Donna Druchunas's Blog

Well, good morning! My trip is winding down. Today is the last day of lectures at the Jewish Lithuania Seminar, I have just the weekend left here, and then I fly home on Monday morning. Yesterday I organized my things, to make sure everything would fit in my one carry-on bag, and packed up a small box to mail home. All that's left to do now, officially, is attend 2 lectures today, go to the post office tomorrow, check out of the hotel, and get to the airport early on Monday. My flight leaves at 6:55 am.

There are still a few things I'd like to do over the weekend, though. First, I want to go to the Kalvarijų Turgus (market)-like a giant swap meet or flea market in the US-and look for old knitting books. I'm going to do a yarn store crawl tomorrow with a new friend I met at a knitting coffee on Wednesday. There are a few textile galleries I haven't made it to yet. And I'm having dinner with friends from Minsk on Sunday night. Seems like just enough to wrap up a wonderful trip.

Yesterday I went to the Tamošaičiai Gallery "Židinys" (Hearth) again, to find out more information and to take some photos. I'm writing a piece about Antanas and Anastazija Tamošaičiai for Piecework. Here are a few photos for you to enjoy. You can read more about the gallery and the two artists when my article comes out!

So much going on, and no time or inclination to blog! I have not been taking photos either. Is this good or bad? It just is. I have found myself wondering, however, how some authors manage to take so many notes when they travel and still actually have the time to live and feel the place. I would rather have the experiences than be taking notes all the time. Walking around with a notebook seems to take me out of the present. I read-and loved-Oliver Sacks's Oaxaca Journal, but his relationship to his journal and his experience of travel is so different than my own! I have at times thought this is because he travels alone and I usually travel with Dom. But even on these recent solitary trips, I find myself much less inclined to be putting words on the page than Sacks does. And maybe I'm not so much traveling, as being in a new place; I am definitely not a tourist.

There is a quality to my time here that I cannot put words to. It's quite different than anything I've experienced before. Maybe one day I will figure out what it is. Until then, I will just enjoy the feeling. Sometimes I think I will try to write about it, to figure out what I think. I am often surprised by what comes out of my pen. But whenever I try, it seems that I am not ready yet. The experience is still to fresh and raw to be nailed down on the page. I am busy living.

The most interesting part, from a writing perspective, is that I have no idea what I will be working on after I turn in the manuscript for the Lithuanian knitting book this fall. For the past 5 or 6 years, I have always known exactly what will be next. Not so now. I have ideas that are appealing, but nothing has jumped up and bitten me in the jugular yet. It is frustrating and exciting. Is this one of my periodic transitions? I have been sensing one coming on for a couple of years. But I'm not sure yet. I will continue to live and see what happens.

Sorry I'm not blogging much here. Having a great time, very busy, also wiped out. Fell asleep at 7 last night and missed a poetry reading at my favorite bar. Went to attend a lecture at 10 this morning, it was rescheduled, got caught in a downpour on the way back, washed my soggy clothes, and now can't get moving. Good thing I am set to meet a friend at 2 or I might just go back to bed. Also need to buy a few things and pack for the weekend, but not very inspired to get out in the rain again.

I want that to be the title of a future book. Isn't it great?

I love summer in Vilnius. I don't know if I would love winter. Although I do enjoy snow and cold weather, the darkness of the northern latitude combined with frequent overcast skies might overpower my happy pills, particularly since I've spent the last two decades living where the sun shines more than three hundred days each year.

I've been working on my book and writing in my journal the last few days, so I haven't been blogging. But I have been spending a lot of time writing at Sereikiškių Parkas. According to the Vilnius In Your Pocket guide, this is "the oldest park in Vilnius, its origins date back to the 15th century when it belonged to Bernardine monks." (My hotel is on Bernardinių gatve, or Bernardine's street, just around the corner and down the block from the park.) "From the 18th to mid-19th centuries the University Botanical Gardens were located here. Today it's extremely popular with young lovers and is a pleasant place to stroll any time of the year."

Below are some photos that I took at the park yesterday. What's not in the photos? A grown man wearing underpants as a bathing suit and a woman walking a cat on a leash. Sorry. Didn't want to embarrass myself by taking those photos.

I want to live in two places: the US and Lithuania. It is possible with my work, both my "day" job and my writing/knitting career.

Suggest a job for Dom that would allow him to spend summers in Lithuania. Winner (Dom selects the winning suggestion) gets a signed copy of all of my books. Put your suggestion in the comments to this post.

I wanted to love Lithuania but I really didn't after my first visit. I do now. It grows on you. Today was amazing.

