Even though I try my best to deny it, I am more than well-suited to the astrological sign of my birth, the cantankerous and often over-sentimental, Cancer. Even though I have traveled over a good part of the world, I still can’t sleep without my favorite pyjamas because they remind me of home and even though I try to stifle myself, I can’t help but wear my heart on my sleeve. Even though I don’t hold that much stock in the signs of the zodiac, I fit every description I’ve ever read of Cancer perfectly.

As a child, I wanted to be either a veterinarian or a writer in New York City or some sort of crusader working to make the lives of others easier in the rainforest or desert by the time I hit thirty. Instead, I am 140 miles from where I grew up, making art (or is it craft?), writing and still trying to figure out the most accurate definition of the words ‘adult’ and ‘grown-up.’

And sometimes I wonder that if at thirty, I am still supposed to be worried if I laughed too loud when a child told me I had a “giant mouth” or stumbled too much over my words when nervously meeting someone new or said too much about nothing or thought for too long about when to use “effect” or “affect.”

Tonight I was ‘held captive’ by a rambunctious 5 year-old (the genesis of the “giant mouth” comment) who asked me to read her That Darn Yarn! I read the story three times. Twice because I was foiled by the dual-story structure, and one time further because in my own confusion, I had also thoroughly confused the child. And her questions and comments had me laughing at their innocence and raw curiosity that I began to simultaneously wonder why, as adults, we focus so very much on the things we can’t control instead of the things we can.

While I was reading, she put her little hand around my neck and paid rapt attention, asking me what this word was or what that picture meant. And it no longer worried me that I am not warding off hunger in the Sahara or spaying stray dogs (although those definitely are beneficial), and instead was taking a quiet moment with a small child, laughing and giggling down to the core. Because at day’s end, it’s not about whether or not I held true to my dreams of 1983, but whether or not I held true to my heart and convictions.

I’m not sure whether or not I can attribute that to my zodiac sign or pure stubbornness, but I don’t think I’d have it any other way.

Imagine my surprise, when I woke up needing a cardigan while drinking my morning coffee in my non-airconditioned apartment in North Carolina on July 4th. While the ceiling fan is on full-tilt, it’s still a welcome reprieve.

Instead of hopping in the car and driving to the coast, I decided to stay in this holiday weekend and catch up on correspondence, reading, household chores and various writing and needlecraft projects that have all escaped my attention as of late, all languished in the summer heat. I did escape to Durham for an afternoon of wandering around an old tobacco warehouse, only to get politely told we were ‘trespassing’ and to stick to the main sidewalk. Despite all our jokes about how easy some fences looked to climb, we nicely remained on public property afterwards.

Last night there was a distinct absence of illegal fireworks on my street and the silence kept me awake perusing Ginsberg wishing it was Wordsworth, Baudrillard wishing it was Baudelaire. I fell asleep thinking about Greenhead Ghyll and Tintern Abbey and pastoral poems instead of Ginsberg’s “Mugging (1),” and how the ending “shoulder bag with 10,000 dollars full of poetry left on the broken floor” always leaves me cold.

I woke up to look outside on a greygrey morning full of quiet with the tiny yard across the street full of equally grey squirrels because the woman who lives there feeds them as she chainsmokes her first cigarettes of the day. Despite my sometimes faltering sense of independence, this day always holds fond memories. More than any other holiday, I can remember the most about where I spent past Independence Days. Parking lots, school playgrounds, seaside piers, front yard rock shows, giggling abroad with sparklers bought on the sly.

Still somewhat sleepy, my mind is still lolling over works read last night and revelling in the greyness that pervades the blinds and seems to be casting a rare moment of calm over my normally vivacious neighborhood. One of the most beautiful things about language is its cadence, a word that I can’t also help but contribute to knitting. Doggedly knitting long rows of a blanket last night, I listened to the click-click-clack-click of the needles as they scraped together creating a sound not entirely dislike that of Ginsberg’s somewhat manic readings, his voice waxing and waning with the words.

Often when people share memories with me about their relatives knitting, they speak of the rhythm of the needles. Sometimes it is with great derision, but most of the time there is a profound fondness that is awakened when recounting tranquil times after supper when the house was quiet except for someone dear working on a garment in the corner, keeping time with the needles. It is just this sort of rhythm that so often gets drowned out by traffic, radio, air-conditioning and television these days that we no longer are able to hear it.

Thankfully, instead of weaving in and out of holiday traffic and trying to find the perfect cd to complement I-85, this weekend I opted to turn off the distractions and listen. Noting the repetitive swoosh of the broom across hardwood, the singsong of my needles clashing, the gentle whir of the ceiling fan and the specific word choice of Ginsberg, I celebrated a different kind of independence over the past few days. And it was gorgeous.

I can’t believe that it’s July already! It’s astounding to me how summer can whiz by so fast when it’s so ridiculously hot here! While the humidity sets on us in the South like molasses…the time clicks by in record time…

Anyway, it’s Friday…on a 3-day weekend. If you didn’t take the day off, here are some links. Enjoy!

*While doing some random online research, I came across Ad*Access which just may be my new favorite thing… over 7,000 vintage ads from 1911-1955!

*David Shrigley’s work makes me happy.

*So does Space Invaders. Not the game, but the urban intervention. I used to see them around London and giggle at the 80s reference, not entirely sure about their intention. I know better now.

*Many thanks to my friend Linda for reminding me this week of Bill Keaggy’s photo blog of his 30th year. Because I forgot that I wanted to do something similar…and have 10 days to figure out how to implement it!

