I’ve been thinking a lot about generosity lately. How can I have more of it? Is the best kind selfless, selfish, or something in between? Is it enough to be generous with one’s nuclear family and established circle of friends, or does being a generous person require casting a wider net?

I consider myself a reasonably generous person, thanks in large part to the on-job training as a parent. The amount of day-to-day generosity required of parents extends beyond obligation. It is a deep empathy that is played out day in, day out, with few breaks. I care about my kids’ feelings. After nearly 15 years of this parenting gig, I still dedicate the lion’s share of my leisure time to going above and beyond meeting their needs: cooking them good food, listening to their worries, organizing their lives, snuggling, answering questions, cheering them on.

Extend the circle a little wider, and my desire to be present and helpful in the lives of my larger family and friends continues.

The hard part, the human part, is that it doesn’t stop there. I see what’s going on in Gaza. I hear the politicians’ dehumanizing rhetoric about migrants at the US border. My heart cries out in pain for these victims, and yet I feel powerless to fix anything despite my impulse toward generosity.

With my nuclear family, with my friends, with my neighbors, I can help. Widen the circle to the global community, and I feel like I lose my agency. 

So I’ve been wondering, is it enough to smile at a stranger? To care for my kids? To make my grandmother laugh? To teach folks how to sew?

Is it enough to write down my musings? To learn to draw? To make something beautiful? To marvel at the splendor of Spring?

In several recent conversations with dear friends, I learned that they just can’t take in the horrors of what is happening outside the US borders. These are good, kind-hearted women, and, perhaps to protect their own hearts and emotional boundaries, they are choosing to focus only on political issues that have the potential to affect their own families. 

I have compassion for this response.

I remember being in the pediatric ICU after my newborn son’s first open heart surgery. The energy required to simply be present with the suffering and stress surrounding me was all-consuming. It wasn’t until weeks later that I learned about the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I just didn’t have the bandwidth to onboard the information. 

I do think it’s ok to not always feel able to grapple with the suffering of the world. There are days when I can, and days when I just can’t. No moralizing necessary; our emotional lives are nuanced, changing, and complex.

On the days that I can widen my circle, I do read the news. I try to work on a piece of art that is an attempt to wrestle with witnessing the pain of others. I buy my high schooler an anti-war hoodie. I attend a protest. I call on my congresswoman to stop supporting the horrors of war. I remind myself that, while it is harder to see the impact, we living humans each have some ability to compel changes, even at the global scale.

On the days I can’t, I don’t check the news. I make a nourishing meal for my family. I sew something fun. I read for pleasure. I sing harmony with my daughter, who has a beautiful voice. I find humor in odd places, like the electric eraser (great for drawing animal fur!) that Patrick got me for my birthday, which I initially thought was a nose hair trimmer.

But I do think that we should practice expanding our hearts’ capacity for compassionate generosity outward, to see the humanity of the people we do not know, living in situations we struggle to understand from our lives of relative ease and comfort. And remember that you aren’t alone in the discomfort of living in this cognitive dissonance. The discomfort is a sign of the goodness of your heart.

It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society. - Krishnamurti

Suggestions for close-to-home generosity on the days you just can’t

Make this salad for yourself and your people. The perfect blend of spice, crunch, and tanginess, my oldest (who is not a salad aficionado) claimed it was the best salad he’s ever eaten. (Tip: Shred the Brussels sprouts in a food processor. If you have otherworldly knife skills, more power to you, but I do not.)

Yard work friend crews: My neighbor mentioned this brilliant idea while he was kindly trimming off some dead branches on our side of the fence. Get a group of friends together, say, four families, and one day a weekend, host a yard work day. All friends convene on one yard, the hosting family feeds everyone, and you hang out and get a bigger task, or a bunch of smaller tasks, checked. Keep rotating to different family yards until everyone gets a spruce-up day. It’s like a modern day barn raising without the barn. Although, you could probably get a chicken coop out of it! And even better, you get to hang out with friends and do purposeful work.

Enjoy this video about the process of artist Rebecca Louise Law, who uses flowers and community help to build her impressive art installations that pay homage to Nature. 

Suggestions for widening the circle of your generosity

Reading

Demon Copperhead

I’m not yet finished with this modern day retelling of Charles Dickens David Copperfield, but it hits hard as you follow the Appalachian protagonist from misfortune to misfortune. Great for opening your heart to the plight of the rural poor right here in the US. 

Solito

A stunningly beautiful memoir recounting a 9 year old boy’s difficult journey to the United States from El Salvador, following migrant trails that had been forced into the dangerous Sonoran desert by the anti-immigrant politics of the 1990s, border walls, and unrealistic limits on legal immigration. The author Javier Zamora generously offers his readers a rare chance to empathize with these hidden and brave humans who are once again being demonized by anti-immigrant demagoguery.

A Heart as Wide as the World

This is on my list. I’m currently re-reading the author’s other book, Loving-kindness, which helped me move through the aftershock of my middle son’s traumatic medical needs over a decade ago. I have a hunch that reviving my loving-kindness meditation practice might help me keep going (and being useful) in the face of man-made horrors at our southern border and across the world.

Watching

My husband and son’s video podcast: 

Patrick and Finn recorded this episode on the history of Israel and Palestine while exploring our moral obligations as witnesses (and US citizens.) Note that this was recorded at the end of December, and the scale of the suffering has only grown since then. Hopefully they’ll have a chance to record more episodes this summer, when Finn is on summer break.

Zone of Interest

Throughout this Oscar-winning film, the German commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, his family, and their visitors ignore the horrific sounds carried over the wall that separates the camp from their idyllic home and garden. It is a haunting metaphor for our too-human capacity to tune out the horrors being carried out around us as we try to enjoy and improve our lives. What are we ignoring today? (If you, like me, have a low tolerance for on-screen violence, know that the real-life horrors are kept out of frame. This is not a gory movie.)

Sarah Dyer is hosting another charity draw for Palestinians on March 29, 7 pm GMT. Proceeds go to the Gaza Skate Team.

I’d love to hear your suggestions for cultivating generosity both close to home and far away. May you find some peace in loving others this week.

He was always in that spot, every morning, his work-worn, sun-baked fingers hooked onto a humble white mug, steam rising from his coffee like a revenant from a warmer, soupier era. The grey dust which had taken up residence in the creases of his fingers told the story of his connection to the land with a dry humor characteristic of an alpine desert.

“Kwira,” he addressed me with a slight upward nod of the chin, revealing a stubby pencil stored behind his ear. His gaze was fixed beyond me, as is social custom for the indigenous Raramuri of Northern Mexico. 

“Kwira, Fer,” I responded, pausing on my way to the one room schoolhouse. Nothing was ever rush-worthy here, in a sleepy valley three hours southwest of the provincial cowboy city of Chihuahua, where machismo and cattle ranching competed with blocky concrete construction for cultural prominence. I stuffed down my American tendency to blather on at a breakneck pace and waited for his response.

So strong was my urge to fill the silence that I had to fill it in my head instead, telling myself to wait, to be patient. After three years living among the Raramuri, the slow, spacious interactions still felt deeply awkward to me.

“It’s cold,” he finally noted.

