I sewed a skirt out of old T-shirts, or This Could Be as Good as it Gets

Never Done: I sewed a skirt out of old T-shirts, or This Could Be as Good as it Gets

It's the vacation of new skirts! The day started out gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. I went for a long walk, we went out for breakfast, we went to the beach and swam and swam and swam, and even went for a walk on the sandbar, and sunbathed and sun-napped, and then before we knew it, a storm blew in and turned the sky dark and water aquamarine, and then lightning struck the lake and all the moms and dads got their kids out of the water, and the wind blew the umbrellas over, and people scrambled to pack up our towels and and goggles and chairs, and we all evacuated the beach in unison.

We got back to the house around 4 PM, and Karen and I started a new sewing project: skirts out of big old T-shirts. I didn't have enough big T-shirts with me to make one for myself, but both Karen and Andy gave me shirts to wear, and I ended up making a very New Yorky themed skirt. I think I'd be stretching it (so to speak) if I found something ethical in this endeavor. The truth is, I just thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with Karen and sewing, and I love my new skirt. At one point in the day, when we were sitting side by side, each sewing our own T-shirt ski, I remembers the very end of Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, when they have finally discovered how content they are to just hang out together, folding T-shirts. This could be as good as it gets.

I taught someone (Karen) how to can (and we canned my mother's brandied peaches)

Never Done: I taught someone (Karen) how to can (and we canned my mother's recipe for brandied peaches)

One of the things Karen suggested we might do as a never done activity is canning. She had a big box full of transparent apples (that grow ripe in July! July!, as the fruit farmer told us the other day) that she wanted to turn into applesauce. And she'd never canned before. I, however, grew up canning from a very young age. My mother loved to can -- jelly, jam, applesauce, roasted tomato sauce, and her very special brandied peaches. After initially telling Karen that wasn't a good never done activity, it occurred to me that I have never taught someone to can, and that it was actually a perfect never done activity.

She had just done a gorgeous job teaching me how to put in a zipper (and sew the hard parts of a skirt) so I wanted to do as good a job with the canning. The thing is -- canning up a bunch of peaches is WAY easier than sewing a skirt. At least it is if you 1) are teaching an already excellent cook, and 2) are using time as one measure of difficulty. (It took much of two days to make a skirt, and it took only a couple of hours to can up some peaches.) On the other hand, canning has high stakes. The whole point of canning is to prevent bacteria from growing in your food. To that end, you sterilize your canning jars in boiling water for 10 minutes, and your aluminum lids and rings for five. You don't touch anything with your hands -- but use tongs instead. You leave a 1/2-inch gap between the top of whatever you're canning and the top of the jar, so that as the food cools down, there's some air in there to help create the vacuum that will create the seal that will prevent botulism from getting in there and growing. High stakes! But actually really quite easy.

I think I did a good job teaching her. I tried to explain what we were going to do in advance, and why. And I let her do everything herself, instead of me showing her, until the very end, when I wanted to show her how to put the lid on without touching it (to prevent germs) and also how tight to tighten it. And when we ran out of brandy (because we hadn't bought enough) I consulted with her and we put Grand Marnier into a few jars, which will probably taste excellent.
She's in the kitchen right now canning applesauce, so I'll find out pretty quickly how well I actually did. In the meantime, the peaches look gorgeous:

I installed a zipper

Never Done: I installed a zipper (and almost finished making a skirt)

When Karen invited me to visit her in Michiana, she sent me a long list of things we could do that I've never before done. She knew what I'd never before done because she has known me since 1977, and also because she had just recently read one of my blog posts in which I posted a long list of things I'd still never done. One of which was sew undies out of t-shirts. I have still not sewn undies out of t-shirts, but Karen brought a book called Generation T: 120 Ways to Transform a T-shirt, along with a pile of fabric, and not one but TWO sewing machines.

I brought along three pieces of fabric I wanted to make things with, as well as the two pairs of hand-made undies (made from T-shirts) I bought from Etsy. The first thing I decided to do was a skirt. I had brought a large shirt that I had picked up at Brooks and Jeannie's annual New Year's Day clothing exchange. It had been Jewel's, and as soon as I saw it, I thought the fabric would make a very cute skirt. I even asked Jewel if she would mind if I took the shirt in order to transform it, and she loved the idea. So I deconstructed it, and laid out the fabric, and realized I would need some additional contrasting fabric in order to make a skirt. Karen also wanted to make something, so we headed into town to a fabric store, where I looked for contrasting fabrics to pair with my original.

