Both excellent for dashing across the desert. Which is pretty much apropos of nothing. I seem to do a great deal of dashing, but not really across anything, that would assume coming out the other side. As far as I know, there does not seem to be an Other Side to life, except for the obvious one. Which is not what I’m after.
As I write out this next part, I’m going to sound like a ratty little cover band (a garage band that only performs other people’s hit music). In the coupla decades I’ve been writing this stuff (used to be personal essays sent out to a mailing list), there were times when I had so much to write about, I could hardly keep up with myself. Sometimes it was just philosophy, sprung full-grown from the head of whatever Greek deity is famous for having things spring thusly. Sometimes it had to do with things that had happened. It was usually sporadic. But I have never had a year in which so much seemed to have happened, and yet I have been so – unable – to sit down and put words to even part of it.
I can’t figure out why. I always feel like I never DO anything. Like I’ve been sitting around watching soap operas and eating cheap chocolate. And yet – well. Okay. Here’s where I start the post.
You may, if you really love me, remember that I have shared images of the Alan Dart camel I fell in love with a couple of years ago. This picture is not of that camel, but of one made expressly with Christmas ornament in mind (see those little touches of gold in the yarn?). I made him in February. And somehow – over the next five months – he turned into the convocation of camels you see in the header up there. I don’t know why.
I think I started out meaning to make a couple of him. He’s not that hard to make. Takes me a couple of evenings. Maybe three. Or five. Depending. But then there were all these different kinds of yard that wanted to be part of this thing. Including some yummy self-striping sock yarn that G gave me for my birthday. And suddenly, one camel became a prodigious family of dromedaries.
I shooed them out onto the deck for a family portrait, but couldn’t get them to settle down.
Guess which guys are the ones I made with G’s present?
Finally, I corralled them all. I know how. I own herd animals.
This is not the last I will write about them. At this stage they are naked and humble, also without eyes. But three months later, they will have been dressed in the wild silks and dangles appropriate for the mounts of foreign and mysterious kings.
And remember this? The evidence of about six weeks of messing about with shapes and muslin, looking for the right pattern for my hugging ponies?
The first to see the light of day. He was not made for this girl. I made him for myself. And I still got ‘im. But I made another one, because another one was needed. Another very fuzzy, soft, comfort pony.
But then, yet another pony was in order. His mane didn’t turn out the way I meant it to, but he was of good heart. And went to a good heart.
Then I went to Santa Fe and, after seeing a Joann’s ad in my in-box, trotted off to the store down there, looking for a specific fleece I’d seen in the ad. This was not the fleece. But I had to have it. Just the ticket for a delicate situation.
And danged if a delicate situation didn’t arise.
Two delicate situations.
This was one of the fleeces I meant to get. Note the owl motif. No situation arose for this pony – only the insatiable hunger this person has for nocturnal birds with huge eyes and very flexible necks.
THIS pony is a situation all in himself. He is a Loki pony. The Norse Loki. The Avengers pony. Chaz’ alter ego. But with only four legs. I had an awful lot of fun, figuring this one out.
In the end – or maybe just, up till now, there were eight ponies. See the spotty guys? THAT was main reason I got myself lost in Santa Fe, looking for their Joann’s. Giraffe colored fleece. I have a dear buddy who is a giraffe person, and the second I saw this stuff, I had to have it. Turns out I got enough for more than one. And what does one do with several giraffe-colored horses? Well, you’d be surprised how absolutely, beautifully appropriate they turned out to be in for some different places and people. So you never know – sometimes you do something that doesn’t make any sense to you at all – only to find that there were holes being filled in the universe as you did it.
I’d meant for so very long – years – to figure out how to make them. Ponies with a purpose, these are – perfectly shaped to serve as a surrogate embrace. I suppose, part of the surprise of this year was that I got around to doing something instead of meaning to.
And if you’re wondering how a silly fleece pony could ever be useful?
Yeah – this is what they’re for.
I’ve got an awful lot to put down here over the next weeks, bouncing back and forth in time. As we point out over and over, the blogs have taken over as our journals, the history of our families – and for a year that I keep thinking has been strange and without much direction, an awful lot of kind of significant stuff has happened. Stuff I don’t want to forget. And somehow, even jumping back into summer in retrospect seems appropriate as the wind grows sharper and leaves come down across the lawn like golden snow –
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