I’ve always been struck by the line in A Picture of Dorian Gray where Dorian mentions having felt a certain way earlier one morning and Lord Henry replies by saying, “Ah! this morning! You have lived since then.”
In some ways it feels like I just posted here last week, but in others it seems like another lifetime. I have definitely lived since then. My mom is here with us, which is great, but she fell and broke her hip on Easter. That turned out to be challenging in a million different ways, and it’s taken awhile to find a new normal. Thankfully, she is feeling quite a bit better now, but we continue to take things day by day.
In addition to knitting, I’ve taken to walking to keep me grounded. It has been life changing. I’m feeling better, thinking more clearly, and managing stress differently and more effectively than I think I ever have. I even started a second @walkpotion instagram account to keep a record of my daily walks.
This past weekend, walking and knitting came together in the most amazing way. We held our annual knitting retreat in a new location, the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It turned out to be a great place for our group in terms of gathering spaces, classrooms, guest rooms, and general atmosphere and convenience. Plus, it sits right in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains and is surrounded by incredible hiking trails.
Getting to be with my people for several days and knit and spin and catch up on each others’ lives and ALSO go on some of the best hikes I’ve ever taken was out-of-this-world wonderful. I came home renewed and feeling all the connections it’s easy to lose track of when you are in crisis mode and not able to spend time with the people who get you.
One day, I hiked up a mountain called High Windy, and this was the view from the top. It’s also the Eastern Continental Divide which was kind of cool. Next year, I’m taking my knitting!
I am slowly catching up with my blog reading, and I plan to do some posting soon about some of my knitting projects. In the meantime, I just wanted to check in here and say that I’m hopeful the skies are clearing a bit and that I will be able to spend more time in this space.
I hope you are well, my knitters!
Welcome back to blogging 🙂
Beautiful photos, thank you for sharing! I miss hiking, I didn’t really have the opportunity to hike this summer (well, only once, but it was so cold that it felt more like winter…) so I can at least live vicariously through your post!
Thanks, Kat! I really missed posting here and keeping up with your posts and others’. I’m really hopeful that things are settling down a bit so I can return to something like a routine. The hikes have been wonderful. Wouldn’t it be fun to go together in real life sometime? I’d give anything to see Ireland AND Poland!
So if you ever visit I’m happy to hike together 😊we can discuss plants and other wonders of nature!
I’d also love to visit the U.S. to see the real wilderness like there is no more in Europe.
Maybe one day 🤔
That sounds like a wonderful plan! 😊