Somewhere along the way, I found a fabric called French Country, which was line-drawn roosters on a cream background. And as I built this fabric into my others, it started to grab the focus, and before I knew it, I had to admit that my original fabric no longer fit into the world dominated by French Country. On the other hand, French Country was fantastic, and so were the fabrics we were finding to go with it.

I am often surprised that there is not a mide (middah) about dettachment, as there would most certainly be in a Buddhist ethical practice. (Here's a reminder list of the mides (middot). Maybe detachment is a combination of Order, Equanimity, and Patience?)

Humility: seek wisdom from everybody
Patience: Do not aggravate a situation with wasted grief
Equanimity: Rise above events that are inconsequential
Truth: Say nothing unless you are 100% sure it is true
Decisiveness: When you have made a decision, act without hesitation
Cleanliness: Let no stain or ugliness on our self/space
Order: All actions and possessions should have a set place and time
Righteousness: What is hateful to you do not do to others
Frugality: Be careful with your money
Diligence: Always find something to do
Silence: Reflect before speaking
Calmness: Words of the wise are stated gently
Separation: Respect in sexual and intimate relationships

In any event, I was able to let go of my original fabric, and to go in a new direction. And Karen and I picked up matching thread and invisible zippers, and headed back to start sewing. I've never actually made a skirt before, and I've definitely never put in a zipper before. On the other hand, I can cut out patterns, and I can pin things together, and I can sew a nice straight line, and I have made a couple lovely garments and hand bags. But I've never sewn a skirt, and I've never installed a zipper. Karen assured me she would help, and that it would be easy.

OK, so one out of two ain't bad. There is no question that she helped. She read instructions in three places -- the skirt directions, the sewing machine directions, and the directions on the zipper itself. She looked at my skirt panels and tried to figure out how to make sense of the directions with the reality of the pattern. And when we both got confused (because installing an invisible zipper is really not easy) she grabbed another one and installed it in some scrap material so she could help some more. All the while, she was incredibly careful to leave the actual zipper installation to me, because she understands the balance between helping someone and taking over someone's project. (It also bears mentioning that she was simultaneously working on her own project, which she extremely patiently stepped away from whenever I encountered a roadblock.)

As I write about this, I'm struck with how being both an ethical teacher and student require patience, equanimity, humility, order, diligence, silence and calmness. Were there times she showed me something I already knew? Absolutely. Were there times I forgot what she had just showed me? You bet. Did I want to finish the entire skirt in one day? Absolutely. Did I also want to take a long bike ride along the shores of Lake Michigan? You bet. And so we did both (what a fabulous bike ride!) and we went for a swim in the lake, and Karen worked on her other projects while she helped me, and we stopped and made corn pudding for dinner, and by the end of the day, I had in fact installed an invisible zipper, and I had made 9/10 of a skirt. All that's left is to put on the waste-band interfacing, to adjust the side seams (because at the moment the skirt is too large for me) and to trim up the hem.

Here are two photos of the skirt in progress. First the back (can you see the zipper? Well, yes, you can a little bit there at the bottom, but I'm going to fix that part by the time I wear it.)



Then the front:



Next time you see it, hopefully I'll be wearing it.

I ate a Sugar Pear

Never Done: I ate a Sugar Pear

My first morning in Michiana was a little cool -- and by a little cool, I mean perfect. Not 90 degrees, and not 80 degrees, and not even 70. High 60s, still summer, sun shining, breeze coming off the lake -- heaven. Karen is a very good sewer (that looks nasty; I mean seamstress) who knew I wanted to make undies out of t-shirts and do other sewing projects while I'm here. So after a hot drink and a little magazine time (Vanity Fair's coverage of the phone tapping hoohah) I set out to start one of my projects. (I just realized though that if I write too much about it, I won't have what to write tomorrow, because that is a two-day project that once complete will be a Never Done. So suffice it to say that at some point in the morning, we got to go out to a fabric store.)

On the way home, Karen wanted to stop by her favorite fruit stand to buy white peaches so we could buy peaches for another Never Done project I'll also eventually be writing about. Driving through the Michigan City area -- in and out of Michigan and Indiana -- is alternately depressing and breathtaking. The commercialism is either depressed or empty: discount cigarettes, thrift shops, vacant strip malls. But the country side is verdant and lovely -- fields and trees and corn, and of course Lake Michigan. So we drove out to the fruit stand through fields and scattered farms, and finally pulled into someone's driveway. I could see where the fruit was, but it turned out to be just in a ragged garage. And in the ragged garage was a ragged cat and a small (at first glance, ragged) assortment of peaches, pears, apples, zucchini and one eggplant. And an elderly woman -- the farmer -- helping another customer.