This morning I got up late, had my breakfast and went out to walk around the city center. I like Gedimino Prospectus better than Pilies Gatve. Pilies goes through the center of Old Town, which is quite beautiful and full of restaurants and tourist shops and a little market where you can buy amber, wool and linen items, paintings, and lots of other touristy stuff. The architecture is amazing and the street is traffic-free (mostly). Plus there's free wifi everywhere. Gedimino is a wide boulevard with lots of shopping and restaurants and traffic. I'm not really a shopper, but I just love this street. The openness feels good to me. Maybe just because I'm used to all the bigness in America. I also think it is frequented by more locals and fewer tourists than the Old Town streets, but that could just be wishful thinking. So the morning was relaxing, I grabbed an iced latte (a new product here!) and sat in the sun for a while writing.

At lunch, the day got really interesting. I went by the University to look for my friend Monika from Amsterdam, whom I met at the language classes last year. Monika and I went out to lunch, and then I crashed the afternoon lecture with her.

I'd been trying to get in touch with the lecturer from a session last year where we heard about Lithuanian folk songs and stories, many of which feature textile topics such as spinning, weaving, wool and linen processing, and more. I ended up attending the same lecture today! It was wonderful, and even better than what I remember from last year. I spoke with Saulė, the instructor, after the class and we arranged to get together next week so she can help me get started researching textiles in Lithuanian folklore. I wish I'd gotten started on that last year, but late is better than never.

We also saw part of this DVD:

Lino Laikas (Linen Times)
In this syncretic audio/visual production, we wanted to reval the creative principles common to ancient art - the sutartinės and ancient textiles: certain genuine segments recurring in both art forms (musical and flax weaving), creation from scraps elements - strictly symmetrical structure, the cyclical nature of time, and so on. Many of these things are universal, recognised in numerous ancient cultures and recurring in modern art. The form chosen for "The Linen Times" can include certain rituals, creation occurring now, in the present. In gathering certain "linen songs" and preparing certain textile patterns, we create a harmoniuos world out of chaos.

OK, so maybe you can't tell much from the description! It's a music CD with traditional Lithuania dainos (songs) about flax and linen -- about farming and harvesting and processing the fiber and spinning and weaving. (I don't think there are any songs about knitting.) The music is accompanied by antique photos of traditional fiber processing and other photos of many different textile patterns. I am definitely buying a copy. It's expensive here, at about 100 Litų, which comes to only about $40. Saulė said we can talk more next week and perhaps go to the publisher together to see if I can get a copy at a discount. If I get a copy, I will be sure to post a few pictures.

At 5pm I got a text from another friend who wanted to have coffee. We talked about how to set up a business to import yarn from Lithuanian Black Faced sheep into the USA, and then went to have a margarita at the new Mexican restaurant in town, owned by our friend Jose.

On top of all that, I got invited to a wedding next weekend! I'm not sure if I'll actually be able to go, but I really would love to. Suddenly my simple trip has gotten complicated. But I'm definitely not complaining! And the course I'm actually here for does not even start until Monday.

I'm in Vilnius now, planning the next three days because my conference doesn't start until Monday. I had a fantastic time in England (as you can no-doubt tell from the photos and blog posts) but I'm happy to have a few days to myself. I may get together with some friends for drinks, but other than that, I am on my own in one of my favorite places. (It would be even better if Dom were here, but alas he has to go to work.) I also plan to work on the knitted lace gloves I have on the needles, more translations of Lithuanian knitting instructions, and visit the Anastazija and Antanas Tamošaitis gallery.

But, before we move on to the happenings in Vilnius, here are a few glimpses of my last day in England. June and I left the lake district in the morning and headed down toward Halifax through Yorkshire. On the way to Halifax, we stopped and had tea with one of June's friends here:


Then we visited The Museum of North Craven Life, The Folly, Settle, Yorkshire. The museum was hosting an exhibit by Kate Lynch featuring her paintings of sheep and wool. They let me take photos, but I'm not allowed to publish them, so I can't share them with you. But, you can see some of the pictures on the artist's website.

After a picnic lunch we ended up at our real destination for the day, the Bankfield Museum, to view the Edith Durham exhibit. The pieces on display were completely amazing. Here are two knitted items, with descriptions (sorry about the reflections in the glass):



There is a lot more in the archives, and I'm dying to come back again so I can spend time examining everything. The person we spoke to at the museum said that the "best" pieces were on display. But best probably means undamaged or most elaborate, the best from a product perspective. Not necessarily the most interesting from a textile or fiber arts perspective, not from a process perspective. I plan to learn a lot more about Edith Durham's life and work. Maybe it will turn into a book or some other project, and maybe it will just be to satisfy my own curiosity. Either way, the work will definitely be worth the effort. I can already tell.

