I tried my hand at writing in a real paper spiralbound notebook today. All I could really manage was the word “FOCUS” in bubble letters and a weird cartoony comicy piece about the conversation I was eavesdropping on. I know it’s considered a bit gauche, but I couldn’t tell if the guy was spilling his relationships issues because he was in some sort of coffeehouse therapy session or if he was dumping the person he was talking to. In a word, it was gripping. In the end, the lack of histrionics led me to leave. To my defense, it was a public place and he was really loud.

And he actually used the phrase, “there are a lot of men out there…” line which had me wanting to chuck my coffee all over him. I thought such witty repartee was left for films alone?

Anyway, lately I’ve been trying to pin down what is so enticing to me about the world of crafts. I mean, on the one hand, who the f*ck cares? It’s just a bunch of people with varying sizes of needles and string! But on the other, I think that a lot of this stems from an interest in the experience of women.

We’ve made it til the 3rd (some say 4th, some say post-) wave of feminism. Now what? To we keep creating waves until they are backed out to sea or start upon making some new definitions and metaphors?

I don’t know about your personal work experience, but mine has been mostly uneventful. Most of my work experience has centered on work in secretarial positions. A lot of phone answering, filing and sitting on my ass. While finding the actual work (or complete lack thereof) banal and time-wasting, I was often fascinated by the personal dynamics of this mainly woman-dominated sphere.

In one particular office of 9 women on a university campus, I was constantly enthralled by the drama that ensuing in these women’s lives, these ordinary women who came from differing socio-economic backgrounds, age groups, marital status. No one was a supermodel or high profile particularly, just a group of women working in an office with lots of beige decor and a few plants thrown in for good measure.

One woman (who had retired just before I got there but was a frequent visitor) lost a battle to cancer, another was suddenly diagnosed with weeks to live if both of her breasts weren’t removed within days. Stories emerged of past battles with cancer that were previous kept under wraps. I was there throughout the operation, the chemo, the picking out of wigs, the grit, the strength, and the tension-breaking laughter. Watching all of these women deal with this in such a small work environment was fascinating.

Its pure ordinariness made it sublime.

I still have that sense of awe everytime I’m around people knitting or otherwise crafting and as their hands methodically work, their stories start tumbling out of their mouths.

This picture was sent to me by an amazing woman in New York state who spins wool from her own sheep. The above ewe in question is named Sophie.

Sometimes I feel like I inhabit someplace firmly inbetween flaneur and voyeur. But one things for sure, I never get enough of the stories that unfold around me.