*After looking at her zine collection at Duke, I was reminded how amazing Sarah Dyer really is!

*And speaking of fun, if you like random photographs, you could do worse than visit Big Happy Fun House. In regards to the June 29th photo, clowns totally freak me out, too.

*When I was in college, we got really bored one day and built a pirate ship out of cushions. Our captain, Morgan, even had an eyepatch and a fake sword made out of paper. Imagine what we could have done if we had a nearby creek, like these piratety folks…

*I am currently daydreaming about the Elsewhere Artist Collaborative. Hooray for toys.

*In a similar vein, I also have a mega-crush on Eyebeam.

*Lastly, seeing that it’s hothothot outside, here’s a link to 24 pages of frozen fruit recipes. I’m already excited about the raspberry tofu freeze. Fruit, tofu and bright pink. Wonderful.

Happy 4th of July for those of you who celebrate it. I can’t wait to view the fireworks from a local parking deck, sitting on the hood of my car with friends, listening to the pop-crack-spark of the festivities and smiling at all the children who inevitably will be there wide-eyed and beaming. It reminds me of hot summer July 4ths spent at my grandparents as a child in Georgia. The spectacle mixed with warm nostalgia never fails to make me smile.

“My best friend has claws for hands and X-ray eyes to see
(His name is Paul)

My parents think my robot’s trouble
Motherboard and CPU control the way Paul thinks
My program was written fast and might not be bug free
(He’s four feet tall)”

Barcelona’s song “Robot Trouble” has been stuck in my head for awhile. Besides the fact that it’s adorable, I like it because it’s about robots. And the song provides the best soundtrack to view Jessica Hutchinson’s knitted robots. These little dears going out on their own to find their place in this world not only demonstrates how I feel about knitting and modernity, but also evokes my favorite construct: home.

In placing the robots in various situations “out in the real world,” Jessica places knitting outside of the home, and by photographing the robots wandering around modernity, she highlights the ways that needlecraft may seen alien in the urban. While endearing themselves to us as they bravely venture into unknown territory, her creatures also elucidate how we view crafts such as knitting in our cultural conscience as something safe, because they make you question them before embracing them.

While clicking through the collection, I am reminded of my own travels and questions about belonging and the sense of home. Is it a place? A person? My dear friend Katherine and I used to have rambling talks about the definition of this tiny word that has so much impact while wandering around London, both thousands of miles away from our so-called “hometowns.” One day she noted that for those of us who wander, perhaps “home” is less defined by bricks and mortar and more by a feeling that we carry with us and share with others. I think this is the definition that I hold closest to my heart.

After waking up early and a long drive from the coast of Georgia, I took a nap when I got home. I awoke to the sound of firecrackers pop-pop-popping in my apartment complex. While in England, the sound of firecrackers means the approach of Bonfire Night (and the pedestrian wariness to avoid being the target of bored schoolkids), in the United States, fireworks mean the onset of summer.

Ever since I was a child, summer has been hell. The paleness of my skin meant lobster-rich sunburns, always wearing a t-shirt when swimming, layering on the sunscreen like liquid armor against my sworn enemy, the sun. I was corralled inside between the hours of 11 and 2, when the sun was the most brutal, as all the other kids played in the sun, amazingly getting browner instead of redder.

It wasn’t until recently that I began relishing the season. Delighting in the moon’s relief after sunset, where it’s still somewhat blistering, but the crickets and cicadas emerge to make it more like a fairytale than an oppressive blanket of heat. At the beach this past week, I was lucky enough to watch the full moon arc over the ocean creating large swathes of light on the encroaching tide. After my family had gone to sleep, I crept out on the balcony alone to watch the moonlight dance on the water, the only sound the crash of waves on sand.

This past week I ate tomato, cucumber and onion sandwiches washed down with sweet tea made by my grandmother and got sentimental as she put a fried green tomato on my plate at dinner. We went to Christ Church near Fort Frederica, where I bounded off with my drugstore camera (I forgot my own) to take photographs of the decaying cemetery and the live oaks that never fail to make me lose my breath at their beauty. As I got lost in Southern Gothic thoughts, surrounded by creaky rusted iron gates, tombstones that had long lost their words and vines ensnaring the canopy, I would occasionally come across my mother and grandparents oohing and aahing about the grandness of a graveside angel.

As a child, the 1946 production of “The Yearling” was my favorite film, and ever since, I have held a certain reverence for the South. Today I drove along Highway 17 on my way north, stopping along the way to take a few photographs, at places like the Smallest Church in America (photo not my own):

and driving down sandy roads in Macintosh County that seemed to lead to nowhere in particular. In parts of the drive it was like time had been forgotten as I sped past small sheds at swamps edge and herons creeping along the roadside.

Now and then my thoughts drifted off towards my grandmother and how during the week she had slipped in bits of textile knowledge into the conversation. Along with telling me the secrets to buying the freshest fruit, these snippets of conversation were ripe with knowledge that would never quite be the same if read in a book or newspaper. One afternoon she whisked me into her bedroom and told me all about the intracacies of her needlework that was hanging on its walls, secrets that were held more dear after I had spent the previous few hours reading about the effect of oral tradition on antebellum quilting.

Here in my apartment, the firecrackers have stopped, and there is no seaside to lull me back to sleep. In the morning, I will wake and not find coffee made by my grandfather hours before or hear my grandmother tell me what fruit is fresh in the fridge ready for breakfast. But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to be able to wash away a newborn love for summer and its quiet yet heat-stifled beauty, tinged with the kindness of family and the sweetness of strawberries.