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Winton Boyd's avatar

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.

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Rachel's avatar

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.

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