Aadalen

TROLLS BURST WHEN THE SUN SHINES ON THEM

Or, as my son used to say gleefully when we finished a troll tale: "And then the troll and all the princesses burst!"

I've started a new category, "BEYOND THE PALE", dedicated to trolls and other monsters that are rendered harmless by sunshine. 

I haven't been able to find copyright info on this picture, but I'm borrowing it while I look, because it perfectly illustrates what I feel like now.

Twentysomething years ago, after a lifetime of debilitating nightmares, I dreamed I was a turtle, happily sitting on a tree stump waiting for her wings to grow so she could start flying.

That was the end of the nightmares, and now ... in my 60th year ... the flying is commencing to begin to start! 

----

And here is the beginning of the end of my biggest troll: 

Oct. 5th, 1988: 

My body remembers.
When I first heard the letter, 
I could only say: “SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!”
Childish words for a childish reaction. A delayed reaction.

When sister sent me the letter, I was angry, yes, at first.
Angry enough to demand an answer.

Then I died. Just a little.
I could walk and talk but I could not think.
The shadow had touched me again, and killed me again.
Just a little.
“What you’re feeling is wrong I know best, and I know what you’re feeling,
and what you feel is not what you say you feel. You’re wrong!
I say this because I love you.” How many years have I heard that?

My body grew heavy with lies and insoluble dilemmas. 
Longing for forgetfulness in sleep.
But my body remembers what happened when I slept in the night.
And I cannot sleep and live a lie at the same time.
My head hears voices. Calling my name.
Telling me what to think, feel, react to. 

My body remembers nausea. I start throwing up, 26 years later.

My body remembers anxiety.. My back aches, as it did then.
My stomach aches. My life aches.

My throat aches, with the pain of rage and terror unscreamed
Of betrayal and helplessness unwept.
My body remembers dirty. I wallow in filth,
To mask the inner filth I feel.

Death and nausea and filth.

My body remembers trying to explain. My hand writes.
Hoping again to find the magic words that will change you,
Make you into something I need you to be, 
Something more than a petty torturer
Who amputates children with God and sex
To make himself a little bigger.
My mind reads what I have written and rejects it.
As I finally reject you, once and for all.

I dream
that sewage has leaked all over my house,
And I look at the mess and say:
“I have to clean up,
but will I ever get the stink away?”

_____

But ... when I burst one monster, some others showed up, and they were just as sure that my feelings were wrong as the First Monster was:

Double bind 1991:
I am in a cage.
It is marked "patient".
It is too small for me.
All of me does not fit into this cage.
There's no room for my integrity. 
And how can I stop being a patient without integrity?

How can I get out of the cage
Without showing that I belong in it? 

In living without integrity…
Accepting that there is no room for integrity…
I become a permanent patient.

By fighting for my integrity… 
I prove that I am a patient.
Because … my feeling a lack of integrity...
That just shows that I'm paranoid. 

Doesn't it?

THE CHILD WHO REFUSES TO DIE

WARNING: Personal content. This was written a long time ago, and I've shared it with many, but it's the first time I've posted it openly.

(c) Ingrid Vaalund, 1984

I see a child. A war-torn child who has survived torture and betrayal. It does not show, but I see it in the hand I'm holding ... a shiver, as if she wants to escape. I feel waves of suspicion and need. What she wants, most of all, is to trust someone. She has always been betrayed.

I am sitting with my back to a tree. She is standing in front of me.

Part of her is far, far away, in a place where no one can reach her. The part she hides in order to survive.

A part of her wants so badly to sit in my lap and give in to the longing for love. But she knows that she cannot trust me. I have betrayed her earlier, and I can betray her again.

She does not run away. She cannot. She is me.

"I love trees," I say to her. "Trees never change. If you chop down a tree, the stump will remain for a long, long time. Trees and mountains just are there, they never hurt us."

She nods. Silently.

