Rachael

 

At Cafe Loki, best place in town. 

Cold: I don’t know how to do cold, as much as it THRILLS me to my frostbitten toes. Half the time I was sweating, the other half I was missing some necessary parts of my clothing. On the very first day, I lost my favorite hat (only hat!) knitted out of my very first handspun yarn. Once I didn’t wear tights under my skirt and almost froze off some things I prefer to keep. I kept waiting until we got outside to replace all the layers I’d taken off inside (inside the bus, inside the cafe) which wasn’t ideal, but I still don’t really understand the method of dressing-for-cold.

Raincoats! WHO KNEW? (Oh, you did. Of course you did.) They’re awesome! Screw the umbrella, just put on the coat and go! (I literally think the last time I wore one I was about eight years old.)

Adventure pants: Ditto! I bought them because Extreme Iceland said to get some for the glacier walk. I thought I’d never wear them again, but I’ve already worn them three times. You get to go tumble around in the wet and have fun! I’m honestly looking forward to El Niño and winter dog hikes in California now.

The South Coast: 

We spent two days on a bus tour guided by a wonderful man named Ásgeir who had the kindest eyes I think I have ever seen. Somehow, he was able to spend two days with perfect strangers and make them believe he was excited to do it. He was darling and I want him to be my friend, and he promised if we didn’t see the Northern Lights, he’d take us himself next time. I didn’t see the lights, Ásgeir. When’s good for you? 

Glacier hike: 

So, we get to the glacier and learn how to put on crampons (spikes for the bottoms of your boots which is so hardcore I can’t even handle how awesome that is). Ásgeir teaches us how not to fall off a mountain by holding your ice axe at the ready. This makes me nervous, in a fluttery, pit-of-the-stomach way. If someone can fall off a glacier, it will probably be me.

“Take your time. Walk heavily. Pound each step.”

I take the first few steps slowly to judge how the crampons hold. When my feet feel secure, I relax and move forward. Lala, behind me, has a harder time because she grew up around ice. She knows that to walk on blue ice which has flowing water underneath the cap could be dangerous and her body tells her to stop! Retreat! My body tells me to go forward, go faster, see more.

It’s cold. It rains a bit. We hike out on three-thousand year old ice that has carved the area into the stunning geological landscape it is today.

The dirt in the ice is dirt the glacier has dragged off the mountains. It’s where the mountains went.

There is a tour group ahead of us in this picture. Can you find them? 

We walk into a crevasse as narrow as our shoulders and we can see INTO the ice. We are inside a massive ice cube made for a drink the size of the sun.

The second guide chips ice with his axe above us to simulate a mini-avalanche. We shriek delightedly. A sliver of ice hits my cheek and leaves a gash which I’m exceedingly proud of. (Lala says, “I’ve seen rock-filled snowballs hit people a million times. No one has ever BLED because of it.”)

As we leave the ice a perfect 90 minutes later, Ásgeir is as lit up and excited as I am. He lives here and is still knocked out by the scenery’s magnificence. I think there’s nothing better than loving what you do for a living, and all I want to do is listen to him talk. I knit him a hat with local wool on the bus, but I can’t weave in the ends since I have no needle in my bag. He says his mother will do it for him, but she’ll be jealous another woman is knitting for him. My crush on him flutters in my chest. (Lala doesn’t mind my crush. We’re good that way.) This is a picture Lala took of him. You might flutter a bit, too:

ICEBERGS: 

Are amazing. They are REALLY BLUE. I always kind of thought they were photo-filtered. But no.

I SAY, HELLO! I can’t say too much more about them because they were out of the range of imagination. I hope you get to see them, that’s my wish for you.

