Endings

…and beginnings

💖💖💖

It is the last day of March. It’s been a really big feeling month.

I’m not going to sum it up because it feels like too much, which I guess is why I write daily…because every day feels so full of tiny wondrous moments that I don’t want to forget. Each day requires a level of sorting so I can keep joyful and acknowledge the things that require celebrating, and those that require grieving.

Today is my day off. I’m actually taking from now until April 8th off of opening Curious & Kind. But I got up early today because I wanted to go help my friend celebrate her last day at the cafe she was managing.

I met her on her first day, and our friendship has grown over the last two years. Each time I went into the cafe she greeted me with excitement. She held me when terrible things happened and I needed to weep. I listened to her stories of joys and hardships, and we opted to move our friendship beyond the walls of the cafe. We went on walks, she invited me to her house, we held an art show together. She is a wondrous human made of warmth and kindness, and who is an incredibly talented artist.

I am nearly twenty years her senior. I feel grateful to my friends who are older than me, who have shown me the importance and benefits of intergenerational friendships. I’m grateful to the folks younger than me who let me into their worlds.

So that was on my list today. To help my friend with that weirdness of a last day. Endings are hard, but also beautiful.

Then I went to the art gallery where I am a volunteer and also the new curator of a shelf reserved for one artist each month who does 3D art. This month was a hard one to book. No one seemed ready to go. So eventually I asked a friend of mine who had a coffer of knitted creatures, the patterns are their own. Moths, and Mothman, crabs, and gnomes. It’s a whimsical offering, and this is their very first show in an art gallery.

So today I went to price the pieces and tag the shelves.

I’m going to put their bio here, and if you want to buy one of the creatures you can ask me, and I can facilitate it. 60% goes to the artist, and 40% goes to keep this gallery which is a collective of 175 artists, up and running. It’s an inclusive space that began 53 years ago as an attempt to preserve the art and legacy of Early Bailey, son of Lunenburg (as he is known). A mouth painter whose work reached international audiences. He lost the use of his limbs as a small child who survived polio. So from its inception this gallery has been about having a regard for disabled artists. It has grown and changed over those 50 years.

I feel lucky to be a part of its membership, and also feel so grateful to be a part of a community of artists.

Last year four pieces of my art sold there. My friend reminded me it’s because I price things so low. But I think that art should have many levels of affordability…so anyone can afford it.

The gallery was being hung today, and I found my piece, the tiny one in the middle hung up jauntily amongst some of bright and whimsical pieces.

It feels so fun to share a space with so many creative humans.

Half-way through finishing setting up Rebecca’s shelf, we left because today was the Trans Day of Visibility. And that there was going to be a flag raising ran by our municipality. So we fast walked all the way there.

I feel exceptionally grateful to live in a town, a province and a country where the rights of queer and trans and LGTBQ2SIA+ people (a lot of letters cuz there are a lot of us) are still protected.

If you’re here, and you’ve been reading my newsletter for awhile, or you know me. You likely know I’m non-binary, as is my spouse. And that we are raising thoughtful kids whose identities are respected and celebrated.

I don’t always talk about it, that or being autistic, disabled, chronically ill, and a stroke survivor because there is already so much in my day to day to talk about. But these are all identities that I carry. And through those various lenses I see the world.

We all of us are made up of intersecting identities, and so many things affect the way we see the world.

I try to invoke my curiosity everyday and listen to the ways people tell me who they are. I believe deeply in small community connections being the ultimate way we change the world to be more loving. In education. In caring for our shared environment.

I have an open heart, and it isn’t always easy, but I’m a human and a teacher, and an approach each interaction hopeful.

Today I got to stand on a hill in the rain with people who support the trans community. It was so important.

Then I picked up a pizza and came home to make my pup her food for the week, while writing this letter to you.

I’m going to write my tiny book now, and put it below.

📚📚📚

One Darling Duck

Tiny book #90

Then I’m going to start editing the last podcasts from the first season of Curious & Kind Conversations (I recorded 42!) because tonight I’ll be starting the second season of 42 conversations with a dear friend who told me she wanted to be on it, so I couldn’t quit just yet.

If you’d like to have a gentle podcast conversation with me, I’d love that. Feel free to reach out.

Heart,

Wake

P.S. Here is Rebecca’s biography.

Rebecca Cross was born in 1996 in Liverpool, Nova Scotia.

Her grandmother, Judy Cross, taught her to knit when she was 8 years old, and she’s been knitting ever since.

Rebecca knits and crochets, creating from their own patterns, and celebrates 22 years of dedication to the textile arts.

Rebecca is excited about having her very first show on the Small Stuff shelf at the Lunenburg Art Gallery Society.

Other facts:

The themes in her work are inspired by the South Shore of Nova Scotia, and her family’s background in fishing. But what she loves is knitting cryptids and dinosaurs and gummy worms. She described herself as a combination of mysterious and silly.

When not crocheting they like to play horror-inspired video games.

Mostly they spend their time working at Rosefinch Mercantile, making art, and can be found knitting moths (and other creatures) at Crafternoons in Port Medway most every Sunday.

And Rebecca and their art in front of the gorgeous barn quilt art at Rosefinch Mercantile.

Oh! And look at this Mothman! He’s up for adoption.