Eventually it was our turn, and Karen started to ask what she wanted -- do you have any transparent apples left? The emphatic answer came back -- July! July 15! And she took a peach and split it in two, and offered it to us as if to say, we eat peaches in August, please no more talk about apples. We chose our peaches, and she told us about her good-for-nothing nephew who was supposed to come over and pick blackberries, but he went fishing instead. I pictured a 35-year-old man, but no -- the offender is merely 14. You see, I have rheumatoid arthritis, and she can't pick anymore. But here -- and she took a small green pear from a box labeled Sugar Pears and handed it to Karen to eat. Some people like them hard, and some people like them softer. And when she handed Karen a softer one, Karen gave me the rest of the hard.

Now, I always thought Sugar Pears were Seckels, but this wasn't a Seckel, Unless it's a variety I don't know about, and she does, in fact, specialize in heirloom varieties. What it was? The most delicious pear I have ever tasted in m life. I asked the woman about it, and she told me the tree is over 100 years old -- her most prolific tree. When she told me about her tree, I was filled with a sense of peace on her behalf. She might be old, her joints might hurt, her nephew might not come around as often as she wants, but she's on her land and she knows every one of her trees as well as she knows this one. Murdoch is tapping phones for tabloid fodder, the stock market is crashing, and London is burning, but it's August, and the white peaches and sugar pears are in.

I swam in Lake Michigan

Never Done: I swam in Lake Michigan

Some days you wake up in Brooklyn, and end up -- with the help of financial resources, aviation technology, and the generosity of good friends -- jumping waves in Lake Michigan.

I assume I am not covering new territory for most of you here, but Lake Michigan is not salty. And it's vast like an ocean. And it's not salty. How do I explain this? I didn't think it was salty. In fact, I knew it was not salty. But when you have never been in a lake as vast as an ocean, and you have never been in a lake with swells and waves and seagulls undertows and riptides and miles and miles of sandy beach, then your head tells you -- against what your head actually knows -- that it should smell salty, that it should taste salty, that it should be salty. But it's not salty. It's fresh water. It's so much fresh water that along with the other Great Lakes, it makes up 21% of the fresh water on the planet. (That's something I did not know.)

Also, Lake Michigan seems (to me) lovely and clean. It must be at least fairly clean, because it's the source for Chicago's drinking water. Floating and jumping in the lake, it was hard not to contrast it with the last water I was in -- the Hudson River. I don't actually think I've ever swum in water that I could tell was dirty like the Hudson was dirty. The contrast between that water and Lake Michigan water got me thinking about one of the Mussar principles: Cleanliness: Let no stain or ugliness on our self/space.

I think, if I am honest, I feel powerless to clean up the Hudson. I'm not even sure what I contribute to its condition -- except maybe living in New York City. But even then, I live in Brooklyn, not on the Hudson at all. So I don't actually know if I contribute. Is my waste water processed at the Harlem Waste Water Treatment Plant (where there was a recent sewage leak)? I doubt it -- it seems more likely that Brooklyn waste water is treated somewhere in Brooklyn -- maybe on the East River. (Just about now I have a strong urge to Google this, but I feel like the more ethical approach to this post is to be honest about my ignorance.) Certainly, if there were legislation or a petition or a community clean-up effort -- anything public that I heard about -- I could call my legislators or sign or participate. But the truth is, I don't hear about anything. If I would go looking, the first place I would look would be Clearwater. And I bet that if I lived upstate, I would be involved. So what is it about living in the city that makes me feel less power, ownership, responsibility, and connection to the river? And what is it about Lake Michigan that makes me feel immediately connected to and responsible for it?

The only answer I have is the same old answer I always have -- that I am essentially a country person, and I instinctively grok how things get done in rural areas, and am intimidated by how things get done in urban areas. But it's also possible that there is something particularly special about Lake Michigan that makes me feel so connected to it. Hmmm. I'm not sure. I think it requires further research. I'll be back in a few hours....

I got up and went to work the day after doing an Olympic-length triathlon

Never Done: I got up and went to work the day after doing an Olympic-length triathlon

Is that too much of a cheat? How about I got fasting blood work done the morning after doing an Olympic-length triathlon? How about I returned the bike I borrowed for the Olympic-length triathlon? How about I typed "Olympic-length triathlon" five times in under a minute?

