This line made me laugh out loud: "I mean the slow, pleasurable accumulation of Goodwill sweaters and blouses and that constitutes my 1970s-librarian-who-loves-hip-hop-and-rides-horses signature style."
I first visited Bethlehem in the West Bank in 2005, not long after Israeli tanks and PLO resisters had faced off in and around the Church of the Nativity. At the other end of the street were young Palestinian students and their mentors delving into jewelry making, film production and drama as a way to enhance and underscore the power of creativity in a time of occupation.
In my own life - a good loaf of sourdough bread (even before the pandemic), a well chopped pile of wood for the woodstove, the patient collecting of coffee mugs from places I love, listening to quirky radio programs from Nova Scotia, the refinishing of an antique table, and an occasional reflective piece on social media are a few of the things that keep me alive and joyful amidst the pain, confusion, anger and war all around.
In the past month I've started to film myself doing house renovation/little building projects and putting them on YouTube. Mainly just my family watches them. It sounds (and is) pointless to stay up late after my daughter is asleep in order to spend hours and hours editing and putting together the videos, and the whole thing definitely feels weird to focus on while there is so much suffering going on. That said, it also has provided me with a way I can channel creativity and excess energy into building/making things and then being able to share and explain them to others, and it's been strangely profound in how much it has shifted my overall mental state and capacity to deal with the rest of the world. I think you described it perfectly when you wrote "your hands are working on something and this is so comforting after your brain working so hard on so many terrible things". Thank you so much for writing about this.
Oh my gosh, I love this. I would NEVER think of doing something like this. Maybe that's another thing that makes small, weird projects so important--they spring from a truly original, unique source, the YOU of you.
My brother, Ben, made this weird, small project, which shows his memory of my mom at the sewing machine when we were kids, making her weird, small projects. It really moves me: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/646805603
Also, my 6yo and I are trying to visit a new museum every wednesday. And I made a weird little book based on texts between myself and a close friend during the pandemic for her :) I also have to give credit to Christie George, who first gave me the idea that this was a category worth exploring, which you do so beautifully here.
This is amazing! Ben, I love it! I think I gave Georgie that idea, so it's a full circle moment. If only we'd managed to take those pics of our tiny weird stuff being hauled back and forth between our houses during covid...
I just loved reading this so much. I am researcher, and the project that gives me the most life is about creative parents and how they make space for their creativity. And the findings have just been so fascinating. What you wrote about "There’s a part of me that finds this list deeply shallow in a time of death and inequity..." that's such a key finding in my work -- that people, women in particular, struggle with their work being "useful" but also get so much joy from those "small, weird projects."
Thank you for these thoughts. I have been beating myself up for not writing, which is my usual outlet and release. I am grateful for your perspective that these are difficult times and my sewing or mandalas or even the embroidery I have been yearning to start are creative outlets as much as my writing. I really appreciate your perspective to recenter and ground me in this crazy world!
Good Morning! This struck me today, and while I don’t normally comment, I had to speak to truth. I am retired, and I fill my day with painting pictures and cross stitch, flowers, and tending to friends who reach out with their fears and concern over the state of our world. I also watch videos of my grandchildren that my daughter sends on a regular basis. Are the weird, maybe - but I am tending to me need for meditation. The stroke of the brush, the up and down of the needle, are very ZEN-like, and they calm my soul. That is the opposite of violence - it keeps me from throwing something at the television, and lifts me from depressive thoughts.
I loved this article! I love small things that I can create that will bring joy not only to myself but to other! Currently I am knitting a baby blanket (the pattern I saw our granddaughter Maya wrapped in when she was a baby. I am knitting it for a little baby born at 27 weeks, airlifted to Seattle Children's NICU and not returned to "her" hospital with hopes of going home in the coming weeks. Each stitch is done with hope for her, a little prayer for her and a wish that she will grow up to be a wonderful and giving person. Creativity puts peace and joy in my heart ... even when the world is falling apart!
Hi! New subscriber here. Loved this post. I actually just launched a substack newsletter called How I’m Building This Life and it’s where I’ll be collecting and sharing stories of folks building careers and families at the same time. And in my first post yesterday I also referenced the same episode of We Can Do Hard Things! It was so raw.