"I have hurt you. I know that now. I did not want to, it was not my intention, but I have hurt you. I cannot ask your forgiveness - that would be to cheapen your hurts and my responsibility for them. I can only say that I see you. I feel your pain. I see the scars you have kept hidden for such a long time. I see what I have done, and I take the responsibility for it, and when I do that, I can see your strength and your courage.

"She turns away. "I am nothing."

"You always thought that you were cowardly. So did I. But consider what you have survived. Torturers know that the best way of breaking parents, is to damage them while the children are looking on. Or damage the children while the parents are looking on. Children need their parents, the child's existence is dependant on parents and other reliable adults. To be helpless and be hurt by the people we need is the worst thing that can happen to a child."

She sits down beside me, carefully, ready to flee. "I was scared all the time."

"Yes, you were scared. And you had good reason to be scared. But you did not give up. And what are people who do not give up, even if they're scared?"

"Stubborn? Brave?" A shadow of a smile. "I am brave."

"You are very brave."

"I am brave. But I get scared when I say that."

"So do I. Remember that you are me. I have been escaping from you all my adult life, but we belong together, you and I. Your pain is my pain, your loneliness is my loneliness, your grief is my grief."

She shakes her head. "This is wrong. You are never scared. You can do anything. I'm a failure."

"No. I have tried to lose you, forget you, lock you up the dark cellars of my mind, but that is impossible. We are the same person. We are one."

"But why did you, whom I needed to trust more than anyone, betray me? Do you know what is the very, very worst thing? To be invisible. Untouchable. To scream as loudly as I can ... into nothing.

Now I'm the one who wants to look away, but I force myself to look at her. "Do you remember all that stuff about "chin up and keep smiling, they didn't mean to hurt you, don't think about it and it'll go away, children forget so easily, it's all my fault...? I really believed it. I really believed that if I stopped thinking about you, you would just fade away and disappear".

A fierce grin. "But I didn't."

"No, you didn't. And I'm glad you didn't, for you are my soul. I have met many people who have managed to shut away the hurting child inside, and there is something missing. Thank you for refusing to be shut away. What does that make you?"

"Rude? Pushy? Do you really mean it? Can I say ... persevering?" 

"You are a brave and persevering child. And much more than that. And I love 
you.."

"Is that possible?"

"Yes. I love you. There has been a wall of guilt between you and my love for you. Now I know that the only thing that can crumble that wall, is responsibility. I have to take the responsibility for what I have done to you. See how much I have hurt you. Not hide between a wall of explanations and logic. I have been afraid of you, I have tried to escape from you. What does that make me?"

"Weak."

"That's right. I am weak. And I am not going to ask you to forgive me or trust me or anything. I am not going to promise never to hurt you. But I am going to see you. Hear you. Experience what you have experienced."

"Do you promise never to shut me away in the cellar again?"

"I think I have to promise something else: If something happens that makes me shut you away, I'm going to tell you. Then you'll know that it's not your fault. Then we can continue later."

"It is so painful. I have lived this. It is so painful to be made invisible by someone who is just going to hear about it."

"It is painful. It is very painful. And you are very brave."

"I am brave. I thought I was a coward, but I am brave. I also thought I was sinful and bad. Please don't laugh ... that hurts so terribly. Why do you laugh and make fun of us?"

"I think we laugh to make children invisible. We make fun of the things we are trying to run away from. And we make fun of the things we don't understand. You are really quite improbable ... you have survived."

"Yes, I have survived. And I know what I want you to do for me: Listen to me. Believe what I say. Do something about it. Show me that I can trust you."

----

The story continues in A MILLION SHADES OF GREEN, day X, under TUNISIAN CROCHET

Making socks that fit you perfectly

This system works for me: 

Choose yarn that is easy to frog. You’re making a prototype.

Knit toe up on Magic Loop instead of DPNs, so you can keep trying on the sock as you go.

Start with a Turkish cast-on and 6 stitches, keep increasing until broad enough.

Knit the foot until you have to increase.

