Sticking it to the Man...with DPNs

...and by The Man, I mean a cisgender misogynist Deputy Mayor...

Why is it, that in 2017, we still have to protest this sort of poor behaviour by our public servants?  

Just in case you were not aware, Toronto's Deputy Mayor, Denzil Minnan-Wong, recently went on record and publicly insulted the city's out-going City Planner Jennifer Keesmaat, by telling her she should stick to her knitting.

http://www.blogto.com/city/2017/09/toronto-councillor-tells-colleague-she-should-stick-knitting/ 

Yes, yes... I have heard of the idiom... I have not been living under a rock all these years.  And I have seen the comments on Twitter defending Minnan-Wong's use of the phrase, how it's not necessarily sexist and yadda yadda blah blah blah... But if you have been listening to the remarks that leak out of our Deputy Mayor's mouth on a regular basis, one feels comfortable with the suggestion that he used the comment "stick to her knitting" as an impact filled insult, and not a clever use of the English language.  He dispatched a remark which I'm sure he thought was a clever quip delivered with a fine amount of swagger... but in actuality, he uttered a knee-jerk response that proved him to be nothing less than a real jerk.  

Nevertheless... we persisted.

This past Friday, a battalion of us knitters met down at Toronto City Hall to call out our Deputy Mayor's patriarchal, chauvinistic vulgarity. Clearly he intended to insult his colleague. He told her to stick to her knitting, implying she should keep her head down... be passive... don't be a visionary.  Clearly this man knows nothing about knitting. N.O.T.H.I.N.G. 

Our fearless leader, Beryl Tsang, prepared a three page list of demands (see Beryl, all those years of proposal writing has certainly come in handy!) 

 

The press showed up. Councillors joined us. We made our point.

The CBC reporter asked me why I decided to come down, and I told him the truth.  I have a son. I have a daughter.  They know how to treat their peers with respect.  They know that being part of a strong community requires a strong commitment to shared responsibility, as well as civility.  My children are learning to become leaders. In Hebrew we say "dugma" - one should act as a mentor and set an example for others.  Our Deputy Mayor is in a position of power.  Lest he forget, his community granted him this opportunity of power. He MUST always act and speak with "dugma".    

Later on that day, I suggested to Beryl that considering we have both managed to raise decent young men... who just happen to have awesome knitting skills, perhaps we should offer to teach Mr. Minnan-Wong? Granted, I would need anti-nausea meds in order to get through that lesson -- but if she thought it could help the poor soul, I might be willing to give it the good ole knitters' try!  Regrettably, Beryl informed me the Deputy Mayor was a lost cause; irredeemable.

Favourite moments: 

• The City Councillors who joined us (as well as their staff - some of whom brought their knitting, I should add)... 
• The Security Guard who was assigned to us knitting rabble; he loved us and kept asking us if we had any spare Merino -- his wife is a knitter.
• The Mayor accidentally crossed our path (the Deputy Mayor did not)
•  Meeting like minded people who were equally outraged and took the time out of their day to make it known that it is not okay for our Deputy Mayor to act like a petulant child, and his weak apology was too little, too late.

Photo credits go to Errol Young as well as a few from the Twitterverse.

 

And then Mayor Tory showed up. Here he is trying to figure out how to get out of the 'stitch-u-ation'

 

Bar Mitzvah : a milestone achieved

This weekend was my son's Bar Mitzvah. 

Not only was this a milestone in his young life, as well as his mother's, it was symbolic on another level.  Only one month before, my little guy was in the hospital recovering from surgery.  It has been a very emotional couple of months for our family.  One of great lows and massive highs.  I wrote the following explanation of his knitted prayer shawl bag months ago.  But its meaning has even more resonance now:

 