“Yep, it is,” I replied, jumping on his words like the eager American puppy that I was. “And pretty windy.”

Pause. Pause. Pause. Pause. Pause. Pause. Pause.

“But a good day for planting. We’ll see the kids at the field?” Fernando answered with an uncharacteristic string of words. 

“Yes, we’ll meet you over there in a bit.” I smiled and continued toward the school where I worked as a Montessori guide, teaching three to six year-olds everything from how to write in Spanish to how to make tortillas. 

Montessori education, implemented well, reflects the culture of the place where the children live. The school building feels like a cozy home in which children learn life skills interwoven with phonics and mathematics. Which is why, for the students in my school, it was unsurprising to be heading out on a crisp Spring morning to learn about la siembra, or planting, from Fernando - an experienced cultivator of the benevolent Three Sisters: beans, corn, and squash. 

When planted together, as they have been by indigenous North and Central American cultures for millennia, the Three Sisters support each other in many ways. The cornstalk acts as a pole for the beans to climb. The beans inject nitrogen into the soil, an essential component which provides plants with energy to grow and produce fruit. The bean vines protect the corn from destabilizing winds, while the huge, prickly squash leaves provide shade and help keep the soil moist while discouraging the growth of weeds and deterring would-be pests. 

So the plants, cultivated together, create the conditions for optimal plant growth, even in the unforgiving, high alpine desert where I lived. But they also provide nutritional benefits for humans that surpass other Eurocentric methods of farming, such as monocropping:

Nutritionally, maize, beans, and squash contain all nine essential amino acids. The protein from maize is further enhanced by protein contributions from beans and pumpkin seeds, while pumpkin flesh provides large amounts of vitamin A; with the Three Sisters, farmers harvest about the same amount of energy as from maize monoculture, but get more protein yield from the inter-planted bean and pumpkin. This largely explains the value of the Three Sisters over monoculture cropping, as the system yields large amounts of energy, and at the same time increases protein yields; this polyculture cropping system yielded more food and supported more people per hectare compared to monocultures of the individual crops. - agronomist Jane Mt. Pleasant

But there was more to the Three Sisters planting than healthy crops:

The Iroquois preferred to plant the three crops together, since it took less time and effort than planting them individually, and because they believed the plants were "guarded by three inseparable spirits and would not thrive apart.” - Mt. Pleasant

All of this got me thinking, after reading Austin Kleon’s piece, Idea Gardens, where he explores various gardening analogies for creative practice.

Austin Kleon

Idea gardens

“I work like a gardener… Things come slowly… Things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. I must graft. I must water… Ripening goes on in my mind. So I’m always working at a great many things at the same time.” —Joan Miró Hey y’all, A hard freeze down here in Texas means that the Kleon studios fill up with all of Meg’s plants. It’s like working in a garden center — absolutely delightful…

Read more

2 years ago · 194 likes · 118 comments · Austin Kleon

One that stuck out to me was the notion of creative crop rotation, whereby you cultivate a single creative “crop,” which will inevitably deplete the soil after using its energy to produce creative “fruit.” In agriculture, you can’t just plant corn in the same spot over and over again and expect a healthy crop. In creativity, the idea is that you switch from one creative pursuit to another once you’ve used up all your energy on a particular project. 

Having experienced an intense period of creative burnout in the past year, I was all ears for a way to replenish my soil.

Rather than viewing the arc of our creative practices as starting with a seed and ending with burnout, I was curious about taking inspiration from the Three Sisters. What would it look like to rotate my creative interests on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis? I wasn’t envisioning paint-while-dancing-while-knitting; the Three Sisters don’t shoot up simultaneously. They grow at different rates and provide support and protection for each other at various times in the growing season, displaying a natural give-and-take.

What would happen if I regularly cycled between my three main creative interests (which, right now, are drawing, writing, and music)? Would I lose focus? Would I feel unmoored? Would I be totally unproductive? Or would I feel like a pawn in the culture of productivity?

Like many of you, I was encouraged to specialize at a fairly young age and thought that flitting about from interest to interest was somehow “less-than”. 

THIS IS NOT TRUE. (At least for me!)

What I’ve found these past few months of cultivating my three interests at the same time is a rush of energy and creative freedom that I haven’t felt in a long time. 

It’s made it easier to begin projects. It’s made it easier to continue projects. I’ve actually been very “productive” in terms of putting in the practice. My skills in all three areas have grown, and one creative “crop” doesn’t wilt while I’m tending to the other because I don’t leave it without watering for months (or years).

Now, there’s still the need for my Three Sisters to lay dormant in a “wintering” period, a la Katherine May. I’m currently in a very Summer-like creative state, so I’ll get back to you when I feel Winter approaching. I can imagine this could look like a time of rest, of reading, of focusing solely on my family, taking a retreat, etc.

I’ll leave you with these questions:

What are your Three Sisters? How can you plant together, and watch them nourish each other - and you - simultaneously?

What if you don’t need to accept the pressure of focus, and instead allow your mind to move from one creative impulse to another, more regularly? 

What if the nutritional content of your creative output is greatly improved by the intermingling of your interests? 

What if doing all the things you love is actually easier than sticking to one, or one at a time?

Fernando handed the three seeds to one of my keen young students who was missing two front teeth. 

“Like this?” the little one asked, dropping the seeds in the grey, hungry soil. 

“Like that.” Fernando smiled.

After a long, pregnant pause, he added, “That’s how it’s always been done.”

I’d like to add the agricultural analogy of the Three Sisters to Austin’s list. Tending to various creative pursuits in tandem can result in a robust, healthy creative output, minus the expectation that after a hard push, a singular creative pursuit can deplete our energy. Crop rotation assumes depletion, and I think the companion planting of the Three Sisters has something to teach us.

*I’ve decided to change the names of my friends in Mexico to honor their privacy.

My student, who is now an adult.

I’ve been spending most of my free time these past few months reviving an old creative passion of mine: drawing. 

As a kid, I was the youngest of four by more than a decade. My brothers moved on to their adult lives before I started grade school. A de facto only child, I spent most of my days at my quiet house, twenty minutes from our small mountain town. My social life consisted mostly of anthropomorphizing my dog, cat, and goats. As I got older, the phone kept me connected to the lives of my friends through its spiraling, plastic umbilical cord. 

In other words, I had a lot of time to kill. Making art quelled my boredom and my loneliness.

When I was ten, I took watercolor lessons from a soft spoken neighbor who lived half a mile down our long dirt road. Her hair was long and her house smelled of spices. 

These watercolor classes were the only formal art training I had, the results of which now hang on the wall of my grandmother’s tidy apartment. The most prominent detail in this piece of art is the large, loopy “Meggie” painted in the lower right, a time capsule of fourth grade optimism. I probably omitted my standard heart-topped “i” because I suspected it wouldn’t jive with the rocky seascape. 

Decades passed, and I filed away fine art in the messy attic of childhood pastimes. I no longer lived by myself in a quiet house, and if ever I felt a twinge of boredom, I did what exhausted mothers do these days: I picked up the phone and scrolled.

Every once in a while the algorithm provides a spark, and this time it lit a fire: it fed me a steady stream of soothing process videos of sketching and painting, each one a balm for the burns of the news cycle.

