Can we talk?

So, I always feel a little weird and awkward about this, but I use Google Analytics on my site.

That doesn’t mean I know who you are when you visit me here, but Google does tell me what state or country visitors are from, and which posts people spend the most time on. Analytics came with the blog, and it’s kind of nice to be able to check in on it sometimes and know that I’m not just here talking to myself.

I know that a few people read my book posts, but the ones that get the most action are my sewing posts.

I haven’t finished a sewing project in so long that I can’t remember the last time it happened. There was a magical time leading up to Halloween where I made 6 costumes over the course of a couple of months, but then I totally shut down due to lack of sunlight and did very little after that.

I always tell myself, this is my blog, and I want to write about what I’m doing and what I care about. Even *I* am sick of writing about books, but I don’t have any sewing projects that are ready for prime time. Posts like this one? I usually don’t have time to write when those kind of ideas come to me.

Usually, as March gives way to April, my brain and body wake up a little, and creative pursuits, especially sewing, become more appealing again. I’m hoping that’s true again this year.

But as I lay here in bed, resting for the first time all day, listening to my kids bicker downstairs, I’m not sure when I will sew again. I don’t actually need more clothes, and I’m not ready to make any more costume pieces because working alone on something hard with only the internet for support when a problem arises is getting to be no fun. Plus, there’s still nowhere to dress up besides the backyard, in view of the upstairs apartment next door.

I have a little plan. One of the ways I dealt with pandemic stress was to buy fabric. I have a healthy, OK, ridiculous, fabric stash. I’m thinking I’d like to make one Remy Raglan top, one pair of Luna pants, and a jerkin from my Elizabethan Sea Dogs pattern, but instead of lacing holes, with buttons and button loops like this. I have the patterns and supplies already on hand. In my mind, these three pieces would be an outfit, mostly black, so that I could mix and match with my mostly black wardrobe.

Being successful with this venture might give me some motivation to work on some more challenging projects that have either stalled or have been procrastinated beyond all reason.

So, I’m checking in. Talking about future projects is a little scary because it kind of feels like accountability, and I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.

Are you a fellow creative who has done very little creating this past year? Have you acknowledged all the completely legitimate reasons for that (working from home, schooling from home, working at work, never getting a break from your own expectations or the needs of others, the effects of chronic stress on your brain matter….) but still felt sad and even guilty that you haven’t done much with the perceived time we all “got back” when we cancelled everything last year?

I’m doing the work to be kind to myself about my “lack of productivity.” I’ve done a few projects lately – organizing, alterations, or bits of forward movement (like one handsewn buttonhole a day) that, if not super creative, at least feel RELATED to being creative – like, if I can make a buttonhole, maybe some day I’ll be able to make bigger steps toward meeting some of my costuming goals.

I don’t want to write sewing posts just because that’s the content people want – that isn’t really the kind of blog this is. I think the reason this is hard is that I really miss sewing and want to be doing it… but most days, I walk past the sewing supplies stacked in the dining room countless times, telling myself I’ll get to it after I finish this other thing, and then this other other thing, and then I never get to it.

There is a saying that we are all doing our best.

If we believe that, then the things we think we should be doing, but aren’t: those things, we’re not doing them right now because on some level, we can’t.

Where does that leave us?

Hopefully, it leaves us with hope for a future that feels a little physically or mentally freer than the now. Maybe it gives us permission to make tiny steps forward and to count every millimeter, or sometimes count simply holding ground, as progress.

Photo taken by Four. I’m wearing my Ayora Jacket.