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3 august 2021 I’m a day off sending this newsletter because I got sucked into the Netflix teen vortex of Outer Banks. I may have watched the entirety of season two in less than twenty-four hours, and I’m okay with admitting it. Now Of course, this wasn’t always the case… I used to be ashamed of my addiction to all things 90210 or The O.C. To be discovered in my basement, walking on the treadmill, watching episode upon episode of One Tree Hill truly on the road to nowhere. In a life that wasn’t making sense I found it easier to become lost in the lives of Lucas and Nathan (and Peyton and Brooke) rather than become willing to do the work. To find myself. There is something indescribable about teen melodrama and how it has always been my perfect escape: a way to reconnect and affirm all that makes meaning both in the stillness (and the wreckage) of my life. I wish I could explain it more fully but suffice it to say, teen melodrama is no longer a guilty pleasure, rather it is one I readily admit and embrace. A tool to separate nuance from noise, and to know what are my own needful things. Watching John B. and Sarah Cameron allowed me to escape the car accident John C and I were involved, both the situation and the story, even if only for a moment. Okay, maybe ten hours. Soap operas are not my only balm. There is also art, and the many ways it heals. I’ve always considered collecting to be a form of communion ~ a process that allows me to recall and commemorate discrete moments of being. It's never about acquiring the artwork per se, but rather creating intentional altars to individuals and experiences received in reverence. I was introduced to the work of Orit Raff in 2006 at an exhibition at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, and I have hungered to own the photograph (picture above) ever since. At the time I didn’t believe I deserved it, or deserved to even ask the question. And maybe I did and maybe I didn’t, but I know I do. Now I know I am capable of asking: if the work was still available (it was ~ thank you Ronnen Fine Art), to save my money, to pay over time, to find its place in my home, because art has staying power. So do I. So do you. What are your kneadful things? What do you know to be true? I leave you with a poem, one that I return to with gratitude in all that is my life and the people I am blessed to walk with each day. THE TRUELOVE
by David Whyte There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way. I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world. Years ago in the Hebrides,
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water, and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you simply don’t want to
any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours. As always thank you for reading ~ I would not be who I am without your support and encouragement. I hope you can join me for some upcoming events in Rochester and online ~ all the details below! xo this is my practice ~ to be just sew
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