Food: Dried fish and butter is amazing. I ate a bite of whale. I tried the shark, and dude, it wasn’t as bad as Anthony Bourdain made it out to be! It smelled like death on a toothpick, but tasted like strong cheese. I wouldn’t do it again, but glad I did once. Smoked trout is amazing:

Icelandic horses. Don’t call them ponies because they aren’t baby horses. They’re short but very strong (like me!). They have five–not the normal four–gaits: they have the very special tölt, which is a very smooth trot. I totally did it and didn’t fall off. My horse and I were simpatico, and I got nuzzles afterward. Also: THEY ROLL IN THE DIRT a lot. Like border collies at the beach. Although they wait for you to dismount, which is very polite of them.

Yarn: We took a bus to Alafoss and bought yarn. A lopi for each of us is in our future. I absolutely love how every Icelander wears his Lopapyesa with pride, without irony. It is his, and he loves it, and his mother made it, and it’s warm.

Darling Stephanie! We had such a great time with her and Rob!

HOT TUBS. 

How to behave at the public geothermal pools in Iceland.

First of all, go to the Blue Lagoon. Sure, it’s expensive and crowded but worth it for the experience. Plus, SWIM-UP BAR. Life achievement unlocked. (I only had a juice but it was magical, I’m telling you.) Also, eating in Lava in your robe while most everyone else is wearing (nice) street clothes makes you feel like a rock star in the very best way:

But even better than the tourist-filled geothermal waters is going to the local hot pots. They’re where the community gathers, where the elders gossip and where the teens flirt. Great guide here.

We went to the Secret Pool, Lauguar Spa, Laugardalslaug, Vesturbæjarlaug and Sundhöllin. Vesturbæjarlaug was by far our favorite, with its big hot tubs and jets so strong they have handles to hang on to when in use. We went a couple of times there. Björk goes to that one, you know. It’s the best.

I love this about all of the tubs we went to: people are hanging out together, being people, in their bodies. All body shapes are represented with no shame. Strangers chat naked in the shower. They chat in the baths. Tummies hang out. That woman over there has big breasts and a large bum. That guy is skinny. Everyone looks great, exactly as they should look. That ease with the body must make for a happier society, don’t you think?

Two important things to know about the swimming pools: 

1 – Bathe first, naked. There’s no faking this. Wash the important bits WITH SOAP: head, pits, bottom, and feet.

Use this for reference:

Never have I seen so many strangers scrubbing their asses so thoroughly. Americans wouldn’t do this, and THAT’s why we can’t have nice things like non-chlorinated pools. Iceland’s geothermal water is magic, and non-chlorinated, so wash, please. If you don’t, an attendant will make sure you do. Then put on your suit and go out into the cold where the heated water will make you feel more alive than you’ve ever felt.

2 – Shower again afterward and dry off before you go into the changing room. They keep those floors dry and clean and it’s so much better than the damp locker room floors I remember from high school and my old membership gym. Again, you’ll be reminded if you forget to do this. I like to do things right (to an obsessive degree, I can admit this), so I enjoy knowing the rules.

Home again.

We’re home, and I’m back in the swing of things. I have copyedits due this week to Random House Australia on a book that comes out next year, and NaNoWriMo starts in two days. At the day (and night) job, I’ve got a 73-hour shift this weekend (you may be falling back, but that means an extra hour of work for night-shifters). But I’m happy. Heart-deep happy.

And I’m so damn lucky it hurts.

I adore Stephanie Klose, and I have for a long time (so much so that we’re vacationing together soon!). She’s a knitter extraordinaire, and a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. You’ve seen her Best in Show Craftsy’s 2014 Silvermine knitted wedding dress, right? Oh, you should see it now, if you haven’t:

Let’s kvell for a moment. Linen/cashmere, people. Her own design.

Okay. Whew. *wipes brow* I will never get over that dress.

Her side hustle is makin’ soap, and she’s just as good at soap as she is at everything else she does.

Schoon Soap. Now, there are a lot of soap makers out there, and I’m a scent-fiend. I have one of those dog noses (which makes it very hard o live with dogs, I’m telling you). Scents are hugely important to me.

