Red Cedar

A big part of my personal story is that as a child I learned early on I did not have the skill for drawing or other visual arts. This was evidenced by a note on my Kindergarten report card which read, “Megan lacks hand-eye coordination when using scissors,” and was proof enough in my family that my skills were to be found in other areas, such as writing and playing the violin. At the time, my parents believed that one best work with our natural proclivities rather than spending too much time on skills where we showed poor aptitude.

This never felt like a big deal to me. As a child with a mercurial temperament I was frustrated by things that did not come easily. Drawing and painting fell into that category – I had a hard time even colouring inside the lines on pre-printed sheets – so it didn’t seem much of a punishment to be deterred from spending time making art. My brother had more natural talent for drawing and so he got to be the artist; I got to be the writer/musician, and thus our family roles were set.

For all of my life until I turned thirty, I did not make art unless I was forced to in school projects (which always turned out miserably). I did pick up a few technical skills in my twenties, teaching myself how to cross-stitch using patterns from books, and learning how to use a sewing machine, but it wasn’t until I started quilting and sewing in my early thirties that I started to explore a bit more. At that point, I still believed that I would never effectively learn how colour or composition work because of my innate artistic deficiency. Even though I knew from years of making music, that the key to learning most things is practice and repetition, I saw art-making as separate and somehow related to genetics or inborn skill, and thus inaccessible to me.

*

One of the substacks I love is Draw Your World by the very talented Samantha Dion Baker. As someone with no skill for drawing, I am mesmerized by those who can turn a few lines into something meaningful.

In February, right around my 50th birthday, I won a draw via Samantha’s Substack (exciting!) and she mailed me a set of Derwent watercolors and a set of water brushes. At the time, I figured I would use them for application on textile, as I do occasionally use watercolors on fabric when making a textile piece. I was very grateful for the gift.

Not long after that I started taking a local, in-person workshop called “The Healing Power of Art” which has encouraged me to take up a kind of meditative drawing on a semi-regular basis over the last few weeks. Nothing figurative, with no intention to make “art”; I journal a bit, and then I draw a bit, sometimes incorporating a phrase that comes out of my writing.

It might look something a bit like this:

As you can see, there is no sophistication here. I draw like a six-year-old (likely because I stopped drawing entirely around that time of my life). But my total lack of skill allows me to turn off the inner critic in a way I don’t with pretty much anything else. The act of drawing gives me a period of focus, and no expectations leaves me pleased with almost any result.

All this recent drawing reminded me of the watercolour set in my drawer, and that in turn reminded me of Samantha’s book Draw Your Day which was sitting in my studio “to-read” pile. In it, Samantha encourages a practice of visual journaling, using drawing, watercolour, and collage techniques to make a record of the day. Her Instagram, books, and courses are full of positive affirmation, technical tips, and inspiring artwork – and somehow I’ve found myself yearning to learn how to draw figuratively, at least a little bit, so I can add some colour and texture to my written journaling practice.

Over the years, I have collected up good pencil crayons, pencils, waterproof pens, and ephemera for collaging because the impulse to draw and decorate has been there for a long time. I didn’t have to invest in any supplies to get started when I decided to get over myself and just start practicing!

It’s been ten days of daily drawing practice and so far what I’ve learned is that I really *don’t* know how to draw. That is, I struggle with looking at an object and knowing how to represent it in lines and colour. My pencil strokes are not confident, I can’t freehand a circle to save my life, and perspective is an elusive concept. However! I find the practice completely absorbing (an hour or more can go by and I barely notice), my drawing has improved a little in just a few days (easy when there is so much room for improvement), and I’m learning to see my world differently as I move through my days looking for basic stuff I can draw. I’ve realized it’s much easier if I draw from an object or photo, rather than from my imagination – so I snap a lot more pics with my phone during the day to keep as a reference. And I’ve discovered so many “how to draw” YouTubes, and Skillshare courses on lettering, drawing and watercolouring, that learning some basics is practically free.

Most importantly for learning is that I have become a bit obsessed in the last couple of weeks – which is what it takes for me to put other things aside and pull out some paper. I don’t have big expectations except that I learn to express myself visually for my own enjoyment – and I’m finally at a place where I can drop the baggage that has weighed me down in this area for so long.

Below is my first attempt at a “Draw Your Day” page which I have followed up with other kinds of sketch and journaling exercises. This is such a portable practice that I plan to take it on the road over my summer holidays to see what comes of it.

I feel like my “real life” has been on pause the last couple of months. Between a very difficult tenancy situation in my parents’ home (and by difficult, I mean that police intervention was required repeatedly as the tenants harassed and attacked my elderly parents), and perimenopausal symptoms that have seen a real uptick since turning 50 — I have been a bit of a wreck. Frozen at times, hyper-reactive at others; it’s been a roller coaster ride of reactions lately. Fortunately, the most acute situation (the tenants) was fully resolved this week and my brother and I changed the lock on the suite Wednesday. It’s remarkable how much my mood has lifted in just the last 48 hours.

Pretty much as soon as I got home on Wednesday night I started to drop back into the normal routine of my life – getting into my studio and finishing up some yarn that had been languishing, yesterday I wove two napkins on the small loom, and started plotting out my next weaving projects. This morning I found myself thinking about rebranding this dormant blog, or possibly another writing project. Though I am still exhausted from the last few months, my creative life seems much more do-able again.