I began to feel restless, whiling away the hours watching others do something that I could be doing in real life. I wanted to feel again what I had felt as a child: a present-moment focus so sharp that clock time became a fiction.

I dove into learning academic drawing with unbridled fervor, taking in all of the art instruction the internet could offer. I signed up for a weekend portrait drawing class at my local arts center, and when that was over, I found the online continuing education courses offered by the New York Academy of Art (NYAA), where I enrolled in two courses: portraiture and animal drawing. 

Here are my most recent portraits, after digesting the instruction in my NYAA classes and practicing quite a bit:

And here is my first attempt:

In six weeks, I didn’t learn how to draw from scratch. I already had a knowledge of how to use my materials and create the lines and forms I wanted to make. 

What I did was learn how to see in a completely new way.

As a side project during my NYAA portrait class, I started a self-portrait. I kept bumping into the problem that my initial rendering didn’t quite look like me. I knew my face, and despite hours and hours of looking, drawing, erasing, and redrawing my proportions, it just wasn’t working. I almost gave up, thinking the problem was unsolvable (for my skill level, at least).

But if there’s any life lesson that I’m repeatedly hit over the head with, it is this: to solve a problem, change your perspective.

So I turned my reference photo and my drawing upside down, an exercise I had read about in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

This change of perspective allowed my brain to see the lines and shapes as just that, rather than a familiar human face. I adjusted my lines to fit reality, and when I flipped over the drawing, there I was. 

But this is not a newsletter about learning how to draw. (Though I love the visual of a literal flipping of perspective.) This is a reminder of how to solve all kinds of problems creatively. 

We turn over the problem in our minds. We approach challenges with Beginner’s Mind. We use empathy to imagine life in someone else’s shoes. Our language is full of references to perspective shifts as a prerequisite for problem solving.

It is this perspective shift that brings us out of the nebulous past and future and into the vibrant present moment - the only moment where problems can actually be solved.  

Our brains take all sorts of shortcuts to economize attention, filtering information to allow us to take in only what is necessary in order to make quick decisions. For example, If you see something the shape of a deer that jumps into the road in front of you, you rely on your brain to assume it’s a deer and decide to slam on the brakes. 

When it comes to solving problems that don’t need an instantaneous response, however, it’s always helpful to slow down and shift your perspective. A novel perspective allows you to de-activate your brain’s content filter so you can see more points, more connections, and the relationships between them. 

Try it with drawing. Try it with parenting. Try it with politics. There is no situation in which shifting your perspective is a bad idea. Even if it doesn’t result in the fixing of the problem, you will gain a fuller understanding of the issue, and perhaps a glimpse of the correct path forward.

P.S. If you’ve got an itch to study drawing, I highly recommend both of my NYAA instructors, Rohihi Sen and Elody Gyekis.

I had been waiting for a stray kitten to show up on my doorstep in Creel, Chihuahua; a creature eager for a heavy dose of doting and fawning, American-style. None came. Perhaps it was the neighbors’ territorial flock of chickens that kept our future kitten at bay. Perhaps it was the pack of semi-feral dogs who lorded over the barrio. In any case, our doormat remained empty.

I had been watching our taciturn male cat, Timoun, salivating over those luscious, feathery balls of meat free-ranging in our front yard, tantalizingly out of reach. He looked so lonely he could eat a chicken! (Sidenote: He did escape once, bolting after the flock with front paws outstretched in anticipation, back legs somehow busting out some roadrunner moves to get him within hugging range. To preserve his dignity, let’s just say that the chicken won, and end the sidenote here.) Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who could use a kitten playmate.

So the next time we found ourselves in Cuautemoc, a very small city with an unassuming pet shop, we stopped in to ask if they had any kittens available. 

“What type are you looking for?” the woman behind the counter responded. “A Persian?” 

“Oh, no,” I said, imagining the cost of a Persian and quickly realizing that it wouldn’t square with my humble Mexican teacher’s salary. “A basic kitten.”

The woman looked at me and Patrick like we had five heads between us. Who couldn’t find their own basic kitten?

“Umm, well, I guess I can see what I can find. Leave me your phone number and I’ll call you when I find a basic kitten,” said the slightly disgusted pet shop attendant. I pictured her curling her upper lip in disgust as she walked down a dark alley, peeking under a crusty trash heap in search of something distantly related to a Persian, but cheaper.

Six weeks later, we got a call. Our basic kitten was ready to be picked up. 

When we returned to the pet shop, a tiny, muted calico tabby with green saucer eyes peered from her crate and directly into mine. She muh-muh-MOWed a friendly salutation. 

The first thing we would learn about our basic kitten was that she was not a fan of riding in a car. We were used to Timoun, who approached every car ride like a chill road trip. He practically wore sunglasses and rolled down the windows. 

Our new kitten was a shrieking whirling dervish in motorized vehicles.

As soon as I took her out of the carrier and placed her on my lap, she slipped through my gentle fingers, managing to wiggle her way into the engine via the old car’s footwell. Perhaps this was Life One? We managed to get her out of the engine and back into the carrier, which our new kitten christened The Howling Box. 

Timoun’s grinch-y heart grew three sizes the day we brought her home. The copious tongue baths he gave her wiped away all memories of The Howling Box. 

We named her Amelie, after the shy yet spunky heroine in the eponymous French film. Amelie the cat was certainly plucky, but she was not quiet. No matter, we loved the name Amelie but could not use it for a future child. Any kid with the lilting name Amelie McElwee would need to have “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” as a theme song. But it worked perfectly for our bouncy, prancy, chit-chatty kitten.

Amelie was a cat capable of lengthy, reciprocal conversations. She greeted me every morning with a mow-o-WOW and a pirouette, to which I responded with the same, minus the pirouette. She proceeded to tell me about her dreams and the night-time cat gossip, and listened to me patiently as I tried my best to translate my own adventures into cat, a language I now speak passably well, thanks to her.

We didn’t have a dog for years, because after we got Amelie, we didn’t need one. She had all the dog behaviors coveted by humans in need of stalwart emotional companionship. Plus, her arrival freed up Patrick to focus on things other than being cute all the time and pretending to be super excited to see me every time I walked through the door. 

In her younger years, she played fetch with a plush, green mouse. Her tiny mouth still stuffed with green mouse, she uttered her hunting victory call, a combination of “Look what I brought for you!” and “Hot damn, I’m a mighty fine predator.”  Up until last month, she would still steal stuffies from the kids’ rooms and announce her kill with a series of self-aggrandising yowls. I always responded. She was happy to elaborate with details of the hunt.

Her story approaches the absurd, however, when she came of age, three hours from the closest vet. If you think she was loud in the car carrier, you should have heard her go into heat. 

Good American cat owners that we were, we knew the only responsible course of action was to get her spayed. Our Mexican friends thought we were a bit out of our minds. Why would you drive 6 hours round trip to prevent her from living a natural cat life? Part of me now wishes that we hadn’t been successful in getting her fixed. I imagine that the world would be a little more joyful if we hadn’t kept her family tree from growing. 

But we did finally find a vet in Chihuahua willing to spay a cat. He mostly dealt with horses and livestock, which might explain why Amelie had such a hard recovery. Big, clumsy hands operating on miniature organs, and all.

