Do you daydream about the choices you did not make?

Mutual Aid, making things together & yearning for all the lives I never lived.

Mutual Aid Distributions

Wow! Two faithful readers offered anonymous contributions to the mutual aid fund giving us a total of $350 to distribute. We were able to fulfill all three of the requests for supply funds. 

Receipts below!

This felt like a magical way of reciprocating all that I have received in the past year. I’m planning for another in January: that time when people tend to commit to new projects. Keep your eyes out for those emails, we’ll do a fundraising week and then a distribution week.

Announcing Making Things Club!

My dear friend and fellow maker, Megan Canning, and I will be hosting a virtual gathering for folks who want to make things in community. She recently moved quite far from me and we need an excuse to get together and make things!

Our online club meets regularly to share demonstrations, chit-chat, and problem solve together. Whether you're into painting, sewing, weaving, knitting or building things from scratch, you'll find like-minded makers here.

During each session we will have an opportunity to watch a short demonstration from a community member, and then get to work on your own project. It's not a class, nor will any specific instruction be offered beyond the demo. You'll bring whatever project you are currently working on and everyone will work independently on their item.

It's a great place to come if you are currently facing a problem or challenge and want some input, there's a wide range of skills and abilities here! 💡🔨 All skills and mediums welcome.

The first session will be on October 22 from 8 pm - 9:30 pm EDT. 

You can RSVP on Eventbrite. We’re asking for $4 per person to cover some small administrative costs.

Yearning for lives I never lived

I fluctuate wildly between wanting another kid and not wanting to do the early stuff all over again. Between pregnancy and the first year where it demands so much of my physical body and all of my time feels impossible to do again. 

Last weekend, I experienced a perfect afternoon with my toddler at the local community farm. We picked raspberries and ate them directly off the bush while listening to live music. The gentle September sun kissed our shoulders and we shared empanadas. He’s still small enough to sit in my lap and that physical connection in moments like this is priceless. When we have days like that I feel both “why would we blow this all up with another baby” and “duh! Do it again! Hug the babies and have as many as possible!”

There are two alternate versions of my life that I daydream about: the childless artist and the mother of five.

I lived the life of a childless artist for many years. Her ghost lingers in my memory. When I reach back to remember this person I recall her having the luxury of time to experiment and play. I know this to be a faulty memory. Even before having a kid I had other responsibilities and temptations that took over my time. I had administrative tasks, a vibrant social life, travel and a lot of overhead costs to cover by working only on paid gigs.

In my imagination this woman wakes without an alarm, she makes coffee, has time to meditate and write morning pages, workout, shower, and walk to the studio. In her perfectly arranged studio there’s a table for painting and one for sewing and one for computer work. There are piles of books all laid out nicely for reference. She can bop through different mediums throughout the day, a little time to paint, a little time to sew, a little admin work. Rotating through them in a completely satisfying loop. Never tiring, certainly not stopping for lunch, working all the way through until 6 or 7 and then magically finding a nice dinner awaiting her at home.

A friend recently asked me how many kids I want and after a brief pause I said I always dreamed of having five. The number surprised her (and surprised me, too!). Five is definitely not in the cards for our family. 

This is my other fantasy, I have five children running around the house, doing their own projects nearby. I receive brief glimpses of our kitchen table full of children at all ages. Somehow in this daydream I have more time than I currently do to make art. It’s a vision where they come to the studio with me and are somehow fully self-sufficient so I can work surrounded by my children. I know for certain that five young children would keep me from doing any art whatsoever, but the appeal of a very full kitchen table beckons me. 

We’ve landed somewhere in the middle, life is full of compromises. But the thing with compromises is that they are rarely totally satisfying.

Both of these fantasies are comforting because in them I never have to make difficult decisions. The childless artist never has to choose between work and family and the mother of five in my imagination gets to have it all.

In the next couple of years it will be time to decide whether to have another kid or not. It’s funny because I’ve been thinking about it through the lens of regret. Which choice would I regret more? But the truth is that I would regret both a little bit. And neither choice is “the right choice” or “the wrong choice” both options come with sacrifices and benefits. No matter what I choose I will still imagine these parallel lives in which I made different decisions and wonder if I’m happy there. 

Do you keep those dreams of alternate lives tucked in safely in your pocket, too? I think one of the hard things about social media is that we have too many chances to catch glimpses of those unlived lives. I can log in and see the childless artist and see the cool, calm, collected mother of five and ask, why didn’t I choose that?

 I’m wavering: I want the full kitchen table and I want whole days to myself to bask in my studio. 

We are finally at a place with our first (who stays home with us and we share caregiving responsibilities for) where each adult can get a solid 2-4 hours of work done most days. I know when we go back to caring for a newborn the free time gets sucked up again. A few years is a small investment for creating a family but it feels hard to give up art making again.

What I learn from zen is: the path is the path. There is no “other path” over there where life is better or different. I suppose I’m writing all of this to say that I should stop fretting over it and let the sun warm my shoulders and the breeze hit my hair and savor those September raspberries because there’s really nothing else to life than that.

The perfection of September.

Thanks for reading, see you next Sunday.

Bekka