Intentions and unintended developments

One year and a few days ago I started a project. On the day after my 58^th birthday I began posting daily on Instagram under the hashtag #58plusdaily. My intention was to post mostly about my creative activities, with a little bit of ‘life’ thrown in. I figured my love for taking photographs, although it has never developed into anything reaching any kind of artistic standard, would always enable me to post at least some creatively taken photograph. The ultimate aim was to boost my creative activities which have been suffering, I think, since I started the nursing course and then working as a nurse. A post a day is a minimal time investment but would always give me a line to keep my eyes open for something interesting to photograph. In the beginning of April 2023 I had reduced my working hours and dreamed I would be back to quilting lots and lots, finally finding a way back into making mode. I did not count how many posts I did, I did not actually post every single day, but I did not miss too many.

The intention of boosting my creative activities, which I, mostly, wanted to turn back into the fabric realm, didn’t realize to the degree that I had hoped for. There was a lot of life going on, and many reasons kept me from sitting down at the sewing machine, putting my mind to a quilt design wall, picking up a few pieces of fabric. I was making, making something with my hands every day – I completed a sweater, socks and a few other knitting items, I handspun yarn, I did some hand stitching, relatively mindlessly putting scraps together which might turn into something eventually, it is good company to take along on a train or on travels.

 I even completed quilts.

This piece became a section in my entry for the 'Ocean' challenge by EPM.

The Essence of the Haiku, for 20 Perspectives

A baby blanket from orphan blocks for a little girl

This became "Seeing Red", my entry to Brno Festival Challenge

"Family Histories in Textiles and Books" for 20 Perspectives

My contribution to the Round Bobbin Challenge
for the Swiss Patchwork Guild's 35th anniversary

 

Searching for the hashtag now shows me that the pictures are mostly indeed pretty good, but there is much more of ‘life’ being shown on Instagram than ‘creativity’. Looking at the photos in my gallery the overall pictures changes – there are a LOT of very very good and creative photos indeed. (Not intending to brag, but hey, it’s true.)

 

As the year of that hashtag is over simply because the number changed recently I am still trying to get back into the creative regularity I used to have – but who am I kidding? Even if I am not working full time, I am working 50%, and have set up a rather strange commute situation. I can’t expect to be able to make so much time for creativity as I could when I was not working outside the house at all, ‘only’ doing the small fabric dyeing business and bringing up a child.

What did happen during the past year, however, were a lot of changes I had not foreseen or envisioned. And some consequences of these changes I cannot fully grasp yet. And there are more to come – ageing parents (we have had dramatic developments on both sides of our family, my husband’s mother as well as my father), an extremely difficult-to-deal-with colleague for my husband, who has now decided to draw the line and move to a different position (problem ahead: emptying out and moving house after 19 years in one place), sending my son off to university, adapting to the changes Long Covid has brought into our lives as my husband is dealing with it, a ‘mild’ version that is still a very unpleasant experience for everybody affected and involved. All this while I am still adjusting to the new work environment, colleagues, that extreme bi-weekly commute I willingly inflicted on myself.

Many people have told me before that they admire how much I seem to get done. I think I have mentioned before that I never have the feeling I am actually getting enough done of all the things I set myself up to. But that may be the problem, resulting from my philosopher-father who, of all things, constantly worked on the topic of achievement. I have to be kinder to myself – I have indeed achieved a lot during the last year, and I need to be gently with myself to be able to tackle whatever lies ahead in the near and not-quite-so-near future.

I won’t be doing another daily-photo-thing on Instagram, mostly because I am less plussed with Insta than I used to be. I do intend to make daily, I will report about it here and sometimes on Insta and I hope to get through these very challenging times ahead of us without a burn-out, freak out or complete collapse. But making is important, and daily making indeed. Some idea I had about getting into a daily regular habit has started but not achieved the regularity or continuity yet. Perhaps, soon...