10 People I Wish Were Still Alive

So I was in the car last night listening to the radio and I realized how much I truly miss Freddy Mercury. I know that may sound odd--I'm totally okay with that--but I was really touched by his music when I was young.

So it got me to thinking about the people that I miss. I'm not going to do all 10 at once because I'm really not sure who they all are yet. But I know who a few of them are.

So without further ado!

Number 1--Obviously, since this is a knitting blog, Elizabeth Zimmerman. But even more than the knitting thing, I just loved her. I was in fourth grade when I got my copy of Knitting Without Tears. I don't know if it was given to me or to my mom or to my grandmother or really where it came from but it was in the house one day and I fell truly, madly and deeply in love. I wanted to learn how to knit so badly but knitting with the yarn in my right hand is so odd and awkward to me. She was the first grown up that ever said to me--do it the way that it feels good to you. I was nine years old and some stranger who had written a knitting book completely set a course for me. I never had to do things the way other people did just for the sake of being the same again. And I think it has made my life oh so very interesting.

She was also the first person who I ever read (and I was and still am an avid reader) who wrote like they spoke. I've noticed that there are certain words that people use when they are either a: writing or b: not a native English speaker. Perhaps is one of them. Most people don't speak the word perhaps. Anyway, it was the first time I actually heard a voice in my mind while I was reading. This woman was in my fourth grade classroom with me chatting away.

Poetry is meant to be spoken and because of Elizabeth Zimmerman I was able to hear the voice of the writer the first time I read real poetry. Imagine that.

I still have my copy of Knitting Without Tears. As I said, I don't know how it got into my hands but I know that I claimed it immediately.

I wrote my name in it in my fourth-grade-just-learned-script handwriting and I cherish it to this day.