Unspeakable

I (used to think that I) have a superpower.

When I’m listening to music, I can close my eyes and see a whole world of brilliant, dazzling dancing, choreographed perfectly to the music … the colors of the costumes, the energy in the movement, the spins and swirls and solo acts or arrays of synchronized, rhythmic, human art …

But it’s all mine, trapped in my mind. I can only close my eyes and watch the show. One time it was so breathtaking I snapped my eyes open and said “            “ … nothing. My thoughts caught on my tongue and I found myself literally speechless. I was momentarily shell shocked by the complete frustration at not being able to translate vision to language. If I could only capture this, I knew I could create Broadway-worthy musicals, Grammy-award-winning theatre … but it was always and only a dream – vivid, lucid, perfect, and completely unspeakable.

Which brought me around to thinking again about a question I had spent years and hours contemplating – how do deaf people think? Or more specifically and abstractly – how would a person who was cut off from language of any sort process thought? How much would this isolation limit his ability to observe and make sense of this life? How much are our thoughts confined to formally defined and acquired vocabulary? To what extent are we sheltered from the infinite spheres of thought, just because the right words haven’t been spoken that would unlock worlds of ideas beyond the initiation and creation of our own mind? If someone was locked out of language altogether, need he be stunted in his intellectual thought-processing abilities? Or does the vast majority of our subjective understanding occur without language? While no one can truly exist in an intellectual vacuum, it is worth considering the limitations set by our domain of information.

And yet … surely our mind can access realms unknown to communication – as I realized in that startling moment of open-mouthed surprise, shocked that my words could betray me and leave me so thoroughly alone in myself. Our minds must have a touch of eternity, an element of the infinite; but to access that requires something that can break beyond the standard framework-barriers of language, something that can defy description. I know that music and art can do this, that a rainy day, scented candles, fuzzy blankets and peace with the world can do this. I believe that birth and death, love or hate can trigger this – this connection with infinite spheres of thought, sense, and visceral feeling known completely in oneself but unintelligible in communication.

And to express a fraction of an idea, a flash of a scene, a deeply intuitive sense of something elusively beautiful … this is art. 

Observations in Translation

In my creative writing classes we had to keep an observation journal to help train our brain to notice details and practice pinning down ethereal, visceral THINGS onto paper, recreating them in a medium which could be handed off to a random, literate, passerby (passerby-er?) and in their hands conjure up images similar to what we had seen. I am still dubious as to how effective even the best author-artist can be in this regard, since everyone brings their own back-story to any piece of writing and invariably filters new words and images through previous sounds, smells, tastes, and touches.

But regardless of the effect a description creates, it is still an incredible exercise to fashion a one-dimensional, monotone script of any 3-dimensional object, or multi-dimensional moment, complete with an infinite array of sense and emotions that cacophonously arrived at that point through a fractal-like series of decision and circumstances.

Try, for example, to describe a sunset as it actually looks and feels, while avoiding the pitfalls of overused, underrepresented clichés. Try writing “the sky was awash with brilliant hues of pinks and blues, decorated here and there with pillowy towers of cotton clouds. The red earth smelled fragrant from the cathartic days’ worth of rain and the air felt clean, ready to start fresh tomorrow.” Try writing that in a way that describes the scene purely, rather than uses faux-scenery to advance a plot or set a mood. Let the actual picture set the mood. If words can truly paint a picture, then plot is just a sideline to the story.

But it has to be written in the moment if it has any hope of presenting itself as genuine. I missed that moment last night, so I’ll try, like a photographer waiting for the right combination of light and shadow, to capture it the next time it encounters me.

I did it!!

Putting pencil to paper can be cathartically therapeutic (is that redundant?); even more so with fingertips (mine) to keyboards (anyone's). Although written expression embodies and justifies, often victoriously, my convoluted and introverted thought processes (processi?) (case in point), the overhanging threat of impending written assignments sends me into frenzies of inactivity, or other-activities to justify my lack of productivity.

Which is all to say that I love to write. But I don't. write.

i know, right?

So, here goes a first attempt at presenting to the (intrigued) universe my recent discovery of a fascinating form of cute-squishy-creative-colorfulness. Of the genus: Amigurumi. Of the species: mine own.

I picked up some books on Amigurumi (the most noteworthy being Amigurumi World: Seriously Cute Crochet and Amigurumi Two by Ana Paula Rimoli) this past summer (that would be 2010, for the sake of my future clientele from the year 2011) and started making everything I deemed cute-cuddly-colorful enough to justify the time expenditure of such creations. My rationalization defenses weakened in the face of storefuls of pretty yarn in every color, texture and price imaginable, and the unending days of unemployment spread before me like a blank canvas (of multicolored synthetic acrylic - read, fake mass-produced plastic stuff for gullible consumers like myself) ready to be made into turtles, bunnies and teapots. I ended up making nearly everything in these books.

Then, in an inspired moment of uninformed excitement, I posted them on etsy, hoping to earn back some of my "investment" in cute yarns and books to appease (please?) my husband who was mildly amused by my rigorous hobby. (On a side note, he has been incredibly supportive of my obsession and handles each new creation with respectful tenderness and impressive-ed-ness.) Upon further exploration of etsy, however, I quickly ran across the author of these books selling the Exact Same amigurumis that I had been making (imagine!) and I realized that she could just as easily run across my site and be equally (but more justifiably) surprised. Would I be in trouble for selling something made according to someone else's patterns? (For the record, they were very well written patterns!) I tried to ask a lawyer friend about the consequences of such "copyright" issues, but he laughed at me. :( I think the potential battles between yarn ladies over stuffed animal patterns did not seem like a legitimate legal issue. (As if big men battling over little bits of green paper is?!) When he saw my consternation, though, he affably offered to research it for me, at the cost of $200/hour. sigh.

So I pulled all my listings off etsy and decided to try my hand at some of my own creations, for which I would assuredly not sue myself for selling. I started noticing some of my friends' baby toys, stuffed animals, pictures, etc. and mulled over ideas of how to create these forms in 3-d crochet. Thus, Theodore and Frank were born. And now I have arrived at the day in my story in which I wrote this story.

The End.

For now.

To be continued.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Theodore:

Frank, the fish:

Wedding bears for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law-once-removed-to-be. (Chris and Katie, if you see these here before I give them to you, please act surprised still!) These are adapted according to pre-made patterns.

Business cards made by my friend, Cristal. She has been an incredible help to me in designing logos, cards, websites, etc. (Let me know if you want me to connect you with her for help with your own business logos, websites, etc.)

The bunny, Evelyn, in process.

A sample of some of my creations (all done by patterns from Ana Paula Rimoli's books).

Aliens and squirrel up close.

Some of the books I use most often.

Victor's head was too big the first time around. no problem. cut it off.

From left to right: Evelyn, Samantha, Victor. I don't know where these names come from. The animals usually tell me who they are when I'm done with them.

airplaine. with stitched-on windows. my husband convinced me that hot glue guns are to amigurumi what scissors are to origami: bad?

i'll take more artistic pics later of my yarns, but for now here's a pile of some of the cotton yarns I use for most of the animals.

And a knitting toy i found that is fun to use for hat-making.

And more big fuzzy yarns for making hats. I'll post more on my hat making adventures later.

if you remind me.