June went to bed early and I had a wonderful time talking to Vivian and Peter, June's sister and brother-in-law. And I stayed up much too late. Fortunately, I can always sleep on planes, so I got about a 2 hour nap on the way here this morning. And I'm taking it easy today. Just checked into Litinterp, found some food, took a walk through the Old Town, and am doing some work and lounging in my room.

If I ever complain about my life or my work, please shoot me.

Two more days in England! Today, mostly working after spending the morning at a knitting tea at the Bluebell Bookshop in Penrith, and tomorrow, with any luck, seeing the Balkan textile collection at the Bankfield Museum in Halifax.

It's been a wonderful retreat. I'm thinking of my trip in three phases: 1) Teaching at Woolfest and in Geneva, 2) retreat in Cumbria and 3) conference & retreat in Vilnius. So phase two is coming to an end.

Phases 2 and 3 will be very different kinds of retreats. Here in Cumbria I've had a lot of time to enjoy June's house and landscape, to get some great glimpses of the countryside as we've been driving around to do our errands, work at the Wool Clip shop, go to the pool for a swim, and so forth, and work on translating Lithuanian knitting instructions. Yesterday we did one of my favorite things in the universe -- we went raspberry picking!

The only thing better than picking fresh raspberries is picking wild berries in the woods! But our excursion yesterday did not seem like settling for second best. So many of the things we love most in life are the things that remind us of happy childhood memories, aren't they? Yesterday I thought of walking through the woods in Peconic, NY, with teenage friends, looking for the wild berries that grew just off the path. Living in Colorado I miss the water and the woods. The trees we have are just not the same, the wooded areas don't have the same feeling as the woods where I grew up. The woods here in England and the forests in Lithuania bring back many more childhood memories for me.

One afternoon June and I went through her personal collection of Lithuanian knitted accessories. I found these two interesting pairs of mittens (three pairs, actually, two designs). Both of these are made with some very interesting techniques, and I'll be including patterns for similar projects in the book, along with notes on the techniques used. For now, enjoy the photos!



More about the Lithuania conference & retreat when I get there!

And, to close today's rambling post, here are some photos from our Sunday walk in the English countryside, after a quiet morning at the Quaker meeting house (which does have windows in the back and roof, Deb).

Again I was tempted to type up my musings and post them on the blog, and again I've decided that I don't want to. These thoughts need more incubation. Just as last year, on this trip I've been thinking a lot about process, in no small part because of an essay in Black Lambs & Gray Falcons that quotes Rebecca West's Black Lamb & Gray Falcon. I'll just give a brief quote here, without elaboration. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, however!

(Gerda is a woman who was traveling with West & her husband.)

Gerda has no sense of process. That is what is the matter with Gerda. She wants the result without doing any of the work that goes to make it. She wants to enjoy the position of a wife without going to the trouble of making a real marriage, without admiring her husband for his good qualities, without practising loyal discretion regarding his bad qualities, without respecting those of his gods which are not hers. She wants to enjoy motherhood without taking care of her children, without training them in good manners or giving them a calm atmosphere. She wants to be our friend, to be so close to us in friendship that we will ask her to travel around the country with us, but she does not make the slightest effort to like us, or even to conceal that she dislikes us. She is angry when you are paid such little respect as comes your way because you are a well-known writer, she feels it ought to come to her also, though she has never written any books. She is angry because we have some money. She feels that it might just as well belong to her. That our possession of this money has something to do with my work in the City and my family's work in Burma never occurs to her. For her the money might as easily have been attached to her as to us by a movement as simple as that which pastes a label on a trunk. As she has no sense of what goes to bring people love, or friendship, or distinction, or wealth, it seems to her that the whole world is enjoying undeserved benefits; and in a universe where all is arbitrary it might just as well happen that the injustice was pushed a little further and that all these benefits were taken from other people, leaving them nothing, and transferred to her, giving her everything...

It seems to me that [this type of thinking] appears whenever people are subject to two conditions. The first condition is that they should have lost sight of the importance of process: that they have forgotten that everything which is not natural is artificial and that artifice is painful and difficult; that they should be able to look at a loaf of bread and not realize that miracles of endurance and ingenuity had to be performed before the wheat grew, and the mill ground, and the oven baked. This condition can be brought about by several causes: one is successful imperialism, where the conquering people has the loaf built for them from the wheat ear up by its conquered subjects; another is modern machine civilization, where a small but influential proportion of the population lives in towns in such artificial conditions that the loaf comes to them in a cellophane wrapper with its origins as unvisualised as the begetting and birth of a friend's baby. The other condition is that people would have acquired a terror of losing the results of process, which are all they know about; they must be afraid that everything artificial is going to disappear, and they are going to be thrown back on the natural; they must foresee with a shudder a day when there will be no miraculous loaf born in its virginity of cellophane, and they will have to eat grass...

