I just spent a week house-sitting for friends, and had some delightful alone time, which is a real gift. I took my cat, Mayhem, and we just chilled out and enjoyed each other’s company. I have returned home and feel a bit contemplative, still very aware of the stew that is 2020 politics, but seemingly a good time to talk about Defiant Joy, Creativity & Curiosity, and the woman who nurtured these traits in me. This is mostly an homage to her.
We all love our moms. We all carry traits that we love and hate from our moms. I think the biggest gift that I carry, which was nurtured by my mother, is my creativity and curiosity about the world.
My mom was an artist, she rarely met a creative pursuit she wasn’t willing to try, and even invented some. Her favorites were painting and gardening, but she did so much more and WAS so much more. She was very involved with our church, she redesigned the chancel and pastors’ offices. She also designed & made windows out of plastic crystals (since our church couldn’t afford stained glass), made seasonal banners, created the designs for the pastors’ stoles, made table decorations for church functions, built the life-sized nativity set that sat on the church lawn every Christmas season, and certainly more than I know. At home, she sculpted things out of papier mâché, crocheted, built rock gardens, played the piano, sang, decorated the house for the holidays, and cooked wonderful meals (except for a few unfortunate attempts at turning leftovers into soup). Not only was she the very essence of creativity, she nurtured it in other, while being a great mom, who loved us more than her own life.
She and my dad were also very curious and had a deep interest in world around them. Mom used to say that she and Pop were “just 2 dumb old country kids”, but they read books of all kinds and were keen students of life. What they lacked in formal education, they made up for in self-education. I remember my dad coming in from mowing the lawn, eating a bowl of butter beans for lunch and reading the words of the founding fathers.
Mom always worried about the Middle East and called Rush Limbaugh “Little One-Note Johnny”. I’m glad in a way that my folks are not here to see our country teetering on the edge of the abyss, especially given the way my mom always proudly marveled at the legacy of our peaceful transition of power every 4 years.
This is where I come from, always encouraged in creativity and curiosity.
Perhaps they sound impossible, but they were truly a force of nature, especially Mom.
I am an inheritor of this legacy, and I see shades of her influence of all parts of my life. Being her only daughter, and her youngest child by 6 years, I was afforded a lot of one on one time with her that my brothers didn’t have. She was a gift and I am so lucky to have had her in my life. I strive to live up to her example every day. She has been gone for 15 years, and though I have gone on without her, there will always be a huge hole that will never be filled.
These gifts of curiosity and creativity have given me something to hold onto when things get tough, like during this pandemic and our current political unrest. I learned long ago in a Crisis Risk Communications class, that people need direction for things to DO in a crisis. It allows them a healthy outlet and a feeling that they are helping, but sadly, the mixed messages we have received from the Trump Regime have fed the discord and widened the breach between us and them.
I am lucky in that I have many pursuits that I can turn to, including knitting, spinning wool, bullet journaling, sewing masks, painting bad watercolors, digital scrapbooking, making memes, listening to audiobooks, and now writing & creating podcasts. I find these creative outlets really helpful in dealing with my own anxiety and depression, these seem endemic to this time.
But for those who don’t have this, I have a hard time imagining JUST sitting and stewing and fretting. I think that a lot of folks in my generation who were raised to think that the world would always be stable are really feeling lost right now. We were not prepared for our world to blow up. I know I feel lost enough, I can only imagine how hard it for some of us.
One thing that buoys me up is from the Gaslit Nation Action Guide (https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/action-guide), “Make Art. To say that art cannot make a difference stems from a tone deaf attitude of privilege: Ukraine’s EuroMaidan revolution of 2013-2014 relied on art and artists of all kinds to sustain protesters living in arctic-cold temperatures and under the threat of government-sanctioned violence (http://www.artnews.com/2014/03/31/icons-on-the-barricades-2/); North Korean dissident Yeonmi Park said that Orwell’s Animal Farm helped her heal after escaping the cult-like dictatorship (https://twitter.com/andreachalupa/status/1006368736323006464?lang=en); and in our episode “The Blue Wave Continues: Kansas Rising” (https://gaslitnation.libsyn.com/the-blue-wave-continues-kansas-rising) we share Davis Hammet’s account of how painting a rainbow house created a ripple effect in Kansas, leading to major electoral victories (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/davis-hammet-kansas-lgbtq-sharice-davids-laura-kelly_n_5be8ebdfe4b0dbe871ac8dda). We need the artists and storytellers of all kinds more than ever.”
Another place I find inspiration is from Black Women and their absolute refusal to give into despair by claiming joy despite the toxic nexus of racism and sexism that they face on a daily basis. The following quote comes from a very short Bustle article by Ayana Lage (https://www.bustle.com/p/what-black-joy-means-to-7-black-women-15917712), “Being joyful in the face of trauma and tragedy is a radical act.”
I don’t know how many political memes I’ve created during the Trump Regime, but it’s a lot. One of them was pointed enough that a gal told me it was disgusting and blocked me on Twitter. Mostly I get a few retweets and likes, that is fine. I use my creativity as an outlet, and that is the most important thing for me.
Finding joy in these times does feel radical and defiant. Currently I am inking and decorating July 2021 in my Bullet Journal. It feels like I am saying, “No matter what happens with the Pandemic or with the election in November, I plan on being here to fill out these pages.” Some people like to do their Bullet Journals a month at a time, I prefer getting it all done and then going back and filling out those pages lovingly with what is happening in the present moment. I get to enjoy it all over again.
Creating the spaces for next year’s adventures and then deciding that I fucking WILL be here to fill them out feels doubly defiant.
Whatever your choices of what you want to do: find your joy and indulge in it, even if only for a little bit. Don’t let them steal your joy. Don’t give in to their attempts to wear you down. Take up a new skill, try a new recipe, or just spend time with your loved ones (safely of course). Find a bit of joy, because it is in that joy that you prove them wrong and you (and we) win.
Mom always said 2 things, “Every day is a new adventure” and “Every day you learn something new is a good day”.