wearing my Grandmama’s jean jacket shirt,
the one that was probably too big for her, too,
with a stain on the pocket that she hid with some cool embroidery —
a design around the initial she went by
[her full name was “Mary Jane” but she went by “Jane”
for as long as any of us can remember]
and because i’ve started going by my initials,
i knew i could easily add a little “H” on one side
and a little “F” on the other of this giant “J”
and it would look intentional, like the rest of the design,
and i could claim this as my own —
and wear it not as a hand-me-down
from the Grandmama where i got my middle name, but as a
continuation of the lineage
of Jane
and J
and the art of embroidery
and family
and everything…
embroidery
January 4, 2024
maybe i just need a kick in the pants
a push in some direction
any direction
to just try some things out
let’s dabble in dancing
in aerial theatre
in embroidery/stained glass/poetry/story-writing/singing
i want to be performing
and i want to stay home and safe and comfy
and i want to be known
and i want to never be perceived
and i want to grow my talents
but i get so frustrated when i’m not immediately good at something
and i can’t help but think
that this is what life is
so if it’s what life is
then maybe i should just
enjoy the ride
that i’m on
October 18, 2023
the desire to simply
sew
stitch
embroider
do nothing with my time but extend the things i do with my hands
it is strong today
June 3, 2023
if only i could put all my hobbies
and helpfuls
into one basket of poetry—
the focus that comes from embroidery,
the loss of time and self
and feeling of fullness of art
of acting,
the power
and grace
of pulling one’s own body weight
up to an aerial apparatus
and seeing the whole room
spin
just this side of uncontrollably
around me,
and the expression
of my deepest most inner
mind
in a single poem
(or two)
(or three)
this is how you get to know me.
August 26, 2022
it’s hard
to just life your life
when you look at everything
through the eyes of
an external narrator
when i just want to
have the experience of
surprise
say
or even sadness and grief,
my brain fills with the descriptors:
“their eyes widen in surprise”
“tears leak down their cheek, while they ponder
a long life well lived”
or even
“the pang of depression had lessened, but the grip was still tight
on their heart,
shoving it down
towards the depths of their insides
causing a pain
they didn’t even know
was possible”
do you see?
i’m frustrated with my own experience
because i’m constantly trying to describe it
for others
for my own narrative structure
to get the external markers just so
for the script/film adaptation, too
and i find myself unable to just experience
the experience.
perhaps that’s why i’m drawn to the two extremes
of hobbies-
the one that takes up every single ounce
of mental and physical awareness,
and the one where you do the same thing
over and over and over again
till it because just a background motion,
a memory of the muscles,
a pattern rather than an activity.
and maybe someday i’ll be able to feel things
experience life
without describing it
but for now…
i circus
and i embroider
and i write to try to find my medium
my in-between,
wherever it may be.
August 13, 2021
i wish i could find a *thing*
that helped me all the damn time
i have writing
until my mind is too scattered to make any sense of
the thoughts flickering in and out of my brain
i have embroidery and sewing
the fiber arts
until my hand is shaking so much
through an excess of energy
that it seems unintelligent
to have me anywhere near needles
painting could be my
saving grace
calming state
area of expression
but the minute i pick up a brush
i remember how bad i [think i] am at art
and the frustration comes back
ten fold
and i’m still at odds with myself.
[this would be the perfect time
to try to find
a meditation that works for me
but something about my agitation
makes remembering meditation
a near-impossible cogitation
but maybe
today
i will]
August 11, 2021
a few years ago
during a holiday visit with Kip’s aunt and grandmother
i offhandedly stated (while looking at the various projects and things around the room)
that, as a person who sews, i should have probably gotten into embroidery and cross-stitching
a long long time ago,
but i’d never even tried.
and there was a flurry of limbs, fabrics, and plastic bags
and out popped a cute little cross-stitch kit,
complete with thread, tiny beads, directions, and two extra pairs of small scissors, just in case.
and that started me on a new fabric arts journey
cross-stitch gave way to small embroidery projects,
which gave way to large embroidery projects,
still within kits
(bought by my gifts-as-love-language spouse for nearly every gift-giving occasion)
and i started to memorize the stitch names
experiment a little bit with colors and paths and techniques
and then there was a global pandemic
and everyone needed to stay at home
and everyone needed to find something to do while they were staying at home
and a ton of people got into the fiber arts
and i got…
contrary.
i knew it would happen.
i could feel it in my bones.
as more and more people started falling in love with this art i’d been falling for,
i could feel myself protective of it,
i could feel myself resistant to posting about it,
for fear folks might think i just got into it for lack of something better to do.
rather than be joyous about more and more people seeing the benefit of this older art,
i just got petty
and i tried and tried and tried to tell myself not to,
and i tried and tried and tried to enjoy folks who found it as a life-saver during this global trauma,
but i just
couldn’t.
but i also knew i’d come back
i knew it wouldn’t last
(my distain for newbies,
my silly gatekeeping),
so i simply stopped my project
and began to enjoy different arts,
i poem-ed
and painted
and film-edited,
and i did not share any opinions online
because there’s enough negativity on there [here] to last several billion lifetimes,
and because i knew it would fade
and i would be left with an even stronger community,
or simply with even more people’s projects to look at
while bored online
and of course, i did
(and with an even freer sense to experiment a little
when following the directions felt stale)
and i love looking at people’s projects from the depths of the pandemic,
and i now know this fact about myself even better:
i will be contrary at first,
but i won’t try to keep that gate closed
for very long.
September 15, 2020
the chill of changing seasons
with only a packed hoodie to protect
can make it difficult to do anything
but re-watch supernatural
and embroider tiny cacti
over thin blue lines
and snuggle under a blanket
and hope tomorrow will be warm enough
to explore
(again)
kipventures 