Hi family, friends, fellow travelers,
Welcome to the future.
Image: Open gate into the Arnold Arboretum, Roslindale, Boston. Visible are the stone pillars on either side of the wraught-iron gate and the rain-damp pavement.
Today is the last day of our blissful two-week vacation, and I'm sending out my monthly newsletter a bit early because I anticipate the next couple of weeks being full of catch-up busyness and also as a way of setting some intentions as we transition out of our restorative winter hiberation period.
Image: Embroidery floss on wooden spools threaded onto a wooden dowl, with the ends of thread hanging down. A shelf of books and string of fairy lights are in the background.
Two weeks of largely-unscheduled time felt so, so good. There's something delicious about waking up on a Wednesday and realizing that not only do you not have to go into work that day ... but the following Wednesday you'll STILL be on holiday. We took walks in the Arboretum. I organized my crafting supplies. We drank through a substantial portion of our tea stash. I dyed my hair the crimson of Wrath. The cats practiced snuggling together on the couch. I read a lot of romance novels. We went out for brunch. I learned how to use the longarm quilting machine. We wrote drabbles for the 4th Annual Twelvetide Drabble Challenge. We completed some Persistent Stitches projects and some just-for-fun and gift projects. I got to cook and we were able to fall into our preferred pattern of eating mid-morning and mid-afternoon rather than three meals a day.
I like my job and treasure my colleagues, but I am one hundred percent sure that I don't want meaningful life activities to start (or end) with my work accomplishments, and this break underscored how much of my selfhood is connected to things other than what I do for a paycheck. That was, perhaps, the most valuable part of our home-based holidays.
Image: My newly-red hair pulled back with a hairclip, photographed from behind.
Image: Light purple fabric quilted with the image of a mercat in variegated blue thread (a longarm quilting practice piece.
I had some intentions, going into the break, of getting some work-adjacent (professional) projects done, which didn't happen ... and I actually think that was a good thing (although I reserve the right to feel panic as deadlines approach) because I really shouldn't have agreed with myself that work-adjacent projects were invited on holiday. I intend not to repeat that mistake in the year ahead! So (mostly) instead of history and library writing, I spent time completing three drabble (100-word) series for the Twelvetide challenge and doing stuff with my hands that wasn't typing, both of which fed my soul. I'm actually going to cultivate a drabble-a-day writing habit over the coming year because I find it intensely soothing to sketch out a tiny inter-relational moment in such an economical amount of writing.
Image: The stairs at Goverment Center T stop in Boston that lead down to the Blue Line platform, formerly known as "Scollay Under". This was the name of one of my drabble stories for the Twelvetide challenge.
In the year to come, I'm looking forward to:
Image: A misty footbridge and trees overlaid with the hymn text, "Come, come whoever you are / wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. / Ours is no caravan of despair, / Come, yet again come."
The lyrics are a translation of a poem by Rumi and the music -- sung in a plainsong round style -- is a wonderful reminder that we are not alone on the journey ahead. As we welcome the 116th Congress, seeded with young people, women, women of color, indigenous women, queer representatives, unapologetic progressives, and fierce advocates for the disenfranchised, this hymn feels like a call to hope and action.
Resist, persist, and remember,
Anna
Welcome to the future.
Image: Open gate into the Arnold Arboretum, Roslindale, Boston. Visible are the stone pillars on either side of the wraught-iron gate and the rain-damp pavement.Today is the last day of our blissful two-week vacation, and I'm sending out my monthly newsletter a bit early because I anticipate the next couple of weeks being full of catch-up busyness and also as a way of setting some intentions as we transition out of our restorative winter hiberation period.
Image: Embroidery floss on wooden spools threaded onto a wooden dowl, with the ends of thread hanging down. A shelf of books and string of fairy lights are in the background.Two weeks of largely-unscheduled time felt so, so good. There's something delicious about waking up on a Wednesday and realizing that not only do you not have to go into work that day ... but the following Wednesday you'll STILL be on holiday. We took walks in the Arboretum. I organized my crafting supplies. We drank through a substantial portion of our tea stash. I dyed my hair the crimson of Wrath. The cats practiced snuggling together on the couch. I read a lot of romance novels. We went out for brunch. I learned how to use the longarm quilting machine. We wrote drabbles for the 4th Annual Twelvetide Drabble Challenge. We completed some Persistent Stitches projects and some just-for-fun and gift projects. I got to cook and we were able to fall into our preferred pattern of eating mid-morning and mid-afternoon rather than three meals a day.
I like my job and treasure my colleagues, but I am one hundred percent sure that I don't want meaningful life activities to start (or end) with my work accomplishments, and this break underscored how much of my selfhood is connected to things other than what I do for a paycheck. That was, perhaps, the most valuable part of our home-based holidays.
Image: My newly-red hair pulled back with a hairclip, photographed from behind.Image: Light purple fabric quilted with the image of a mercat in variegated blue thread (a longarm quilting practice piece. I had some intentions, going into the break, of getting some work-adjacent (professional) projects done, which didn't happen ... and I actually think that was a good thing (although I reserve the right to feel panic as deadlines approach) because I really shouldn't have agreed with myself that work-adjacent projects were invited on holiday. I intend not to repeat that mistake in the year ahead! So (mostly) instead of history and library writing, I spent time completing three drabble (100-word) series for the Twelvetide challenge and doing stuff with my hands that wasn't typing, both of which fed my soul. I'm actually going to cultivate a drabble-a-day writing habit over the coming year because I find it intensely soothing to sketch out a tiny inter-relational moment in such an economical amount of writing.
Image: The stairs at Goverment Center T stop in Boston that lead down to the Blue Line platform, formerly known as "Scollay Under". This was the name of one of my drabble stories for the Twelvetide challenge.In the year to come, I'm looking forward to:
- Continuing to coordinate and grow the Persistent Stitches collaborative.
- Reading as much queer romance as possible.
- Writing drabbles (and longer fic).
- Watching Hanna's romance novel project develop.
- Continuing my volunteer work with The History Project.
- Visiting my friends in Minneapolis for what is becoming our annual welcoming-of-Midwestern-summer weekend together.
- The wedding of a close friend from childhood and her future wife. (ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE QUEER.)
I signed off the December 2018 newsletter with a song from church, and I'm going to sign off this newsletter with another. A good friend of mine mentioned in a recent email that their family has connected with a UUA congregation (not only are so many of my friends queer, many of us are becoming UUs...) and that the first time she heard the UU favorite "Come, Come Whoever You Are" she began to cry.Realized this morning that the closest friends I had as a teenager have all turned out queer even though none of us realized we were at the time. This is a perfect world. pic.twitter.com/dImQzzwZgy
— anna j. clutterbuck-cook (@feministlib) December 23, 2018
Image: A misty footbridge and trees overlaid with the hymn text, "Come, come whoever you are / wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. / Ours is no caravan of despair, / Come, yet again come."The lyrics are a translation of a poem by Rumi and the music -- sung in a plainsong round style -- is a wonderful reminder that we are not alone on the journey ahead. As we welcome the 116th Congress, seeded with young people, women, women of color, indigenous women, queer representatives, unapologetic progressives, and fierce advocates for the disenfranchised, this hymn feels like a call to hope and action.
Resist, persist, and remember,
Anna