My sanity is wrapped up in knitting 🧶. It is my favorite hobby and creative outlet. And through the pandemic I really embraced it as something worth my time, my undivided attention (whenever possible with 4 littles), and even financial resources. I think a lot of moms especially don’t think hobbies should cost too much of anything. But I’ve realized that for creative endeavors to take up meaningful space that truly allows for “self care” it should be treated with dignity and care. It shouldn’t be an afterthought.
So I buy the nice patterns and nice yarn. I share my progress and final projects with friends. I devote alone time to it. And my kids know it brings me joy and peace.
I loved this article so much. Weird small projects are what have gotten me through this pandemic. Recently, I started dressing up in glamorous outfits and taking photographs. My friend is an aspiring photographer and I am an aspiring stylist (and that’s my weird little project because it’s not my daytime job) and so this has been a collaborative effort. It’s equal parts a healthy distraction from pain and a way to face it. Our outfits/photographs/backdrops have meaning to us. They allow us to make sense of all that has happened.
Thanks for this piece. Cultivating a culture of care and repair in my own life means that yesterday Even with a deadline looming, I had to drop everything to hold a funeral for a spider that died. It happened during my almost-nine-year-old son’s recess period at our local neighborhood school. This highly sensitive boy was so upset by the spider’s accidental death during another boy’s overzealous investigation of the creature with a stick and had been crying for hours when I retrieved him at pickup. The incident and his outsized emotional response caused the whole class to stop and think about the interconnection between all of us creatures here on Earth. He made a poster to memorialize the Unknown Spider and wrote a poem with his teacher at school.
This morning he reluctantly braved another full day of learning with his rabbit stuffie “Cuddly Bunny” under his arm and some resolution of the grief he felt after we buried the tiny shroud containing the spider’s body in our still frozen back garden in Chicago last evening. 💔 🕷 🙏 Puts things in a new perspective for me.
Is there anything more human than an impromptu funeral with a child? We've been enriched by many over here. My youngest daughter is really close to death and grief. I think it's a special kind of wisdom. Much love to your boy.
I love this post so much. I am finding that is in fact the super small projects and accomplishments that are creating such joy - which helps to balance the scale of all that feels so horrible. I've been making Albums in iPhoto of our family year long sabbatical that we returned from just months before the pandemic started. Perusing the photos, reliving the experiences with our 2 boys, seeing the world as it was pre-2020. Thank you for helping me see how heart healing this process is.
I am an occupational therapist and this exactly the premise that the profession is based upon. Throughout history dating back to Roman times
across continents, engaging in meaningful occupation is what “cured” illnesses. When we engage in something meaningful we benefit emotionally, physically and spiritually! Mastery of something is felt and through that we feel a sense of agency as well as belonging to something greater.
I shared this with Sarah recently -- it's a simple animation project, with some randomness that makes it a little unpredictable. It's a portrait of my mother sewing, as I remember from my early childhood. I made it in Scratch!
Absolutely indispensable and urgent question! Your eloquence follows and uplifts me with all your readers everywhere🙏🙌👍
I’m now in Honolulu for a collective celebration of our family birthdays, so we’ll read together this terrific column and then have a wonderfully weird brainstorming session of how to express our gratitude.
From Buddha to Gandhi, MLK and Thich Nath Hanh, stellar teachers of nonviolence (ahimsa) have illuminated ways to show compassion and loving kindness.
Judith Butler’s “The Force of Nonviolence” is a wonderful recent appeal for a “new imaginary”
to break through the plague of violence that pervades our society. How about giving us a conversation with her in a forthcoming Newsletter? DD
This line made me laugh out loud: "I mean the slow, pleasurable accumulation of Goodwill sweaters and blouses and that constitutes my 1970s-librarian-who-loves-hip-hop-and-rides-horses signature style."
I first visited Bethlehem in the West Bank in 2005, not long after Israeli tanks and PLO resisters had faced off in and around the Church of the Nativity. At the other end of the street were young Palestinian students and their mentors delving into jewelry making, film production and drama as a way to enhance and underscore the power of creativity in a time of occupation.