And basically, I never ever ever want to live a life without her Herkimer soap. It’s spicy and clovey and completely wonderful. (Clove, cinnamon leaf, rosemary, eucalyptus, and citrusy, earthy litsea cubeba.) I love ALL her soaps, but this one has become essential to my day.

And she’s doing a giveaway AND a discount code for us!

1.  Hey, Stephanie, in life, what’s your very favorite smell?

As if I could narrow it down to one—there are SO MANY smells I love. 🙂 Some of my favorites, like mulch or woodsmoke, don’t really lend themselves to soap, but some do, like cardamom and bergamot. And then there are plenty of scents I love that are perfect
for soap, but can only be achieved using synthetic fragrances (lilac and almond come to mind), so they aren’t a fit for Schoon.

2. Do you do all this boiling/making in your home? What’s your setup like? 

I do all of it at home! Part of me likes the idea of a dedicated studio, but if I had to go somewhere else to do it, I’d be a lot less productive. I make the soap in our kitchen and use the guest room/office/amp storage room to cure the bars, wrap and label them, and store the wrapped soap. We also do all of the packing and shipping in there.

[YOUR HOUSE MUST SMELL SO DAMN GOOD.]

3. We are going to Iceland together! What are you going to be knitting? And will you be wearing any Alabama Chanin while there?

I’m SO EXCITED about Iceland! I’m not sure yet what project(s) I’m going to bring to work on (something at least moderately interesting to keep me entertained on the flights and something simple for bus rides and so on while we’re there, I think), but I did spin and knit a sweater especially for the trip. The yarn is one ply of a variegated charcoal Gotland fleece I bought at Rhinebeck two years ago and one ply black commercial silk/merino top. The Gotland is pretty hairy and wild so the silk/merino is barely visible; it just gives the yarn a little weight and drape. The sweater itself is a completely plain stockinette raglan pullover that I think I’ll wear to death if I ever get the neckline right. I’ve redone it three times now, but I’m still not 100% happy with it.

The goal of my life has been to fall in love as much as possible. I used to laughingly say that when I was dating (but I meant it) and even now that I’m very-happily married (is there anything nicer?), I still say it because it’s still true.

I fall in love ALL the time. I fall in love with individuals (as friends, as crushes, as mentors). I fall in love with groups (my new mastermind writers’ group, IMPACT self-defense). I fall in love with people I see waiting at bus stops and sitting in cafes. And obviously, I fall in love with all of my characters. Those last, actually, are usually a slower burn, now that I think about it. Normally I write most of a first draft before I can see them clearly. I’m irritated with them until that moment, and then bam, I’m in mad-delirious love, even with the problem characters.

I fall in love with activities, too: square-foot gardening! Bread baking! Straw-bale gardening! Minimizing! Spinning! Running! Ukulele! Accordion!

I have two brand new loves, and they couldn’t be more different. One is physical and loud, one is introspective and quiet. Both are beautiful.

Kajukenbo

Kajukenbo is a Hawaiian hybrid mixed-martial art, made up of a mishmash of KArate, JUjitso, KENpo, and BOxing. It’s pretty high contact (meaning: hitting! kicking!) and very high intensity. It’s gorgeous, a blend of dancing and fighting, and the Oakland kwoon (school) is just as incredible: a mix of races, genders, and sexual orientations. It feels safe that way. It’s okay to have a girl tummy (big and squooshy and sexy) and fight, too.

The thing is: I’m bad at it. I love things that I’m automatically and quickly good at. The arts tend to come quickly to me. Anything physical is harder, and this is SO physical. Last Thursday night, I wanted to run away. My beginning class was with a substitute, and I wasn’t following her language as well as I did our normal teacher, and it was a millionty degrees in the room, and I just kept thinking, “I could leave. I know no one here. No one but Twitter knows I’m trying to do this. I won’t tell them I left! No one has to know!”

But I want to be someone who says, “I’m a martial artist,” instead of someone who says, “I’d love to be a martial artist.” So I stayed. And I’ll keep going. I’m stubborn, thankfully.

