I’m working on a scarf with a hood for my love, something to keep her warm when I can’t be there to do it myself. We’re long distance right now, and it’s being able to make things like this for her that make it less difficult. When you make something handmade, you put so much of yourself into it during the process; when she wears this, it’ll be the hug I can’t be there to give her.
In the face of a hyper-productive, cruel capitalistic world that stigmatizes kindness and mocks compassion for our fellow man, one of the most radical things we can do is to take time to sustain one another. Keeping one another warm, fed, and supported not only connects us to our inborn humanity, but exists as an act of resistance against the forces of extremism, greed, cruelty, and hatred that seek to divide us in order to keep us under their heel.
I’m very tired. My mental health has been up and down a lot recently, and the process of seeking answers has me extremely wrung out. Right now, I can’t engage in activism the way I want to. I rarely have the spoons to read the news, much less discourse about it. By working on projects like this, I’m engaging in my own quiet rebellion, one focused on activities that sustain me, and sustain the ones I love.
When the world tries to grind you down, living well is an act of resistance.