We picked up a mellow, post-surgical Amelie, who, about an hour into the drive home, became a hallucinating, overdosed Amelie whose howling reached an entirely new level of freak out. Patrick sped along the two-lane, high desert road. We couldn’t get home soon enough.

Imagine our surprise when we arrived at a roadblock, with no way to get around and no alternate route to our small town. We sat for half an hour, not knowing what was going on, our frustration and Amelie’s plaintive howls growing louder by the minute. Finally, our jaws dropped and our rage boiled over as we watched car after fancy car zoom by, driven by wealthy American and Mexican owners. Having just closed down the only route to and from hospitals for their joy race through the scenic passage, the rich men rolled down their windows, smiles wide, and waved to us (and the hundreds of cars behind us) as they passed, as if we had gathered there for the express purpose of cheering on their testosterone-laced, four-wheeled parade.

My normally polite husband flipped them off.

Amelie, for her part, made it home. Her recovery was harrowing, and there were hours when I thought we might lose her. But recover she did. 

The surprise came a few weeks later, after she seemed to have made a full recovery.

The tip of her tail - about 2.5 inches of it - was oddly hard. 

Within a week, the fur there was dull. 

I came home from work one day to find my already petite cat with a shorter tail. She was unbothered and chatty as ever, no doubt telling me about her new short tail. 

The tip of her tail is buried in Creel, Mexico.

We buried the rest of her body, along with Timoun’s ashes, underneath the window of my art studio in North Carolina. She died about 17.5 years after her tail.

The legends of Amelie don’t end in Mexico, however. There is the fact that she was my son Finn’s first word. Not mama, not dada, but “tat,” his tiny, chubby finger directed at her friendly face.

Or the fact that, every night, she would bop my face with her paw and request to curl up next to me under the covers. 

Or the fact that all five pounds of her would make my forty-pound dog, Mika, slink her body against the wall, debasing herself before the Queen of the Upstairs, hoping to emerge with her big dog nose, and her psyche, un-bopped. 

I could go on, but like most close relationships, the passage of time blurs most of our daily, taken-for-granted moments. Like watching a VCR rewind, it starts slowly, gaining speed. I am looking back through 18 years and the innumerable moments of connection with an affable little cat, without whom I must now live out the rest of my days.

And so I write down these words, so that the spunky spirit of a not-so-basic Mexican cat may live on, in my memory - and your imagination. 

Amelie

February 2006 - February 14, 2024

That place was my high school’s choir room, and it was a place of profound human beauty, despite the smell of our raging, hormone-drenched bodies. We met there for “zero” period, an hour before classes started. In that sacred spot, a ragtag group of pimple-faced teenagers regularly transmuted their awkward bodies into instruments of beauty through ecstatic, swelling crescendos of voices in perfect harmony. 

To experience this evanescent human symphony is a kind of magical rapture that not only compels teenagers to willingly give up sleep, but which can spiritually sustain a person through a lifetime.

So powerful were my experiences in that choir room that one of the first things I did when confronted with the reality of the suffering in Gaza was look through my collection of old cassette tapes for a recording of a specific concert in 1998, during which I recall us having sung such a moving rendition of O Magnum Mysterium that I couldn’t help but close my eyes while singing, feeling the shivers travel down my spine and the tears roll down my cheek. I needed to once again hear the sound of a group of humans making something stunningly beautiful together. It brought me hope. (And made me cry again.)

Until recently, I had attributed those moments of profound awe to experiences of perfection. And it's true, I don’t have that same feeling of awe when someone is out of tune. 

But perfection can’t be the only ingredient in this recipe for awe. For example, I’m not sure a group of professional musicians could have produced the same gobsmacked effect on each other as a group of dear friends/frenemies on the cusp of adulthood.

Perhaps it was because we were not perfect all the time. Perhaps it was because, more often than not, someone would reliably sing something too sharp. Or because that stunningly erudite musician-boy I had a crush on eventually became a stunningly loutish ex-boyfriend. Or because, on a whole, we spent enough time together that we knew each other’s big dreams and big fears. Perhaps it was because we were learning together, not coming together already knowing everything.  

Perhaps it was because humans are meant to be in community.

I think that what I’ve been overlooking in my recipe for awe is the foundation of imperfection inherent in community art that makes those moments of perfection truly sparkle. 

Human relationships aren’t easy. They aren’t perfect. Ensemble performances are filled with tiny mistakes. Costumes rip. Someone forgets a cue. Notes aren’t exact. But while all those imperfections pepper the experience, it’s human connection, in all its messiness, that is the real force undergirding those moments of blissful perfection that pop up and send shivers down your spine.

Perfection, therefore, can’t be the goal. To be relatable, the best community art must be a little rough around the edges. 

This last holiday season, I had the opportunity to work behind the scenes in my daughter’s ballet studio’s production of The Nutcracker. To be honest, I could have volunteered for sewing duty the previous year as well, but part of me didn’t relish the idea of giving up my free time to do quick alterations and repairs on the fly. 

Since becoming a mom, I have gravitated toward solitary creative acts: pursuits that helped me to nurture and ground myself. As a busy mom of little ones, making something with my hands, on my own time, was a way to center myself, to anchor myself in the physical reality of fiber during a phase of life when day-to-day logic was a wispy ether between my fingers. It was a refuge, an escape.

And now, though I’m not in the all-consuming period of early motherhood, the solitary making-of-beautiful-things is still a way for me to feel a sense of agency in a chaotic world. 

Which is why, I think, it took me a beat to work through my hesitation to offer my sewing skills to such a lively (ahem, chaotic) youth ballet production. Goodbye, agency. Goodbye, time. Goodbye, creativity. I resigned myself to offer my skills in the same spirit my paternal grandmother probably brought to her marriage: file it under “Sacrifice for the Good of the Kids.”

I diligently re-hemmed a group of twelve seriously slippery satin circle underskirts for the dancers in the snow scene. I shortened the Snow Queen’s bodice. I previously had no clue what an ascot was, but I designed one for a Party Boy costume. All this was done with headphones in my ears at home, listening to some good music and podcasts. Would I rather have been working on my own creative project? Probably. But this was nice and solitary, and a fine way to spend a bunch of hours on the weekend if you’re an introvert like me. 

The human messiness and magic didn’t really start until tech week and performance days, though the energy had been building for my daughter since rehearsals began months prior. Suddenly, the set was built out of nothing, thanks to many hands working together. The musicians showed up and the dancers danced and danced and danced. The audience applauded. Little children waited with big eyes for autographs from middle-grade performers. 

The whole while, I was there behind the scenes, unceremoniously stuffing boning back inside a ballet costume’s worn channel, closing it with a benediction of curse words and strong stitches. 

And the last time the curtain fell in front of those young dancers, I felt a tug at my heart - a familiar “gosh, isn’t it beautiful to be human?” feeling. My daughter cried on the drive home, so sad that the rush of the performance was over, but more than anything, so despairing that she wouldn’t be spending so much time with the cast, her friends.