So, now the pictures. This is where I took a walk yesterday, leaving from the Wool Clip shop in Priests Mill, Caldbeck, Cumbria and walking along the river. Enjoy!


By the river in Caldbeck


Another river scene




Ruins of the Howk, an old bobbin-making mill

You never know what will lead to the next interest, do you? I love following the trail of breadcrumbs to see where it leads. Last week I mentioned to June that in the future -- probably over a period of decades -- I want to visit more countries in Eastern Europe, especially those that are not in the EU, and learn about the people, culture, and textiles. June disappeared upstairs and when I went to bed that night I found the book Black Lambs & Gray Falcons: Women Travellers in the Balkans sitting on my bed.

What a wonderful collection of essays! I immediately looked for a copy on bookfinder.com and have already ordered it, so it will be waiting for me when I get home. But I've started reading while I'm here (of course!). So far my favorite essay is about Mary Edith Durham, a British woman who travelled extensively in the Balkans, and who became particularly attracted to Albania, during the early 20th century. During her travels, she collected traditional clothing and accessories in Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Dalmatia, and Albania. She bought some of the items and received many others as gifts, and kept scrupulous notes about each of the garments that came into her possession.

Since 1935 Durham's collection of textiles has been housed in the Bankfield Museum in Halifax, about 2 hours from here. So, I'm going to leave Cumbria a day earlier than expected, and spend some time visiting this museum on my way back down toward the Liverpool airport. How exciting! I believe most of Durham's items are in the archives, but for this trip I'll have to just visit the public exhibitions. You can bet that I'll be back again to look into this further. I'm afraid to think that this might turn into a future book. If that happens, I will also have to visit several other sites where Durham's papers are housed.

Writer beware! A writing retreat may help get one project finished, but you never know when it will spur you on to what may be next.

OK, it's the Wednesday of my retreat, speaking figuratively. I'm ready to go home. Uno is ready for me to come home. He sent me this email today:

Where are you?
I have to sleep in grandma's bed cause you're not here. : (

So, why am I doing this retreat anyway? It's a good time to remind myself. It's not that I'm actually doing anything different than I do at home. I guess I always honor my writing. That is, I write. I make my deadlines. I get things published. It's much more mundane and much less romantic than people imagine. Even writers dream of some glorified "writing life" but it all comes down to getting words onto the page in the middle of so many other tasks and obligations.

But on a retreat I also give myself time to relax and reflect, and to refill the creative well. I find more time to scribble in a notebook, look at beautiful things, read without an agenda or purpose, and even buy gifts for myself. On a retreat I am not as hard on myself as I am at home. I work but I don't feel guilty about the time spent pampering myself. Can I ever hope to make this my normal modus operandi?

What is it with guilt anyway? I get so much done. I don't punch a clock, but why should it matter? Ever since I quit the day job -- the one that tied me down in a cubicle, made me work regular hours, and forced me to commute in traffic -- I have been unable to find a fixed schedule that works for me. Now, finally, I have given up trying.

I always want to work a lot. I love my work. I don't have to force myself to work when the clock says it is time to work. So I let myself work whenever the urge strikes. It strikes often enough that I get things done. I like being free from the clock. I eat when I am hungry. I drink when I am thirsty. I write when I need to feel the pen skating across the page, when words are tumbling around in my head. I do what I need to do at any given moment.

I don't much believe in self discipline. I believe in following my passions and desires and letting them lead me. And, by the way, daydreaming is as important as anything else.

Enjoy the day!

I'm tempted to post some of what I've been writing on my blog, but I'm saving it for my book. Sorry.

I've also been knitting, but just swatching and testing out translated technique instructions, so no photos to post.

I've taken it pretty slow this week but have made a day-to-day plan for the rest of my time in England to make sure I accomplish the goals I made for myself.

Still, I'm going here tonight.

Not much to add today. Went swimming. (They let me in the over-50 group again without any questions. Damn!) Had a picnic lunch. Now working: bookkeeping, contracts, knitting, translating Lithuanian knitting instructions, and so forth. Making eggplant parmigiana for dinner with fresh sauce. Picked up most of the ingredients at little shops in Appleby this morning. Going to work at a bookstore tomorrow afternoon and out to the theater tomorrow night. Very restful writing retreat, and getting a lot done, plus some interesting side trips and sight seeing.