Start increasing for the arch/instep at the right place.

When you’re a thumb’s length from the edge of the heel, knit in half the stitches on waste yarn, for an afterthought heel.

keep knitting some rows past the waste yarn.

pick up the heel stitches and decrease so that the heel fits you perfectly. I have thick heels, so I knit 4 rows without decreasing first. Whatever works for you.

when the heel is finished, decrease around the ankle until it feels good and snug, then keep knitting as many rows as you see fit.

change to a bigger needle size and knit the cuff, maybe increasing if required.

If you're lazy, cast off with a couple of rows of half double crochet and pretend it's a design element

UFO update april 09:

I'm just listing the things now, will add pictures later: 

FINISHED: 

1. moebius shrug that needs some pizzazz

2. Leg warmers for princesses

3, 4, 5: Socks

FROGGED: The saddest ... the very last things my mother knitted.

PLANS: 

1. Scribble moebius for Elisabeth
2. Det hele kongeriget from kit
3. Tubular tunisian tutorial
4. Tunisian moebius tutorial
5. Tunisian slippers tutorial
6. Miyake
7. Knitted turban
8. F&F organic
9. Something with strips in Manos
10. Sort and dye boring yarn

11. Make castile shampoo

12. ostrich oil shampoo

UFO1: LONGIES AND BSJ for Helene

UFO 2: SEAMLESS TUNISIAN DISHCLOTH VEST I, inspired by Debbie New

UFO 3 : SEAMLESS TUNISIAN DISHCLOTH VEST II, inspired by Debbie New

UFO 4 : QUE SERA, SERA

UFO 5 : upside-down feline bliss bed hat (a la Cat Bordhi)

UFO 6 – 13 … socks in rehab

UFO 14 + 15 : new socks from scratch

UFO 16 : Paua vest

UFO 17 : Evilla ASJ

UFO 18: Det hele kongeriget in tynn alpakka

UFO 19: Silk/mohair machine knit thingy

UFO 20: Naalbinding hat

UFO 21: evilla shawl

UFOs 2009

The **PLAN** is to photograph and list all UFOs as I come across them. Here's the first batch: 

UFO 1: LONGIES AND BSJ for Helene

April 2: Longies and BSJ finished, I've started a new pair of bigger longies, and am planning another BSJ, so this is still # 1

UFO 2: SEAMLESS TUNISIAN DISHCLOTH VEST I, inspired by Debbie New

UFO 3 : SEAMLESS TUNISIAN DISHCLOTH VEST II, inspired by Debbie New

UFO 4 : QUE SERA, SERA

UFO 4 : upside-down feline bliss bed hat swatch (a la Cat Bordhi)

FINISHED: moebius shrug that needs some pizzazz

FInished! I just fastened the ends, decided this was never going to be wonderful. This yarn needs a much tighter gauge to make a nice fabric

FROGGED:  The saddest ... the very last things my mother knitted. I plan to make edgings (have started on some) to make them the same size, and maybe they'll become an afghan one day. 

I have already made one afghan with mother's last knits - gave it away as a wedding present. Decided to frog these, as the colours would go well with other projects. 

A wonderful-looking gadget!

http://www.theknitkit.com/forms/

Flame throwing

Someone taught DH flamethrowing last summer, and here he is putting on a show for our grandkids - who enjoy having a flaming "Gofa". I was asked how it's done, and here again, a picture says more than thousand words. You make a torch, light it, put a SMALL amount of lamp oil in your mouth and spray the oil at the torch. Preferably when you're sober. Practicing the spraying part with plain water before you try with oil for the first time is a very good idea ... and popular with 2-year-olds.

BEADS AND TIGER TAIL WIRE

Charms and split rings

 

 

PROMISE OF SUMMER

Pattern: Feather 'n Fan Organic Wrap:

Knitted with 7mm circulars (US 10 1/2), but I'm a loose knitter. All sorts of yarns except the thinner plain wool yarns, great variations in yarn thickness and type