And I love the way I feel afterward. I have yoga-eyes when I get out, if that makes sense to you. All floppy and happy, top down on the car on the way home and even more in love with the overhead moon than I was before.

(I just remembered — I don’t know where it came from but when I was little, I had a serious phobia of substitute teachers. My first act of the school day was always to find the yard-monitor teacher and tug on her dress to ask her if my teacher was there that day. If she said no or that she wasn’t sure, I usually threw up. This is true. Apparently I still get nervous around substitutes. Luckily, I didn’t vomit, but it was touch and go there for a minute.)

Alabama Chanin 

I know I’m the last to this party, but PEOPLE. I’m in LOVE.

Clothes, made by hand (every little bit, every stitch), to fit, in jersey (because we all live in jersey, or want to). I went to hear Natalie Chanin speak at A Verb for Keeping Warm last week, and I tried on the clothes in the trunk show. Completely unembellished, those clothes fit me better and looked better than anything ever has. I felt like I’d finally found my true style. When your aforementioned soft belly feels like it’s wearing PJs but you know you could go from the office to the garden and then to a party and look great at all the places? Hello. Come to me, darling.

I was a bit worried, getting started. The only crafting thing I hate to do is sew by hand, so I’m not sure why I was so sure I’d love the reverse appliqué method. But I was pretty dang sure I would. Then I started, and I remembered that I’ve always loved embroidery, and that’s all this is. You’re using embroidery methods to hold fabric together. How cool is that?

This is the stencil I cut from felt (using the Blooomers stencil in her first book).

I’m making a 4-gore skirt from thrifted XXXL T-shirts. I cut the eight pieces (two layers) and painted the top layer with fabric paint:

This is an afternoon of Gilmore Girls, more than half a gore’s worth of stitching accomplished.

Eventually, I’ll cut out the middles, like in this swatch:

Ain’t she stunning?

Next week I expect I’ll be obsessed with deep-sea crabbing or ice surfing or something. (Never fear, I’m still in love with writing and knitting. Those remain constant. Hey, in case you missed it, A Life in Stitches* is currently $1.99 in most e-versions! Grab it while you can, if you haven’t read my memoir. Plenty of falling in love there, too. Send one to a friend! Cheaper than buying her a cup of coffee!)

What are you in love with right now?

*affil link

 

This is to mark my place.

I’m knitting a sweater for my sister, Bethany. I thought it was such a clever idea. For her birthday, I presented her with a gift certificate for a Custom Fit sweater. It’s great — have you used it yet? You enter your exact sizes, put in the details from your swatch, and whammo. Sweater time. Amy Herzog is genius.

I had a plan: I would measure my sister, she would choose the yarn, and bam, she’d have a new sweater in next to no time. After all, I’m quite a fast knitter. *blows dust off invisible knitting badge*

She loved the idea. We even went to the yarn store to pick out some yarn (which I was going to buy later — the store didn’t have enough in stock). I was going to measure her really soon.

Then I forgot for a year and a half.

A YEAR AND A HALF. What a jerk.

I’ve ticked off way too many people with this forgetful brain of mine. Bethany loves me (and when I wailed, WHY DIDN’T YOU REMIND ME? she said something nice like I knew you were busy) and forgave me. I know she’s not even mad at me.

But I’m damn aware that it hurts when someone you love doesn’t make you feel special. I think I might owe her a couple of sweaters now. Man, I’ve been feeling so lucky in love and family and friends lately. I love that feeling. It kind of knocks my pins right out from under me–that I get such amazing people in my life, that they choose ME and I choose them right back.

I’d like to forget more things (laundry soap, paper towels, oil changes) and remember more people, my people, who are the reason for everything.

So this post serves to remind me that I have a sweater to knit. And socks to send to Linda. And books to mail to Diane. And marmalade to make for a couple of people (oops).

I have probably forgotten a lot, yes, but I haven’t forgotten you.