going a bit easier on myself

a sort of 'halfway homemade' approach

I’ve been thinking a lot about easing up on myself. You may have noticed me examining this thought like a beach rock in my hand, tumbling it over and seeing all its sides in all the possible ways. It certainly feels like I’ve been processing it for a while, in different ways, and maybe this will just be a forever work-in-progress, to unravel all of the ways I can be too hard on myself.

The truth is, I just want to remove any and all barriers to creative practice, to rest, and in general, to ease. I want to get out of my own way enough to let these things feel within reach. I’ve noticed my tendency, like with basic herbalism type practices (like I shared here), and with researching garments to make or wear (shared here), to overcomplicate things. My instinct is to go “all the way” - if I’m making clothing, I’m first patchworking what scraps I have into yardage so I can sew something, and I’m not working from a pattern, I’m making it up based on my body measurements. There are many other examples in many other realms, but you get the idea. As a way of approaching creative practice, I don’t think this instinct is entirely wrong, I’m just noticing how it slows me down and makes me more prone to feeling overwhelmed by the number of steps I need to take and the feeling that I lack the time or ability to do them all.

Take, for example, my desire for the coming cooler months. I’d like to tune into a number of soft rituals that help to carry me through the cold & dark of my first winter living on the east coast. One that I have in mind is to light candles often. True to form, my immediate thought is that I have to make enough beeswax candles to see me through the winter. As I wrote that, I noticed my jaw tighten. The last time we made a ton of beeswax candles (and sort of forced my family to try their hand at it during Thanksgiving), we used a kitchen twine I assumed would work only to find out that first night of hanukah that it, in fact, spat and sputtered enough to be slightly dangerous. We said we’d melt down the candles to save the wax. We still haven’t 10 months later. Can you see where I’m going with this? My instinct upon thinking of a nice, soothing ritual is a sense of obligation and shame for not having done it better already.

I want to let this habit go. This cycle of guilt and shame just leads me to inaction and serves no one. Instead, I’d like to embrace the ‘halfway homemade’. (I could have sworn this was a tagline on a food network show in the early ‘00s - does anyone remember who? I thought Rachel Ray? But I truly cannot remember).

Instead of feeling like I have to make all the beeswax candles, I’m going to *gasp* buy some of my favorites (given heartily as gifts, but never keeping enough for household use). I wanted to make tea blends and bath salts, too. So I picked what was available in the yard - lemon balm and lemon verbena (thank you, Liz, for your abundant garden!) - and hung it to dry in our house. But that’s not enough for tea or bath salts, so I, again *gasp* ordered what I needed online.

I’m trying to remove as many real and perceived barriers to creative practice and nourishing rituals as possible. Life is hard enough as it is, why am I beating myself up for not being the ultimate forager? We’ll start with these imperfect acts, beginning with what I can access right now, and who knows, maybe one day I’ll be out foraging all the supplies for my favorite tea blend? That’d be pretty cool, but today is not that day, and I’m okay with that.

noticing & doing

enjoying the world wide web’s way of revealing things just as I’m thinking about them, like when I randomly came across this new to me substack written by Nic Antoinette about choosing ease just as I was penning my own draft above.

settle this debate (between me, myself, and the internet) for me: does Summer end at the end of August? Does it end when children go back to school? Does it end on Sept 21, the day before the equinox? I am noticing my attachment to seasonal shifts as I start living somewhere that experiences (more drastic) changes in temperature seasonally, and I was so confused at how many people went, “summer’s over!” at the end of Aug. When does summer end for you?

as luck would have it, episode 68 of the podcast was not saved properly when I recorded it on zoom :( - I would still love to share about the episode guest & share what I could salvage, so I’m going to be working on that in October/November. stay tuned & thanks for bearing with me! <3

my knitting has been small & spontaneous lately (and largely unphotographed) -and mostly fits in a pocket - perfect for airplane entertainment on the flights to/from Iceland/Ireland :) - I also picked up a few skeins of icelandic wool in a color palette of coral, goose/baby poop, and lime and I am ~really~ into it

the family trip to iceland and ireland was really, truly lovely. as requested (by like four of you haha), here are some ‘fit highlights! i was very pleased that the number and type of garments I packed worked out very well for the range of temperatures and weather we experienced. and i heartily endorse a merino undies/cami situation, particularly for the flight! (stays odorless, washes & dries easily in the hotel sink) s/o to my sister for all these pics!

maybe the best fit of all - the rain poncho my dad bought me for a trip to costa rica a near decade ago

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(cw: death)

a dear friend and mentor of mine, Nathalie Nagalingum, passed away in late august. not only was she one of the leading researchers of cycads in the entire world, but she was the kind of person who made you feel smart and important, something that felt especially powerful to me as a 20-year-old “visiting scientist” when I met her at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, where she’d agreed to take me on as a researcher that winter. When we sat in the lab doing PCR extractions together, she always paused at 2:45 for tea time and listened to my silly early-20s revelations with such curiosity and care. I will remember Nat for the incredible research she did, but mostly I will remember her for how I felt in her presence - at ease, cared for. I share this I think because I just want more people to know her name and to see that picture of her radiant smile (often paired with a poppin’ lippy color and the most fun set of big earrings). May her memory be a blessing.

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sending you all the sweetness and ease you deserve, my friends, because you do deserve it very much <3

& if you’re near a botanic garden, would you touch a cycad for me? <3 <3