It was a lovely day. I enjoyed the aftermath of the triathlon. I am just a little bit sore -- not as sore as after many much less strenuous endeavors. One person at work said that it will probably hit me tomorrow. Everyone else was duly supportive and encouraging. I thought I was going to want to completely crash afterwards, but I found it quite pleasurable to just be normal today -- and to enjoy my body in a resting state. Not a lethargic state -- I was actually quite energized.

There is a school of drama theory that says that contrast is at the heart of drama, and I think what was lovely about today was that it could only have been so enjoyable in contrast with yesterday. Which is to say that I don't think I an the kind of person who has an every-day appreciation for "normal" days -- and I think one of the great things about doing something so remarkably big is that it allows me to appreciate what comes after. Even the act of blogging (which I do every day now and sometimes feel is a burden on my already-full days feels) was a welcome routine. But not one I am going to extend beyond this word.

I completed an Olympic length triathlon

Never Done: I completed an Olympic length triathlon (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run)

I thought I was going to title this post, "A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again" with apologies to David Foster Wallace, but, surprisingly, there were a few fun parts about the triathlon. I liked the most of the biking, with a few notable highlights. (I'll get to them in a bit.) And I loved seeing my friends cheer me on. And I laughed once when I was going up the biggest, longest hill in Central Park, because one of the Manhattan coaches made a joke about me being from Brooklyn. Maybe that wasn't exactly fun, but it was nice to be remembered.

Most of all though, the big takeaway (lesson learned, growth, positive outcome) of this entire endeavor is that I finally finally finally learned that you can't measure six months of success based on one day's performance. I am such a competitive person that it took something very big (and at times arduous) to teach me this lesson. As I told a friend recently, if I think all my hard work is only of value if I perform a certain way on the day of the race, then I'm seriously fucked. This is one of those lessons that I knew intellectually but really needed to live through to completely internalize. And here's how it went.

The swim was tough. The race was delayed by about 30 minutes because a car flipped at 158th Street and spilled oil everywhere, and they had to clear it before we could start. When we got into the water (at 96th Street) it was extremely choppy, on top of sizable swells. I did fine -- swam the 1.5 K in 21 minutes (with an assist from the current) but I did swallow one big mouthful of nasty Hudson water, and I also just endured the swim -- I didn't enjoy the swim. I did like the very end, when an impressive team of people literally lifted me (and all the swimmers) up the steep ramp and out of the water.

It was raining when I got on the bike -- and for most of my ride. Our coaches told us it would slow us down -- that it should slow us down, because we should ride with caution -- but somehow I rode about 10 minutes faster than I had predicted I would. As I went past Inwood Park, I got to think about my dad, who grew up there, and ran in that park as a teenager and young adult. As I went over the Henry Hudson Bridge, I got to look right at the apartment building Josh grew up in, and I yelled out my greetings to his mom, even though she doesn't live there anymore. We rode from 72nd Street up the West Side Highway to Moshulu Parkway, where we turned around and rode down to 56th Street, and back up to 72nd. I remembered to end the bike ride with an easy spin, to get my legs ready to run, but still -- as soon as I started to run, my left calf started to cramp up.

This didn't come as a surprise, but it was a disappointment. I had stretched it and stretched it, gotten a massage the day before that focused mostly on my left leg, I was drinking lots of electrolyte drink. In other words, I was doing everything I could do -- but that reconfigured leg (8 knee surgeries) was just not happy to get off a long bike ride and start running. This is the part where the lesson comes in. I had not enjoyed the swim, but I had rocked it. I had also rocked the bike ride. And now I had to stop every 2-3 minutes to stretch my left calf muscle, while encouraging people yelled things like, "You're looking good! Almost done!" (No I'm not. I have completed about .2 miles of a 6.2 mile run.) But instead of moping -- or quitting -- I just gave myself permission to stop and stretch it as often as I needed to, and to walk up the hills, and run down the hills and on the flats, and to try my best to relax. And you know what? At about mile 4, it started to release. It wasn't perfect, but it was better. And just about the same time, I noticed that I might be able to make it in under 4 hours. At first I tried to talk myself out of any attachment to any measurable results, but by then the sun was out, and it was hot, and I was almost completely spent -- so I allowed myself a little comfortable competitiveness -- as an incentive for the final 20 minutes. And so I pushed the final 2 miles, and finished strong, and finished depleted, and finished in 3 hours and 48 minutes.

And I knew that wasn't the point. Because if it had taken me 4 hours and 22 minutes, I would have still worked as hard and learned as much. And the honest truth is -- more than the physical accomplishment, I am proud of (finally) internalizing this value.