After the Shadow Passes
I’m not sure where it started. Maybe with a recent kick of mending projects, trying to make what I already have more durable using other things that I already have. Perhaps with a recent improvement in my mental health, with previously inaccessible reserves of patience and enthusiasm being reopened. But at some point, my vision shifted. I began noticing things that were laying around and thinking of things they could be used for, and I began connecting crafting videos that came across my Instagram feed with supplies I already had.
In the past week, I’ve carved buttons from avocado pits and bears from soap (the latter is going to take a lot of practice in order to get the end result I’m aiming for, but soap still cleans regardless of its shape). I’ve made a leaf shaped plant support out of found wire—and then made it over, smaller, because I misjudged the size it needed to be the first time. I also finished a circular blanket knit from the scraps leftover from previous projects.
Widening my view from “all things must justify their own existence through proven productivity” to “making (or attempting to make) beautiful and interesting things is enough in itself and does not require further reason or purpose” has been a fascinating shift, but it appears that the willingness to view objects creatively and act on creative impulse without worrying about the marketability of the finished piece is also paired with the willingness to do things not-quite-right and then try again. Creative nihilism, it turns out, is remarkably freeing.
In her new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking, in a chapter titled “Time to Spiral: a note on the recency illusion,” Amanda Montell writes about the cognitive bias which causes us to view new information as urgent and immediately relevant. I’ve experienced this in many ways, but specific to this topic, in new ideas and crafting supplies being infinitely more exciting than ones I’ve had for awhile. I’m trying to balance both; giving myself the freedom to seize an inspired moment, and resisting the impulse to immediately buy the start-up supplies for a new hobby. It might be easier to carve a bear if I had some fancier tools, but on the other hand there would be not only an initial monetary investment but also a learning curve, and my twenty year old pocket knife and the soap we already had under the cabinet will do just fine.
I’m learning to be open to possibility for possibility’s sake. It’s been eye opening, noticing the things around me in a new light; like I’ve been walking around a dimly lit room and just now pulled back the curtains to let in the sun. It’s a warmer, friendlier, and decidedly more hopeful way of being.