Hello again…from a different world than the one I wrote from and you read in two months ago in mid-January. I hope this finds you well-enough-and making do. The making do we’ve been called to in recent weeks is different than the making do we’ve focused on here. The sacrifices and resourcefulness have less to do with food and material goods and more to do with our ways of being and working and loving. But we are having to wield those same coping tools, none-the-less.

There is so much I could write! But I am actually here for a sort-of good-bye. When I still didn’t get back to sharing at our Instagram after my “beginning again” post in January…or creating our first printable for gentle activism…or get a Craftivist project going…I knew I needed more clarity on a path forward and decided to add some pondering of this during the month of March, which I was going to set aside as a retreat from work, a refreshing of my creative well, and the making of more peace and quiet and space to answer some questions I had. Well, my March (everyone’s March!) hasn’t turned out as expected…tho’ some answers have come amidst the upheaval and weirdness.

“Never to categorize, never to separate one thing from another-intellect, the senses, the imagination,…some total gathering together where the most realistic and the most mystical can be joined in a celebration of life itself.
Woman’s work is always toward wholeness.”

-May Sarton

This is one of my most favorite quotes…a compass sort of quote. And I know now, for once and for all, that I can’t be in so many places around the web, even for the best of reasons. I just don’t work that way, and I understand and honor this more deeply with every season that passes. I don’t feel any less passionate about Making Do to Mend the Earth, but I am understanding that-for me-it is a way of life, not a revolution. Or it could be that it is a wonderful, gentle revolution…but I am not cut out to be a leader of a revolution…just a woman wanting to share her journey towards wholeness. Such a journey naturally leads to a mending of so much, including our own patches of earth and all of the ways our lives touch the earth.

So…I will be continuing to share my journey, and all of its making do and mending ways…just in the few places I’ve long been and that feel manageable and home-like…my blog, the small-windows-into-my-world and most of all, my membership website/haven/women’s circle. They all have making do and cherishing the beauty of the earth at their hearts, so my hope is that they keep doing their part in the mending that is so necessary. One hopeful thing about this crisis is that people are slowing down enough to make connections they may not have made before…they are appreciating the truly important essentials of living…they are better understanding the webs of all that we buy and consume and dispose of and the ways it all helps or harms the planet. I’m hopeful sometimes, in between the harder, sadder feelings and realizations that come minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. You too?

I dearly hope to meet you in some of those other places, and will continue to look for and use our hashtag #makedoandmendtheearth … and hope you will, too. Glimpses of our own making do ways, how we came to them and the satisfaction that comes with the discovering and doing is still one of the best ways to make a difference. And who knows? I may be back here one day with some resources* or ready to be revolutionary in some way in the future. I have been trying my hand at watercolor painting this month and won’t be stopping. Perhaps I’ll finally make that Make Do & Mend the Earth poster I hoped to ask some other artist to make when this began? I see the sign I made for that school strike last summer in my studio every day and continue to look for ways to live more lightly on the earth. And having accepted the first strangeness of our current way of life and looking towards weeks or months of settling in with it…I can see that the next while will be a good time to deepen with it all and to share it, home front to home front.

I’m grateful for your presence here and look forward to meeting in all our other places going forward.

xo

Lesley

*I was all set to make those printable cards I mentioned to share at stores, asking them to switch to email receipts and stop the paper ones, when I went to the one I store I frequent that has been doing that for a few years…and received a paper receipt! They felt they “had” to switch back because of some complaints about a possible link between their emails and spam. I didn’t look into it, but it brought home how complicated figuring out the switches is sometimes and put a damper on that particular move. But there may be different cards/printables I will make in the future, and they may end up here. We’ll see…