A month of mental wanderings

About reading and crocheting but not necessarily writing

From the start, I thought of this as a space where I could write about whatever came to my mind, according to what was happening in my life. But what happens when everyday life falls into a humdrum routine and what continues to come to mind relates to things I am not willing (or not ready) to share? When it feels like I’m looking at the world through a dirty pane of thick glass while also being so bodily connected to the things and places around me that it physically hurts? Lots of false starts, and then you get silence from me, even if my head is spinning a hundred miles an hour, even if my brain sometimes tingles with the want and need to communicate.

It's not that I’m creatively and intellectually idle. For starters, I have been working on crocheting since the beginning of the year, chaining one project after another almost non-stop.

Here’s a thing I’ve learned sometime in the past four months: When you’re crocheting (or knitting) and rip your work-in-progress to correct a mistake, that’s called frogging. If you listen closely, you can hear the thread going ribbitribbitribbit as the loops come undone in quick succession, the stitches becoming loose thread again.

I’ve already had my fair share of frogging, and while it can be frustrating to realize that what should have been a hexagon had turned into a pentagon because you skipped a corner unattentively, there’s something very cathartic about physically pulling apart something you are making in order to re-make it in the proper way. Ribbitribbitribbit it goes.

I’m trying not to overdo it, though. It is very seductive for a perfectionist to be able to restart at any point, and in a way that leaves no trace of the mistake other than the loss of progress. But since there are no deadlines, no expected deliveries, I can take my time or rush through it as much as I want.

The pieces I have finished so far have their flaws, but they have also been learning opportunities. And that I’ve been able to take pride in the latter, despite the former, has been a huge change in perspective. “Not everyone can crochet, you know?” I’ve been told more than once, when I say it’s only simple patterns and stitches, when I am quick to point out that I could’ve done better. And yes, I can do better, but only by making mistakes and learning from them.

It has taken me four months to learn this with crochet—why has it not yet settled in with writing after literal decades of a similar struggle? So, instead of toiling at my computer for what feels like endless hours of fruitless work, I pick up my thread and hook and crochet away, because any stitch and row, as funky as it gets, it a concrete product of my hands, and you can’t beat that type of dopamine kick.

Recurring scene: working on a project while watching an NWSL match.

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There are two clear signs that time is passing. The first is very situational: the central heating in our building hasn’t been on for several days now, allowing us to feel the actual ups and downs of outside temperature (rather than the constant boiling that old NYC central heating entails). The second is very personal, even if others have certainly experienced it: for the first time since May 2023, I am able to put some, if not most, of my hair up. This prolonged season of extremely short hair was fun while it lasted, but I’m ready to get back to my chin-length usual look.

Some signs of spring outside…

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I have never been a picky eater. Sure, growing up, there were things I would rather not eat (beets and peas, both of which I’ll gladly have now) and, to this day, there are things I skip if given the choice (celery, asparagus). But, as a kid, if I visited a friend’s house, I would always eat a little bit of everything served for lunch (even when given the option to just eat the “kids food” of the day); I also once asked my mom after 10 PM if we had any broccoli at home because I was really craving some (we did and she made some for me, bless her soul). I’ve always liked trying new foods too. For some reason, I decided as a tween that I wanted to try sushi, and my dad took me to a restaurant and eventually I got both him and my mom to enjoy raw fish. I love Brussels sprouts, and liver, and arugula, and anchovies. I love a good bowl of pasta with creamy cheesy sauce or a plate of rice and beans, but I’m always excited to try something I have never eaten before, even if I don’t love it.

I guess you can say I’m generally curious about what my tastes are.

Which is probably why, sometimes, I get stuck in the middle of some truly uninspiring reading experiences.

I’ve written before that I can’t not finish a book. It’s something a little bit compulsive, a little bit too completionist. At times, I attribute this habit to years of reading a lot of things I did not care about but had to sit through regardless of interest, for a paper, a seminar, exams, an entire dissertation. As a graduate student, as an academic, you just have to power through some things you don’t like because they are important, or because someone else said you had to. And some habits are hard to break.

Recently, I have sat through a book that was truly not for me. But for years I felt I should give it try—because the author constantly shows up in lists of favorites, because the novel is super famous, because one of my best friends hated it. Life Associate had found a used copy of it for me back in November of 2023, and it had been sitting on my shelf waiting for me since. So I decided now was the time to tackle it.

I’m not against famous or acclaimed books. Some of my favorites often fall within those categories, and I would hardly consider myself a reader of underground literature. I love discovering and supporting indie publishers, but my shelves are as full of Big Names as the next. I like hearing about books that are hyped, and sometimes I even hype them myself. But hype leads to expectations, and expectations (often) lead to disappointment.

I don’t mean to say I don’t enjoy getting (and sharing) book recommendations, quite the contrary. I have posts and notes and scribbles with book titles that I found out about through Substack, Instagram, booksellers, book prizes—you name it. At the same time, I understand why recommending books feels too personal for some. To share likes and dislikes can be very soul-bearing, a type of exposure not everyone is up for. Or one that is precisely the point of sharing recommendations, for others. In either case, it seems that for some people, recommending (or worse, disliking a recommendation) is personal, a statement on their shelves being equal to one about their selves

To me, it’s first and foremost about the books, really. Which is what makes the exploration and the discoveries all the more fun and, in turn, more meaningful. Same words, same stories, completely different effects (and affects).

medieval.juliana

A post shared by @medieval.juliana

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I’m back to going outside to enjoy some time in the sun, in the fresh air, alone. I’m equally excited to be spending my evenings playing video games with Life Associate. We all contain multitudes.

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Some links for the road:

• Petya K. Grady
  ’s “The knowledge of feeling,” on reading wearing your heart on your sleeve

• Kate Van G
  ’s “88 Year Old Rich Guy keeps Stolen Art,” about the age-old tradition of looting non-Western cultures for artifacts

• Kate Jones
  ’s “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” on discovering Joan Lindsay’s novel (that I have purchased because of her!)

• Christina
  ’s inaugural post “I Who Have Never Known Men,” on Jacqueline Harpman’s dystopic novel and past