Well, does this look like an old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration or what? June and I spent the day at a wonderful local agricultural gathering. It had everything from livestock to carnival games to rural crafts for sale, food and drink, a car/tractor/motorcycle show, and acrobats.



June is chariman of the Cumbrian chapter of the Rare Breeds group. She brought her spinning wheel to the event and we spun and knit (my wheel did not fit in the overhead compartment of the plane so I left it home), and talked to people about fiber arts and sheep. We also walked around a few times and saw what everyone else was doing. And we took a special break to watch the terrier races at the end of the day (yes you read that right, it was hysterical.)



How could I tell I was not in America? No cowboys and the wrong flag! LOL.



What was missing? Fireworks. But it ended at 5pm so it wasn't dark out anyway.

Sorry but I'm not writing much today. Enjoy the photos!

1) Visiting the Wool Clip shop. This shop is run by a cooperative of 15 women who live in Cumbria. They all own sheep or angora goats and they design and make the items to sell in the shop. (They also sell yarn and fiber but I didn't take any pictures of those products.)



2) Picnic lunch at a Quaker meeting house that was built in 1720.



3) Visit to a Shetland sheep farm. I learned a lot about Shetland sheep that I hadn't known, although Shetland is one of my favorite types of wool yarn. Fun! These sheep are over due for giving up their wool!

I like to have a plan for a writing retreat. It may be something as simple as "write every day" when I'm just trying to give myself more space to explore creativity or to mine my subconscious for ideas. But on this retreat, I want to get the bulk of a book finished. The retreat is 2 parts: 1) In England, with my co-author and 2) In Lithuania.

Here's the initial plan:

1-Finish writing all of the knitting sections for the book. I have a good outline and a rough draft of most of the material, but it needs to be revised for the type of book I want this to be. Still, I think more than half of the work is done

2-Get half of the patterns written and to the knitters. I think I've whittled it down to a manageable 19 projects. But I may have to readjust and add a few more sock designs and take out a few mittens. We'll see.

3-Have the history section outlined and ready to fill in while I'm in Lithuania. I want to write it while I'm there because it's the 1000 year anniversary of Lithuania this summer and I think being there at this time will bring up some interesting ideas, and will make the chapter on history more lively.

4-Get a good feeling for where my co-author is with her portions of the book.

5-Review, revise, and sign the contract.

6-Nail down deadlines for finishing the writing and the projects.

7-Go over photos to see what might work for various sections of the book and to decide if we need any new photos from Lithuania.

8-Decide what maps to include.

I think that's more than enough.

June likes to write in the evenings. I usually prefer to write in the mornings or afternoons. So, during our retreat, we will do some enjoyable things in the mornings -- visit friends, go swimming or walking, exercise, do some sight seeing, and so forth.

I need to be online during my normal working hours in the US so I can work on my day job, too, so we'll come home for lunch, then work in the afternoon at the house or, perhaps, at a cafe. In addition to writing, we'll be looking over research materials and examining knitted samples in June's personal collection.

In the evenings we'll work at home, and sometimes take a night off to watch a movie and just relax.

Weekends we will make up as we go.

I think giving yourself time to think, exercise, and relax during a writing retreat is just as important as blocking out time to write. In a way, a writing retreat is a way to honor your writing and your life as an artist in addition to just getting practical work done. It's a reminder that some things are more important than money and that the process is at least as important as the end product.

My only worry is that June does not know how to slow down. We need to spend a lot of time writing. So I hope by giving ourselves the mornings for other things, not related to the book, that June will be able to settle in and work for the rest of the day. She is a very active, energetic, and restless woman! Her energy level amazes me. She does know how to get serious work done, though, and she has done some major research and writing projects in the past. So I'm sure she knows her own pace and has work habits that suit her lifestyle. She wears me out though! LOL.

When I get to Lithuania, I'll also be writing in the evenings because I'm attending a conference during the day (the conference is related to another writing project that is currently on hold but not dead). But I also need time to meet with friends and hang out. Since I only have a short section to write while I'm there, viskas būs gerai (everything will be OK).

OK, ttyl. More pictures tomorrow. We went to the Wool Clip shop this morning, and to see some Shetland sheep.... later tonight we are driving Julija and Rasa all the way to Liverpool to catch a flight back to Lithuania. It's the same flight I'll be on in 2 weeks. So tomorrow morning's free time will most likely be spent sleeping.