.

In both cases, the child was trying to please the one person they trusted to know what was best.

So I began to wonder ...

What were those mothers afraid of? Their child's safety? The child's ability to navigate? Feeling like a failure if their infant didn't perform or show courage? Rationally, they knew it would be all right and there was no danger. But something else was going on and their child sensed it. "Mom doesn't want me to do it. Mom doesn't think I can do it. There's danger. Mom is afraid — I should be afraid. I should stay here. It's safer."

And that got me thinking ...

Don't each of us look across the abyss for those encouraging expressions that say "You can do it. I'm here to catch you if you stumble. It's okay"? When we see those clues, we feel more confident, knowing someone believes in our ability — to either leap, or fly. Confident that we will make it across or soar to unimaginable heights. Confident someone we trust, on the other side, trusts us.

What we are more likely to see are expressions of fear.

And when we do?  Well ... we stay where we are. It's safer.


(P.S. As I wrote this post, I could visualize this scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  But honestly, I'll take any excuse to visualize Harrison Ford!)

My Father, Myself - Part the First

I miss my dad — it's been 37 years that he died semi-unexpectedly.  I guess, more appropriately, he died suddenly — it's just that we'd been waiting for almost 20 years for the inevitable.

He died of his third heart attack. One he couldn't have survived, based on the previous two and the scars they left years earlier.  My last phone conversation with him had been along the lines of "is mom there?"  It never occurred to me that shortly after that call, he wouldn't be.

We didn't always agree on everything, what parent-child combination does?  But, he was my champion and no matter what, would have fought dragons to defend me (even knowing at times that I had provoked them.) But I believe, after the struggles he'd been through in his own life, he was determined to protect me.  As he had his family and his country long before I came along.

Dad was the youngest of seven children born to parents who had immigrated to the United States to flee the turmoil in their native Hungary.  He grew up during the Great Depression.  He served in the Army Corp of Engineers on the front lines in Europe during World War II. Helping to build bridges and roads for Patton's troops, only to watch them be demolished after the last truck and soldier had crossed.

My father didn't talk much about his early life, as though it was something to forget, and he certainly didn't talk about the war, unless it was with someone else who had shared that experience.  In fact, he was so determined to leave the past behind that he changed his birth name to something more "American". And he never understood my desire to go to Europe when I lived in the greatest country on earth (cue Kate Smith singing God Bless America)

One of the greatest gifts I have been given (just too young and stupid to know it at the time) was a visit my dad and I had with a vice president of the university I attended.  This man had also served in Europe during WWII and I sat and listened as he and my father talked about their common experiences in Luxembourg, France and Germany.  And all I could think was "jeez dad, why are you talking about drinking and cavorting along the Seine with a university V.P.?"  I was too embarrassed to realize that what I was getting was a glimpse of my father, that rarely saw the light of day and few knew existed.

On occasion I would encounter that long-retired V.P. and every time I did, I thanked him for the gift he'd given me that summer day in 1979.  I leave out the part where it took me 10 years to receive it — a year too late to tell my dad how much it meant to me.

So dad (I know you're there, watching for dragons, lance at the ready): thank you.