On one side of the bag is my son's name in Hebrew with the U.S. southwestern hamsa equivalent known as the healing hand, and on the other, is the Tree of Life: Eitz Chaim עֵץ הַֽחַיִּים.  You will notice that there are no leaves on this tree. Why is that? My son’s favorite month is winter.  As any Canadian will tell you, most trees lose their leaves during the autumn.  But is the tree dead?   No.  It is very much alive during those winter months. The Tree of Life, combined with the remark
אַל־תִּירָ֣א אַבְרָ֗ם  the Lord’s covenant with Abram “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield your very great reward” combine the ideas that although there are many obstacles that are put in our way each day, one must trust in the Tree of Life – the tree of knowledge.  Even when there appears little obvious signs of G-d’s presence, existence is there, beneath the temporal.  Knowledge and conviction of faith will be a sentinel, a shield, and can guide an individual through the dilemmas with which they are faced, all the days of their life.  This is especially important as we attempt to maintain our sense of security in a world filled with political volatility and tragedies. Escalating troubles may slowly plant seeds of doubt in our confidence of Hashem’s protection.  How must we, who strive to live with emunah, react? With strength and courage. 

…  Al tira Avrum  …  אַל־תִּירָ֣א אַבְרָ֗ם …

Mazal Tov, my Maverick Knitter!  

You have faced so much with strength and courage and tremendous amounts of dignity. 

I love you forever, Cookie Bear.  

Chazak, chazak, venischazeik. 
Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened.

Better than Therapy

That moment when you are 5 metres from finishing a 700 metre beaded shawl and you decide to frog it all down and start again because you realize you should have done the scalloped lace 6 line repeat pattern because it's prettier.... and you're using an extra fine Americo Royal Alpaca/ Cashmere/ Silk blend so... yeah.

Oh well.

There goes two months worth of knitting....

Still Better Than Therapy

It's scary before you frog it down... and wonderful when you start again.  You feel oddly courageous. How strange that knitting projects can be metaphorical mirrors of real life challenges.  If only everything was as easy as unwinding and restarting. 

As long as  you  understand that the learning experience of the first project was not for naught ... both projects do in fact result in a single finished piece. 

The yarn retains a memory of the first knitted item... 

...and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The Trump Effect: #pussyhatproject.com

There's no nice way to say this: The Donald winning the US election felt like a kick to my lady parts.

#pussyhatproject.com

Personally, I had wanted to go on a media news fast on Election Day, but my kids are political news junkies (at ages 12 and 17!) ... and I had a feeling they would need an emotional chaperone through that evening; serves me right for raising social justice peaceniks.

When things started to tank around 10:45pm / 11pm Toronto-time I made them turn off the TV.  The next morning, I woke up and checked my device for the results and felt the world drop from beneath me.

1st thought: expletive expletive expletive. 

2nd thought : what am I going to tell my children? 

#pussyhatproject.com

I wanted to curl up and scream... but d*mn it. .. I am a parent and had to 'get my adult on' and be calm, collective and reassuring.

Parenting sucks.

My 17 year old daughter woke up before I got upstairs. I didn't have to tell her. I heard her weeping.  She let me hug her... and she never lets me hug her these days. I didn't end up telling my 12 year old son.  The daughter pushed past me and crawled into bed with him. She broke the news.

Like I said, we are Canadian.

This should matter less to us.
 
But it doesn't.  American friends: we are your neighbours.  We care about you. We care about the world.

One friend suggested I pick up my yarn and sticks and embark on a knit campaign much like I did back in the day of Rob Ford.  True, Ford was my 'muse' (see my blog posts from December 2011 - 2013), but the upcoming Trump Era feels darker... far more sinister and menacing.

Then I read about The Women's March on Washington https://www.womensmarch.com and The Pussyhat Project https://www.pussyhatproject.com and then beautiful serendipity struck.  I discovered that a gym friend is a member of Democrats Abroad and is heading to D.C. soon for the January 21st March on Washington.  Lovely Julie was thrilled that I offered to make her a hat.  What she does not know yet is I made two.  One for her friend as well.

I am not thrilled about inauguration day but I feel empowered about the day after!

Sending love (and a couple of hats) from North of the Border

#pussyhatproject.com

#pussyhatproject.com

Rebel Knitter x ♡ o ♡ x