In my own life - a good loaf of sourdough bread (even before the pandemic), a well chopped pile of wood for the woodstove, the patient collecting of coffee mugs from places I love, listening to quirky radio programs from Nova Scotia, the refinishing of an antique table, and an occasional reflective piece on social media are a few of the things that keep me alive and joyful amidst the pain, confusion, anger and war all around.
Love this so much. A chopped pile of wood makes me cry.
I loved that line too!
In the past month I've started to film myself doing house renovation/little building projects and putting them on YouTube. Mainly just my family watches them. It sounds (and is) pointless to stay up late after my daughter is asleep in order to spend hours and hours editing and putting together the videos, and the whole thing definitely feels weird to focus on while there is so much suffering going on. That said, it also has provided me with a way I can channel creativity and excess energy into building/making things and then being able to share and explain them to others, and it's been strangely profound in how much it has shifted my overall mental state and capacity to deal with the rest of the world. I think you described it perfectly when you wrote "your hands are working on something and this is so comforting after your brain working so hard on so many terrible things". Thank you so much for writing about this.
Oh my gosh, I love this. I would NEVER think of doing something like this. Maybe that's another thing that makes small, weird projects so important--they spring from a truly original, unique source, the YOU of you.
My brother, Ben, made this weird, small project, which shows his memory of my mom at the sewing machine when we were kids, making her weird, small projects. It really moves me: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/646805603
Also, my 6yo and I are trying to visit a new museum every wednesday. And I made a weird little book based on texts between myself and a close friend during the pandemic for her :) I also have to give credit to Christie George, who first gave me the idea that this was a category worth exploring, which you do so beautifully here.
This is amazing! Ben, I love it! I think I gave Georgie that idea, so it's a full circle moment. If only we'd managed to take those pics of our tiny weird stuff being hauled back and forth between our houses during covid...
Haha. Circles upon circles :)
I just loved reading this so much. I am researcher, and the project that gives me the most life is about creative parents and how they make space for their creativity. And the findings have just been so fascinating. What you wrote about "There’s a part of me that finds this list deeply shallow in a time of death and inequity..." that's such a key finding in my work -- that people, women in particular, struggle with their work being "useful" but also get so much joy from those "small, weird projects."
How cool!? Where can we read more about your research?
Thank you for these thoughts. I have been beating myself up for not writing, which is my usual outlet and release. I am grateful for your perspective that these are difficult times and my sewing or mandalas or even the embroidery I have been yearning to start are creative outlets as much as my writing. I really appreciate your perspective to recenter and ground me in this crazy world!
Good Morning! This struck me today, and while I don’t normally comment, I had to speak to truth. I am retired, and I fill my day with painting pictures and cross stitch, flowers, and tending to friends who reach out with their fears and concern over the state of our world. I also watch videos of my grandchildren that my daughter sends on a regular basis. Are the weird, maybe - but I am tending to me need for meditation. The stroke of the brush, the up and down of the needle, are very ZEN-like, and they calm my soul. That is the opposite of violence - it keeps me from throwing something at the television, and lifts me from depressive thoughts.
Thank you so much for commenting! I love your practices of beauty and care. What a gift you must be to so many.
I loved this article! I love small things that I can create that will bring joy not only to myself but to other! Currently I am knitting a baby blanket (the pattern I saw our granddaughter Maya wrapped in when she was a baby. I am knitting it for a little baby born at 27 weeks, airlifted to Seattle Children's NICU and not returned to "her" hospital with hopes of going home in the coming weeks. Each stitch is done with hope for her, a little prayer for her and a wish that she will grow up to be a wonderful and giving person. Creativity puts peace and joy in my heart ... even when the world is falling apart!
Love this. Your whole house is a big, weird project. Haha! Miss you.
Hi! New subscriber here. Loved this post. I actually just launched a substack newsletter called How I’m Building This Life and it’s where I’ll be collecting and sharing stories of folks building careers and families at the same time. And in my first post yesterday I also referenced the same episode of We Can Do Hard Things! It was so raw.
My sanity is wrapped up in knitting 🧶. It is my favorite hobby and creative outlet. And through the pandemic I really embraced it as something worth my time, my undivided attention (whenever possible with 4 littles), and even financial resources. I think a lot of moms especially don’t think hobbies should cost too much of anything. But I’ve realized that for creative endeavors to take up meaningful space that truly allows for “self care” it should be treated with dignity and care. It shouldn’t be an afterthought.