I was not dancing a principal role. No one really knew I was there, besides the director and whoever had a costume emergency. But it felt really good to work behind the scenes, in a small way, to help make something bigger happen. (And let me set the record straight - alterations and repairs on the fly are very creative - in a problem-solving kind of way - endeavors!)

It helped me get out of my narrow, creativity-as-self-care mindset and helped me experience the wonder of creativity-as-community-care. Unsurprisingly, I actually emerged from that performance run with my own cup more filled than it would have been if I had spent the time working on my own stuff.

Of course, I’m not saying that you should abandon your solitary artistic pursuits (I am obsessed with mine!) I would like to pose the question: 

How might participating in a community performance enhance your current creative practice? 

For me, it’s a wonderful way to experience the transcendent bliss of human creativity.

“Each of us has a spark of life inside us, and our highest endeavor ought to be to set off that spark in one another.”

— Kenny Ausube

Now in my 40s, I’ve started to reach that middle stage of life. Thus far, my midlife metamorphosis has looked less like a new husband and car and more like a gluttonous desire to notice the present moment and milk it like the highly sensitive toddler that I am. Or something like that.

It’s meant more writing. It’s meant carrying a Traveler’s Notebook and a brass fountain pen around with me wherever I go, collecting observations, words, and passages that pique my interest. 

It’s meant wrestling my dopamine-conditioned eyes and swipe-conditioned fingertips from that abominable thief of present moments everywhere - the glowing device that moonlights as a helpful robot friend while surreptitiously commodifying my life force.

I want to be alive to the gobsmackingly beautiful, confusing, humorous, and often uncomfortable reality of life.

You will probably be relieved to know that this isn’t yet another piece of January writing about resolutions. It’s a little late for that, anyway. Most who make resolutions are well on their way to abandoning them by now.

No, this little tale of technicolor present-moment living starts like many notable life experiences: with a fairly substantial change of scenery that just happened to overlap with January 1.

I rang in the New Year in Oviedo, Spain, running an evening 5k with at least 6,000 other cheery-yet-heavy-breathing locals. 

It was a welcome shift from my life back home, with its masticating logistics. (How is it that the life maintenance tasks of one family of five can cause a mother to end most days feeling chewed up and spit out by Google Calendar?)

Running along an ancient castle wall was the Google Calendar antidote I had been craving.

My middle son and I were there visiting our erstwhile neighbors, a Spanish family who came to the US last year for a bit of an adventure. Their two boys became regulars in our House of Many Children, where they learned, among other American cultural quirks, that veggie burgers are, in fact, edible. 

They became very close with my son Lachlan, who was particularly sad when the brothers returned to Spain in August. I agreed to take him to visit over Winter break.

As such, most of my trip to Spain was not spent jogging alongside castle walls. Instead, I woke up every morning next to Lachlan, who was more interested in discussing if the day’s plans included playing video games with his friends than if we were going to see any museums. His impenitent complaints during our handful of long, meandering strolls were assuaged only with the promise of tortitas, a Spanish dessert that closely resembles a pancake, but with the addition of a Dionysian mound of melted chocolate and whipped cream. Thankfully, Lachlan’s Norman Rockwell-esque visage and persistent eye twinkle made his frequent bouts of fart jokes tolerable. 

In other words, I want to disabuse you of the notion, dear Reader, that all trips to Europe are by their very nature filled with picturesque cobblestone pedestrian streets with accordion players serenading you on every third corner. 

Even though my tween travel buddy did not afford me the luxury of using the standard, rose-colored, romanticized lens for looking at Europe, I did get a renewed spirit anyway, thanks to the simple gift of being in unfamiliar situations in an unfamiliar place.

In general, I’d say that European culture is fairly similar to American culture. This was less the case when Patrick (then boyfriend, now husband) and I were exchange students in France 23 years ago. Back then, for example, clothing styles were notably divergent; I remember our male French friends wearing pedal pusher pants that Patrick wouldn’t have dared to wear. Another highlight back then was coming across a middle-aged dad on the trail while hiking Mont Blanc who paired his boots with Speedos instead of a shirt and shorts. (He also happened to be singing loudly, and his embarrassed tween kids were following behind him at a safe distance. This makes me think that there may have been more to that story, now that I have experienced parenting tweens myself!)

Nowadays, European and American cultures seem more similar to me, and I can only speculate that this is due to access to the internet, social media, and the sad disappearance of idiosyncratic style due to the ubiquity of fast fashion brands. 

But there are still notable differences, especially when it comes to language, food, and infrastructure.

Instead of English, I was speaking mostly in Spanish, which was a brain-enlivening jolt. It had been almost 16 years since I lived and worked in Mexico, and the Spanish I honed there had some marked differences with Spanish spoken in Spain. Totally comprehensible, but it kept me on my toes.

The elevators were all tiny. The plugs were different. Stop lights were right above you rather than across the intersection. Food was served two hours after I typically fell asleep back home. 

But damn if I wasn’t shocked when I turned on the shower in our apartment and, instead of water coming down from the menacing-looking, modern shower head above me, it came out from a series of holes directly in front of my completely bewildered face. 

It’s enough of the slightly unfamiliar to plop your brain right down in the present moment, searching for understanding (and the way to reroute the water!)

There’s been plenty of research on the cognitive benefits of putting yourself in novel situations: traveling, learning something new, meeting new people. Your brain goes into hyperdrive, building new neural connections and, as a consequence, boosting your creativity. 

But like most people, I don’t have the time or money to travel that often. 

My hack? Keep up with the practice I started on my travels, but have continued here at home. Go about life with a notebook and pen in hand as often as possible, unearthing the novel in the mundane. It’s always there, if you keep your phone off and your eyes and ears on.

The return trip home has historically been a bit of a letdown for me, like the day after Christmas when I was a kid. This time, while waiting in the bag check line on our journey home, I knew I had at least partially succeeded in keeping my mind open to that jolt of awe when I heard the words, “Where are you flying, Miss?”

And my internal response was, “What a fascinating, exciting question!”

Holy crap, I’m FLYING today! In the belly of a sleekly grotesque iron bird, spewing foul fumes out its rear end while catapulting me across the ocean.

I looked around at my fellow travelers, who were also about to traverse the globe at high speed in one of humankind’s most wondrous and hubristic inventions. They didn’t seem to understand what was about to happen to them. They seemed downright annoyed by the prospect, their collective jowls being tugged downward by the gravitational pull of ennui towards their flickering devices. 

A few hours later, my son and I sat on the tarmac, second in line for takeoff. 

He chattered on about the airplane in front of us, speculating about its destination and ground speed. 

As the fire in the belly of our mechanical bird rumbled to life, I pushed play on Radiohead’s OK Computer and relinquished control. My body hurtled through space as I watched my son’s eyes widen. 

He waved goodbye to Spain for a good 20 seconds, his round head silhouetted against the bright window. I captured the gesture in my mother’s heart, which instantly filled with an aching nostalgia for the present moment.

He is nearing his 13th birthday, and we all know that adults forget to wave goodbye to land masses and experiences. 

I waved alongside him, further strengthening my commitment to try to remember to live in a perpetual state of awe.

