I have taken the jumper cables out of the trunk of my brain this week, and applied them to my battery. It was time for a mental boost.
This boost has taken the form of CBC radio one. Yes, the radio. Seems simple, doesn’t it? Archaic, even. But the radio has solved two problems in my life.
One, I felt like my brain was turning to mush from disuse. Listening to talk radio is like watching the news and discussion programs on the television, without any of the head-wrecking video segments or commercials. It is more engaging and easier to grasp than reading the news on the internet, and I can interact with Beatrice at the same time, which I can’t do very well while surfing.
And two, I can get things done in the kitchen while I listen. So my kitchen is cleaner, I am cooking and baking more, and Beatice plays happily on the floor while I do these things. It’s like a revolution!
((Yes, this is my life. Talk radio is a revolution.))
So now I know about the plan to restore Stanley Park, how according to some experts biodiesel is a net energy loser, and how there is a new scholarship being created in the name of a young teacher who was killed last fall.
I’ve also become fascinated with wool. I picked up knitting a few weeks ago, made myself a dishcloth, and started surfing knitting websites. Then I bought a great big bag of wool from value village and embarked upon a journey to figure out what the heck I am going to do with it all. And I have discovered that there are people out there who knit all kinds of things, and who make their own felt and spin their own wool, even raise their own sheep and take the wool every step of the way from the field to the sweater.
I am fascinated by this, by all the paraphernalia of spindles and spinning wheels, fluffy fibres and smooth needles and the beautiful texture of expertly knit stitches. And the way people describe them, like My stitches appeared extremely clean and even, almost as if I were knitting with large strands of clay. It’s like living anthropology, rediscovering all these archaic things that I first learned about in fairy tales but have never actually seen or used in real life. And there is a power in being able to do things yourself that you would normally pay someone else to do, like bake your own bread or spin your own yarn or sew your own clothes. You are no longer in debt to someone else’s skill.
I think the sunshine is also helping to fuel my brain. I am starting to feel that solstice madness creeping on, but in a good way. Kind of manic, but good.

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