I’m going to be careful though, not to take these signs as license to start a million more things right now. I’m making a pact with myself to get some studio work finished over the next couple of weeks, and then we’ll see about new projects over the summer. My theme for 2023 is “Making Do” which is something I landed on after realizing that task lists and daily goals just weren’t working for me anymore – so I’m going to continue to touch base with that – working with what I have at hand and taking things slow as I continue to recover from my period of perpetual anxiety.

The immediate resurgence of energy and interest has been a reminder of something I recognized after the whole work debacle last spring (when I quit a work assignment due to toxic dynamics and unrealistic work expectations). That experience taught me that no matter how on point you are with all the practices – creativity, exercise, meditation, eating healthy, etc. – they can only do so much for you when the stress valve gets turned onto high. When big stressors like high stakes conflict, abuse, or violence are present, the goal should always be to get away from/bring an end to the situation, not to find new ways of tweaking our psychology or spirituality in order to tolerate it.

There are, of course things that we can’t escape from, like perimenopause and past trauma – things we have to face head on using all of our skills and practices. Since changing the lock on Wednesday, I’m a lot more free to work on those things since I’m not getting out of this body anytime soon (knock on wood). So onward with the healthy practices! Not to mention the therapy and journaling. I’m just glad to be back in myself a little bit more as this week closes out.

Since the beginning of the new year I’ve been in a decluttering and re-organizing mode: inbox, closets, studio, finances. It wasn’t a resolution since I didn’t make any this year, but it’s clearly where my focus has attenuated in these last few weeks. Perhaps it is connected to my “Making Do” theme for 2023, as that requires a bit of taking stock to find out what I am making do with – or perhaps it’s just reflective of the breathing space I’m feeling since stepping back from union responsibilities. Either way, it feels good to follow my attention to some long-neglected corners.

One area which has produced a tremendous result in a very brief period of time has been getting down to it with my personal email. Over the years I have subscribed, or been subscribed to, a shocking number of lists, newsletters, and systems/app notifications – to the tune of several hundred emails per week (if not thousands). When Google introduced it’s new inboxing system a few years ago, which included tabs for “updates” “promotions” “social” and “forums” – I figured this would help me deal with the email onslaught and I dutifully sorted inbox messages that came in, hiding away messages beneath their appropriate tabs.

Turns out, that only made my email-hoarding problem worse as I read next-to-nothing under those tabs and periodically found myself deleting thousands of emails in a go, invariably ridding myself of something important like concert tickets or receipts along with all the “clutter”. Plus, the Promotions and Social tabs deploy Google Ads, which can never be removed and lend to my email the overwhelm.

This problem with unread messages lead to other issues, like being billed for services I no longer wanted to subscribe to, but missing the notifications because they went into the updates or promotions tabs. There was also the fact that I wanted subscriptions to some things but didn’t see them because they were buried in the never-ending stream of irrelevant messages.

The problem was so bad, I had stopped recognizing it as a problem and just accepted it as the way that email works for me. It’s funny what we grow to tolerate just because that’s the way it is.

But near the end of 2022, I got to Zero Inbox on my work emails – which took a few days of sorting, deleting, and responding to things – and I recognized how much lighter I felt at the end of each day with only a couple of emails left to address. Looking for more lightness in my life, I figured I should apply the same to my personal inbox situation. I’m fine with my inbox as storage for conversations and connections, but I didn’t need to also keep thousands of ads and social notifications.

Since that realization, I’ve been unsubscribing from things like it’s my full-time job. I started by running through the first hundred or so emails under each tab and unsubscribing from everything I no longer wanted. Then, I deleted everything in my promotions, updates, and social tabs and got rid of the promotions and social tabs altogether, so things can’t hide there anymore. And now that I’ve got a handle on it, I evaluate each thing that comes in and decide whether I want to continue my subscription or not. The first few days of this were rough, but now I’m three weeks in, and there are only a handful of emails per day.

I’ve directed the subscriptions I want to keep to the Forums tab, which I review every morning and actually read now that I’m not overwhelmed all the time. The Updates tab is for receipts and reminders, which I delete when I don’t need them any longer. My main inbox is personal email.

There is no question this feels waaaay better than the “hide it under the bed” approach to my inbox I’ve relied on for years. I am not stressed when I open my email for one thing, but I’m also allowing time in the morning to scan the actual news bulletins from the NYT and Globe and Mail (subscriptions I pay for) so I feel more informed and in touch as I start my day. I’ve also realized that although there are many worthy Substack newsletters in the world, there are only a handful I am excited to get in my inbox. I can scan the rest from the Substack app once a week without all the clutter.

The inbox cleanse is also helping me identify automatic payments I no longer want to be subscribed to, and how susceptible I am to email advertisements from my favourite craft suppliers. As much as it pained me to unsubscribe from the Maiwa mailing list (not to mention all my fabric stores!), my bank balance is sure to be healthier without first-thing-in-the-morning impulse purchases prompted by email. Just last week I created a spreadsheet to track where my money goes on a monthly basis – an action completely related to the email taking-stock I have been doing.

Now that I’ve swept out the dirt from under the bed, is it possible to keep my room clean beyond the first month of the year? Only time will tell! I’ve never undertaken an inbox cleanse with this much rigor – but as we all know, old habits are hard to break. I think I’ll have to give this You’re Wrong About episode with Anne Helen Peterson on “How Email Took Over the World” a listen every six months to remind me how damaging the continued drain on attention can be – and I’ve set a recurring task in my calendar to take stock of my email situation every three months to see how things stand. Given the net-positive so far, I’d like to keep my inbox situation under control from here on out.