mending and skill trades
Visited my friend Sophie today, as she needed tailoring on her clothes. Life hasn't been kind to her lately, and she lost a lot of weight, so some of her clothes didn't fit anymore. I offered to tailor them, and I feel like we both win: she'll get to wear her favourite clothes again, and I have a fun little project to help her out :) So we went through her clothes, I pinned them (inside out) to her liking, and brought them home. It'll be a mix of hand sewing (for the thicker materials), and machine sewing (for the more straightforward pieces). My goal is to keep everything reversible, so if she chooses to change them in the future again, she can just seam rip it and she won't be short on material.
As a thanks, she gave me a loaf of homemade bread. Her bread is always amazing and I don't know how to bake bread at all, so I was super happy. In the bus on the way home, I thought about how great it was to trade our skills that way (and how to eat the bread). Instead of both spending money on necessities, we just traded our "silly little hobbies", which in fact are not silly at all, but real skills that can help ourselves and others. It kind of felt like a communal moment, detached from capitalism and consumerism. Am I reaching?
TL;DR: I mend I get bread
