wild potato

Dear Reader,

wild_potatoWhile I’ve lurked here, all underground-like, I’ve been working at last, slap-dash and pell mell through that very multiplicity of media/genre I blahty-blahed about so acedemiciously, so booooringly theoretically for so long.

[–YAWN–]

I had to, by gum, jump up sooner or later and DO my very utmost to make good one way or another.

And ta-da!  here I am, have been, doing writing, of sorts. That is, words is tough at times, poetry done wore ’em out a bit, so I’m shaping stories otherwise and elsehow, shifting about contraptions of construction– all of which to me means writing. Or perhaps composing would be a better term.

cardsEnsnared, I navigate a branching network of passageways hatching like roots between bunches of genre: novel, both graphicky and memoirish, comic strip so-called, picture book, cards for greeting.

I’m practicing not taking it all so damn seriously and succeeding, sometimes, in playing as directed: with drawing + coloring + cutting + stitching together stray bits that enchant or perplex. Unintended and serendipitous connections emerge.

I’m making little books. I’m making sewn dolls and quirky embroidered insignias. I’m building inventory and getting set to cut loose on Etsy.

pandaThe sooner the better in fact. I need to work and get paid for it. As I haven’t collected a steady paycheck in some time, I’m struggling somewhat with my own sense of self-worth. I’m also weighing some overarching questions about worth and value as I go my skint way thrifting and crafting and–well, it’s a tricky time of year.

At a holiday party I found myself recently arguing a case for guerilla knitters as engaged in executing some kind of craft revolution. In retrospect it sounds a little silly and pretentious to my own ears, but I meant it sincerely at the time. And I guess I mean it still, kind of. I’m sensitive to a DIY groundswell sweeping over many of us.

rhhmI’m re-valuing Things as I make things with my hands and eyes and ranging, sometimes rumpusing imagination. I’m experiencing regeneration through craft.

The next logical and necessary step is to make it all pay cash money. Queue Etsy. And I’m fishing for freelance writing and web work, honing skills through projects for the community, wrassling the gnarly beast that will one day emerge a fine, polished portfolio.

Here’s the thing about being a spud: coming out from underground is a strenuous upheaval of a process, preparing for public purview with work of several uncustomary sorts: snipping and buffing off of unseemly bits, tweezing and squeezing what wants to be unshapely and dumpy into snappy and vivid, or at very least -er. It’s tough work for a tater.

Love,
Navelgazer

sweet baby jesus

All year I’ve been undergoing infertility treatment, and when it comes to the winter holidays, something in me just breaks. I mean, I’ve put up the silver tree and ornamented it reflectively– but even this effort at a certain point breaks down. So what if I love this dangling aqua peacock? Who cares?

Because Christmastime is family time, observational differences aside–witness the blizzards of greeting cards crafted exclusively to exhibit new babies and growing families, the giddy, delightful glee of a grandmother friend whose generations convene around her from across the globe–

When what I want so exhaustively is family of my own– as my mother said it before me, pining for her own reasons. Of course I have family of my own, family of all kinds: biological, married-into, chosen by affinity and shared experience. But the progression stops for me at me. There is no child or children in the picture. I’ve spent a lot of years papering an empty room.

There are, of course, myriad alternatives to conception (which we are actively researching and pursuing) as well as a thousand things to do as free and childless people. But, by gum, my arms ache for a very specific weight. And, sweet baby Jesus, this Christmastime, family time vexes me.