So I buy the nice patterns and nice yarn. I share my progress and final projects with friends. I devote alone time to it. And my kids know it brings me joy and peace.
Excited to check out your work! Thanks for joining us here.
I loved this article so much. Weird small projects are what have gotten me through this pandemic. Recently, I started dressing up in glamorous outfits and taking photographs. My friend is an aspiring photographer and I am an aspiring stylist (and that’s my weird little project because it’s not my daytime job) and so this has been a collaborative effort. It’s equal parts a healthy distraction from pain and a way to face it. Our outfits/photographs/backdrops have meaning to us. They allow us to make sense of all that has happened.
I LOVE this! Especially since so many of us haven't taken our sweats off for months.
Deirdre Colgan Jonesjust now
Also: if anyone here is interested I am teaching an online mindful creativity course, beginning in April, through Zoom out of the Evanston Art Center. It’s always lovely to have west coast residents join us in this virtual space. ☺️https://www.evanstonartcenter.org/school/v0417-collage-meditation-history-and-practice-art-life-ages-16
Thanks for this piece. Cultivating a culture of care and repair in my own life means that yesterday Even with a deadline looming, I had to drop everything to hold a funeral for a spider that died. It happened during my almost-nine-year-old son’s recess period at our local neighborhood school. This highly sensitive boy was so upset by the spider’s accidental death during another boy’s overzealous investigation of the creature with a stick and had been crying for hours when I retrieved him at pickup. The incident and his outsized emotional response caused the whole class to stop and think about the interconnection between all of us creatures here on Earth. He made a poster to memorialize the Unknown Spider and wrote a poem with his teacher at school.
This morning he reluctantly braved another full day of learning with his rabbit stuffie “Cuddly Bunny” under his arm and some resolution of the grief he felt after we buried the tiny shroud containing the spider’s body in our still frozen back garden in Chicago last evening. 💔 🕷 🙏 Puts things in a new perspective for me.
Is there anything more human than an impromptu funeral with a child? We've been enriched by many over here. My youngest daughter is really close to death and grief. I think it's a special kind of wisdom. Much love to your boy.
Courtney your column and responses are my inspiration and joy going forward💖
I love this post so much. I am finding that is in fact the super small projects and accomplishments that are creating such joy - which helps to balance the scale of all that feels so horrible. I've been making Albums in iPhoto of our family year long sabbatical that we returned from just months before the pandemic started. Perusing the photos, reliving the experiences with our 2 boys, seeing the world as it was pre-2020. Thank you for helping me see how heart healing this process is.
I am an occupational therapist and this exactly the premise that the profession is based upon. Throughout history dating back to Roman times
across continents, engaging in meaningful occupation is what “cured” illnesses. When we engage in something meaningful we benefit emotionally, physically and spiritually! Mastery of something is felt and through that we feel a sense of agency as well as belonging to something greater.
I shared this with Sarah recently -- it's a simple animation project, with some randomness that makes it a little unpredictable. It's a portrait of my mother sewing, as I remember from my early childhood. I made it in Scratch!
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/646805603/
She posted it above! It's the best!
"small bursts of tender creation." Yes! Speaks to me.
Absolutely indispensable and urgent question! Your eloquence follows and uplifts me with all your readers everywhere🙏🙌👍
I’m now in Honolulu for a collective celebration of our family birthdays, so we’ll read together this terrific column and then have a wonderfully weird brainstorming session of how to express our gratitude.
From Buddha to Gandhi, MLK and Thich Nath Hanh, stellar teachers of nonviolence (ahimsa) have illuminated ways to show compassion and loving kindness.
Judith Butler’s “The Force of Nonviolence” is a wonderful recent appeal for a “new imaginary”
to break through the plague of violence that pervades our society. How about giving us a conversation with her in a forthcoming Newsletter? DD
Oh wow! I want to hear more about the brainstorm! What did you all come up with?
I’m so glad that you like my response to your terrific article.
I’ll tell you about the results after our celebration is over next week.
Love, DD