I want to close with a quote from Rob Walker, who writes one of my favorite Substack newsletters. I’ve been holding onto this now that I’m back home, living amongst the familiar once again:

There’s much talk about seeking out awe and wonder, perhaps through elaborate travel to exotic places — to Italy, to Australia, and maybe some day to Mars. But maybe sometimes awe and wonder aren’t things we need to seek, but rather simply to recognize.

This year has been anything but a walk in the park for me, work-wise. By the time September came around, I was creatively numb from an intense year of production, spurred on by the perils of running a creative micro-business in the pernicious waters of capitalism.

As an artist, there’s nothing that can suck your creativity dry like the shackles of business-minding.

When I’m down and out, it can seem like a Herculean task to simply want to make something.

If you, like me, sometimes find yourself in a creative rut and are struggling to climb out, try one of the following:

Give your creative space a good clean

There’s nothing like a clean space to clear your mind for inspiration. I think of this as an invitation, like you are preparing the guest room for creativity to come and stay. With your action, you are saying to your brain, “I’m open to inspiration.”

What’s more, putting your hands on the materials you already own can jog your memory of ideas past and give you fresh ideas for future projects.

Change up your creative medium

Most folks don’t just have one creative outlet. For example, I often toggle between sewing and knitting, and each fulfills a specific need at different moments in my life. When I need something calming and meditative, I will often reach for a knitting project. (Unless it’s a hard knitting project. As a perpetual mediocre knitter, hard knitting projects cause me to throw balls of yarn at the wall.)

When I need something that gets me into a concentrated, excited, creative flow, I will conjure up a new pattern design or enjoy the problem-solving of hacking a pattern.

Think beyond just crafting pursuits, too. This could mean toggling between being inspired in the kitchen, figuring out a new phase in parenting, planning a garden, or journaling, for example. Putting aside one pursuit for a while and picking up another is completely normal, absolutely needed, and ripe with inspiration that you can fold back into your “official” creative pursuit.

Take a class

Learning a new skill is invigorating. While being a beginner comes with a twinge of frustration, it can also be freeing. Of course you won’t be perfect, and that’s ok! I felt this most keenly when I started taking pottery classes a few years back. I had to stop and haven’t picked it up since (thanks, pandemic!) but the experience itself emboldened my overall artistic practice.

Taking a class also comes with the benefits of getting to know other creative folks – a benefit that we should not take lightly, in a social media-driven world that is creating walls between us by monopolizing our attention so that we spend less time face-to-face.

If your circumstances make it challenging to attend an in-person class, try an online course that has a robust community platform that doesn’t require you to be on social media to participate, like Sew Liberated’s Learn to Sew courses and Mindful Wardrobe Project. It’s really heartwarming to make new friends who lift you up and encourage you on your creative journey, and work through the course content on your own timeframe.

Sometimes you just need to rest

By rest, I don’t mean scrolling on your phone. I mean engaging in true leisure activities, such as sipping your coffee while watching the leaves fall, reading a good book, catching a bite to eat with a friend, going to a museum, or heading out on a hike. Anything you do that expands, deepens, and enhances your lived experience. You can’t make art, after all, with no lived experiences.

Decide on your parameters

Infinite possibilities are overwhelming and will get you nowhere because it’s nearly impossible to choose a starting point.

Not to mention that, in order to hone your own artistic style, it’s necessary to define your parameters. Without parameters guiding your creativity, you float from one style to the next and can find it challenging to settle into a creative home.

Take Pablo Picasso, for example. He could have worked with intricate details as he was quite capable of making realistic images. Instead, he chose to work with simple shapes and a small range of colors to portray his subjects. Within those limits, he found profound creative expression.

Try limiting your color palette, your sources (using only secondhand materials, for example) or, my personal favorite, the mother of all tricks to get yourself out of a creative rut:

Work on a deadline

A time limit is an excellent creative parameter. This is how I went from zero to cat dragon in 60 days. Not by cleaning my studio. Not by resting. Simply by having a good, hard deadline.

But the kind of deadline is important for success, if we’re defining success as feeling energized and creatively fulfilled, and NOT just being productive and turning something in on time.

If the deadline is arbitrary and set by a boss or a client, or even a self-imposed deadline for profit, well … things can end up feeling like a slog, even if the task ultimately gets done. Such is the messy nature of fitting art into a profit- and productivity-driven society.

The kind of deadline I’m talking about is benign – it exists outside of the expectations of capitalism and is simply for leisure – for fun.

Enter Halloween.

Halloween is the ultimate kick in the pants for getting your creative mojo back.

It ticks all the boxes for the perfect creative deadline: Fun? Check. Exists outside of capitalist pressures? Check. Often done as an act of love, for those of us with kids? Check. Hard deadline that you can’t put off? Check.

Oh my goodness, Halloween saved me from burnout, even though my kids’ costumes were anything but simple.

Even though it wasn’t the staring-out-the window-with-hot-drink kind of rest that I also need, it certainly energized me and helped me look forward to making again. It took a ton of time, a bunch of experimentation, and a lot of problem-solving to get to that October 31 finish line. But it was so worth it.

Halloween costume details

If you’re curious about how I made these two costumes, you can follow along at the highlighted Instagram Story. I’m also thinking about putting together a mask-making video tutorial to post right here on the blog. What do you think? Would that be of interest to you? I know it’s not sewing related, but I find this kind of paper mache work very fun!

1. Turtlenecks make me claustrophobic.

2. I hate watching dramatic television. It gives me nightmares.

3. I am not into historical costuming.

The first two are best discussed at a dinner party, but I’ll address the third fact now. 

It’s not that I don’t admire those who sew their own historically accurate, jaw-droppingly beautiful, historical garments, I very much do. (The craftsmanship! The patience!) It’s just that my third fact is related to my first fact. Clothes must NOT feel like they are swallowing up my body with no hope of escape. The thought of wearing layer upon layer of tightly bound and excessively heavy fabric is simply not my cup of tea, even if it isn’t meant to be worn every day.

I want my clothing comfortable, functional, and suitable for my modern life.

So I never delved into hand sewing, apart from mending and the occasional basting stitch, facing, or hem, because I thought that hand sewing = into historical costuming and its dedication to authentic production.

My assumption was incorrect. Hand sewing does not equal “only compatible with historical sewing.” I’ve come to believe quite the opposite. 

Hand sewing is exactly what modern sewists need, and here’s why:

If you’re anything like me, you aren’t lacking for clothes. 

In fact, you likely have a closet that is overflowing with store-bought, thrifted, and, yes – even clothes you made yourself. 

If you have a thriving sewing practice, then those handmade clothes can really start to add up, especially after years of pursuing this gratifying hobby. 

The sewing patterns and ideas come fast and furious, and often we find ourselves making something that we don’t really physically need, but that fulfills a creative urge or mental health need, such as the challenge of learning a new skill or getting into the creative flow and allowing ourselves to enter fully into the moment while engaging both hands and mind. (For tips on how to maximize your own particular creative personality, I wrote a really fun and informative quiz for my fellow makers!)

In fact, I will argue that us humans need to make things with our hands simply because we are human. To say to us, “Just stop making things since you already have enough!” is like saying to a dog, “Stop chewing on things, you’ve reached your quota!” It is simply part of our nature.

