IMAGINE

It's hard to "IMAGINE" that at this time yesterday I was making my way through Central Park in New York City on my way to meeting a lovely fellow knitter and advocate for the knitting cause, Phyllis, whom I had met the day before on my Big Apple knitting store safari.

More about that tour later, but the day was perfect weather wise, so I decided to pretend that I was a real New Yorker and walk the 28N+10W blocks to the appointed restaurant from the apartment where we had stayed during our 4 days in the big city.
Now you don't have to be a whiz at math to recognize that if you cut diagonally across a space, it's shorter than walking around, so I cut through Central Park to get away from the constant NOISE (which amazingly all but disappears within 20 feet inside the park) and to shave a bit of time off my trek. I knew that I had to head North West as I was at 60th St E and wanted to get to 77th St W so I aimed myself in that direction (it's all so logically rectangular) and followed paths that were heading off to the leftish and found myself walking, by pure chance, into Strawberry Fields, of the song, and more recently immortalized by this Italian Mosaic tribute to John Lennon who was shot in front of his apartment just a few hundred feet away.
It was an amazing find, not just because I'm a bit of a Beatles fan, but more because I'm a completely, hopelessly addicted people watcher - and what a place to watch people. I'm sure that I heard 7 or 8 different languages in the few minutes that I spent there. There was every skin tone from probably every continent on earth among the 30 people who were respectfully looking at the few memorials that were left at the site. Someone had even left a battered guitar, covered with tacky stickers with a hand printed sign that said: "Make a wish". It appeared that whoever it was who deposited this token by the famous "Imagine" site was just passing on John's frustrated entreaties about thinking well of yourself, of your world, of those around you and your collective future.

IMAGINE

Needless to say, none of this has anything to do with knitting but it does have a lot to do with what I find interesting in the world. The trip was magnificent in so many ways. And those of you who knew me 4 years ago, when we went on our first trip to New York will be pleased to hear that I made it back without breaking any bones - last time it was a bone in my right hand that go crushed in a trip/fall on our way back from a Broadway show.

The knitting side of the trip was fabulous, from the 90% completed glove of Malabrigo's new sock yarn, to meeting several shop owners and staff, and being surrounded by the beauties of yarns that are difficult for us to access here in Canada. But again, more about all the knitting stuff in the next few days.

The September newsletter should go out on time (Monday) and any of you who would like to receive it and have not signed up yet, please link at left to the sign up site. Have a safe and happy holiday weekend.