But we can, and should, ask ourselves how we can fulfill this innate desire to make while lessening our impact on the environment.

One answer is hand sewing our clothes.

These thoughts were bouncing around my brain while I was packing for a trip to Florida to visit my in-laws, so I decided to do a little experiment: could I pack a hand sewing project instead of a knitting project? Would it feel similar to knitting in its ability to be both portable and relaxing? And would the finished top be just as wearable as something that was machine sewn?

It took me a week of leisurely hand sewing, including many hours in the car, to finish my hacked Hinterland top. None of it was onerous. Quite the opposite: I found every seam to be a pleasant, relaxing experiment. Not only was I enjoying myself, I found that, unlike some of my machine sewing, I was not tempted to impose arbitrary goals on myself, like “I’m just going to finish this facing, or attach the bodice to the skirt, etc. by the end of this sewing session.” Time moves at a more leisurely pace when hand sewing, and since I could put down my project at any moment and pick it back up at any moment (try hauling around your machine to the beach!) I was simply more fluid in my typically goal-driven approach. 

What’s more, I was able to be fully present to my kids while I sewed, unlike a more complicated knitting project that requires counting and being aware of patterns and shaping. With hand sewing, you make a decision about what kind of stitch(es) you’ll use to create the seam, then you just relax into the repetitive work. It’s very meditative.

Unsurprisingly, the finished garment is a complete treasure. I love it more than any other piece, as it took me the longest to make … and the making of it didn’t add any stress to my life. I’d say the process actually substantially reduced my stress. I wear it at least once a week, and the seams are very sturdy.

It does my heart and mind good, as well as slowing down my production/consumption for the benefit of the environment. 

Am I trying to get you to retire your sewing machine? Not at all! What I hope is that you might experience the joy of adding hand sewing to your creative practice, and enjoy the slower making process. I know, I run a sewing pattern company, and I would love for you to make things I design. However, the purpose of this business isn’t to get you to buy more sewing patterns. It’s to provide you with the skills and inspiration you need in order to take the act of clothing yourself into your own hands, with all of the mental health and environmental benefits that ensue. 

Make less stuff, but more meaningful stuff. Sew more slowly, but more enjoyably. Learn the skills you need in order to approach your craft as an artist, within the constraints of sustainability (shopping for ethically made natural fibers, using what you have, sourcing secondhand fabrics, and upcycling.)

You do not need to hand sew everything. Start with what I call the “hybrid mindset”: sew on your machine when you can, and learn hand stitching techniques to be able to bring your work-in-progress with you as you go about the rest of your life: on your lunch break, on vacation, at your kids’ sports games, etc. Hand sewing, even a few stitches here and there, will ground you and help bring your busy mind back to the moment.

A hybrid mindset can also mean that you sew certain seams by machine, and the trickier parts by hand, such as facings, hems, collars, etc. 

For me, when choosing between machine sewing and hand sewing, it’s about asking myself if I need to finish a project by a certain date, or if the deadline is merely self-imposed. If it’s the latter, I’ll give myself the grace to actually treat this hobby as it was intended: a creative act of leisure. There is no rushing leisure time (even though it is massively de-valued in this productivity-worshiping society) and by switching my goal from “done” to “done well and with joy,” I am truly filling my cup.

Resources for learning how to hand-sew clothing

Louisa Owen Sonstroem

Louisa’s self-published book, “Hand Sewing Clothing: A Guide,” is everything you will need to jumpstart your hand sewing skills. Accompanied by darling, hand-drawn illustrations and thoughtful essays, Louisa outlines all of the stitches you’ll need, and where in the garment to use them.

I also really enjoyed learning more about Louisa and her work on the Check Your Thread podcast, both episodes 15 & 16.

Sarah Woodyard

Sarah is apprenticed at Colonial Williamsburg and is a Journeywoman in Mantua-making and Millinery. I love her hashtag, #RememberWhatYourHandsCanDo. Sarah has a variety of on-demand online hand sewing classes as well as offering private, online hand sewing classes. 

Alexis Bailey of Fibr and Cloth

Alexis is a multi-talented thread and cloth artist who sells hand sewing supplies as well as e-books about hand sewing. She occasionally has hand sewing garment kits available, including a kit for our Strata Top pattern.

Brooks Ann Camper

Brooks Ann’s interview on the Love to Sew Podcast is such a fun peek behind the scenes of a former NYC costumer and current bespoke formalwear designer and maker. Her take on the benefits of hand sewing is definitely worth a listen.

That’s because our brains are hardwired to seek out novelty. Research has shown that novelty boosts our brain’s plasticity – its ability to make new connections between neurons – as well as memory. 

Think about the last time you visited a new city. I remember our first day at a little boutique eco hotel in Mexico City like it was yesterday. The lobby, the layout of the room, the toilet that flushed with a pulley instead of a lever. With enthusiasm, I took in my new surroundings.

After not too long, however, I adapted. To the breakfast routine, to the walk to the bakery, to the pillow, to the different toilet.

A new environment, a new item, a new bit of information (is this why gossip is so gripping?): all of these cause our brain to connect neurons in new ways, and encourage our minds to explore and learn about the new situation.

There is no shame in seeking out novelty. It is a learning tool and a memory-maker.

The problem comes when we feel like we need to buy new things all of the time to fuel the brain’s need for novelty. 

How, then, can we both love our clothes and stop feeling like we need new ones all the time?

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”

Shunryu Suzuki

The Zen Buddhist concept of Beginner’s Mind, as I understand it, is a way of looking at the world without judgment or pre-conceived notions, tapping into what I like to think of as a child’s tendency to approach life with amazement and curiosity. 

It’s a pretty powerful state, Beginner’s Mind; at once peaceful and full of possibility.

It is also the seed from which creative ideas spring forth.

In the closet, it can sound like this: “I wonder what would happen if I wore this dress unbuttoned as a duster?” or “What would this cardigan look like if I dyed it bright blue?” 

To reinvigorate your relationship with your clothes without having to purchase a thing, approach your closet with a mindset of curiosity and try these suggestions:

1. Identify your foundation pieces. Pull out your 5 or 10 items of clothing that you feel very comfortable wearing, and that you reach for all of the time. Each piece should also be something you love. These items are the foundation of your wardrobe, and will provide the jumping-off point for your wardrobe experiments.

2. Understand that creative dressing takes dedication.  Effortless style is a myth. Those with a defined sense of style are actually artists who have taken time to hone their method for putting together looks. They have taken the time to play, to imagine (and test!) new possible combinations. So much of creativity is about connecting dots in new ways. What if you thought about the items in your closet as dots to be connected in various novel ways? 

3. As your first experiment, put on the simplest, most comfortable outfit you can come up with from your foundation pieces. (Think your favorite jeans and a trustworthy basic tee.) Now, throw something unexpected into the mix to add some novelty: a colorful crossbody bag, a chunky heel, or even a bold eye or fun nail polish. 

4. As your next experiment, take in the different textures in your closet. Texture is such a powerful force in our relationship with clothes. Not only does it enliven our visual sense by juxtaposing different textures – think mohair and rugged denim, or silk and linen – it speaks directly to our skin, awakening our bodies to the pleasure of the fibers. Try putting together outfits with divergent textures and see how it makes you feel. 

5. Pick a color you’ve been wanting to experiment with and add it to one of your foundational outfits. This can be as easy as using a remnant of fabric to make an easy bandanna or throwing an older piece in a dye pot. Perhaps you have an item of clothing that is a silhouette you enjoy, but the color falls flat for you – or you have a lot of that color already and you’re ready for a change.  Dye it! I’ve been wondering how I might enjoy adding an occasional pop of cobalt blue to my wardrobe, so I plan to take an older white piece and give it new life with a bold color.

Your biggest asset in creating a wardrobe you love is not a particular item of clothing – it’s your own curiosity, and your willingness to work with your brain’s tendency to seek out novelty. Take the time to play in your closet and get curious about pairing “new” items with your foundational pieces. 

Which brings me to tip #6: 

6. Take time to regularly play in your closet. A single session of playful curiosity in your closet won’t solve your desire for novelty forever. Whenever you experience a sense of inevitable closet doldrums, you’ll know it’s time to return to play.

What I’m wearing in this post: 1st photo: wool crepe Cosecha Pants, checkerboard Bedrock tank, + a thrifted lace buttondown. 2nd photo: linen Arthur Pants, Bedrock Tee sleeveless view B tied in the front, secondhand Ace & Jig jacket, + a hand knit Oslo Hat in the Pomegranate colorway from Knitting for Olive.

Interested in more sustainable style? Check out The Mindful Wardrobe!

I was a generally happy kid who listened to sad songs for the inexplicable thrill of experiencing big human feelings. Snuggling my dog, I couldn’t stop my eyes from welling up with each minor key crescendo, goosebumps traveling up my arms and down my spine.

I have always loved rainy days, poetry, and deep conversations. More old soul than new, if you will.

But for a long time, following my son’s three open-heart surgeries, grueling hospitalizations, and traumatizing cardiac arrest – followed by his mesmerizing recovery – I was in what Anne of Green Gables would have called “the depths of despair, ” minus Anne’s dramatic hyperbole. Beyond waltzing with melancholy, I was drowning in it.

In order to shake my depression and continue living a full, joy-filled life in tandem with both everyday and existential sorrows, I closed the door to art-induced, optional melancholy. I acknowledged its beauty, but I kept it at arm’s length. Reality had enough of it. I simply couldn’t handle any unnecessary brooding in the form of story or music.

I closed the door to melancholy In order to teach my kids to read. In order to put together an art project for them. In order to make breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack ad infinitum. 

I became the person who finds the positive in every situation. The person who dutifully fills out her gratitude journal. 

You all can watch your television dramas and news networks. I will watch funny animal videos before bed, thankyouverymuch. 

Give me all the happy songs. Tell me jokes. Find humor in everything. Make pretty things. Because if you let something slip by my defenses, say, a slightly sentimental children’s book,  I will cry.  

It’s not that I think crying is bad. It’s just that I worry that if I start, it will be hard to stop. The world is very heavy, and it’s taken decades of putting up fences around my heart to be able to function as a highly sensitive person in a deeply wounded, yet somehow still fast-paced, world.

These fences have been helpful for the last decade or so. I’ve tried not to worry about changing what I can’t change (a medical diagnosis that won’t go away is at the top of my list) and have tried to love (and be mostly happy) in the life circumstances I have been dealt. 

The whole “you can’t choose what happens to you, but you can choose how you react to what happens to you” thing. I was choosing happiness, darn it!

But lately, it’s been harder to choose happiness, for whatever reason. I’ve been feeling raw. Vulnerable. Like life is moving quickly, change is in the wind, and I want to slow down and feel the deeply connective sadness of a tragically beautiful piece of art. 

Last week, I listened to this Creative Pep Talk episode, an interview with author Susan Cain. There were many incredible insights that had me nodding my head in agreement, but then Susan said:

“Whatever pain you can’t get rid of, make that your creative offering.” 

I about stopped breathing, and tears welled up, on a regular day after summer camp drop-off.

I’ve decided it’s time for me to open up to sadness. And, in a sense, return to my roots.

This little crow, pattern by Ann Wood, is a step toward making art, of being in the world, in a way that honors the beauty in darkness. 

Somehow, when I opened up the door to melancholy, to making something imperfect and layered and from a bin of scraps, I experienced a sense of wholeness that I had been missing. 

I hand-stitched this crow during a hard week. The process helped me lean into the sadness, rather than pushing it aside.

Every stitch helped me metabolize my sorrow into its other true form: redemptive, full-spectrum beauty. 

My Mom recently gifted her cherished Barbie doll to my daughter. The doll alone is special – her case says she was produced in 1961 – but when you see the handmade wardrobe she came with, your jaw will drop. All of the tiny knitted and sewn clothes were made by my great-grandmother, and most of them were designed by her as well.

The poor doll’s feet are permanently shaped for high heels, and her bust is mid-century conical, but she withstood the test of sixty years and now gets to be part of childhood play once again. My daughter is making up for the doll’s quiet years by including her in multiple pretend worlds replete with costume changes, all thanks to the creativity of her great-great grandmother. It’s rather breathtaking to consider the fiber that connects my daughter with her great-great grandmother, which spans many lifetimes and transcends death itself.

My Gram, whose mother made these clothes, recalls that her mother delighted in designing, making, and even playing with the doll and her wardrobe. Apparently, my great-grandmother didn’t have much opportunity to play as a child; her hands were necessary for farm work. I love that her sewing and knitting skills allowed her to rediscover her playful side as an adult. They are, after all, practical crafts, intended to clothe and keep us warm, but their fullest expression goes beyond that, entering the realm of art and creative play.

As makers, we can get caught up in our to-do lists. Making becomes a chore, or simply a practical act of clothing our bodies or the bodies of our families. Even if it once held a creative place in our hearts, after a while, it can be relegated to the chore category, even if we don’t intend for it to evolve in that direction.

There is nothing practical about this doll’s wardrobe – it’s just pure play, both in the creation and the outcome. It’s art for the sake of bringing a little beauty and fun into the world. We all need that kind of artistic practice in our lives. Something that we do for the fun of it. Embroidery can be like that. Designing little doll clothes or a scrap quilt can be like that. And sewing garments can be like that, too, if we approach it from a mindset of sewing for self-care. It isn’t something we should do. It’s something that we must do, to enter into that creative flow or meditative state, for our own well-being.

Even if the prospect intimidates you, try playing around with making a small design change on a pattern you’re planning to make. Hacking a pattern instantly elevates the project to the realm of “play.”

And don’t forget to play dress up with the clothes you’ve already made, just as you would if you were a seven year-old dressing up her dolls. It is an absolutely essential part of keeping your sewing hobby delight-driven rather than getting bogged down in the “shoulds” and the to-do list overwhelm. Playing dress up helps you find new and fun ways to wear what you’ve already made, which keeps that “to-sew” list to a minimum and takes the pressure off to make, make, make. Pressure and creativity can sometimes act like oil and water.

My great-grandmother had the right idea, to make doll clothes for her granddaughter. I wonder if, as she held that fiber in her hands, she imagined her great-great granddaughter playing with the clothes she would make. What a creative rush she would have felt.

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