I’m thrilled to contribute a “Paris révolutionnaire” pillow to the “Free Little Art Gallery” in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle. (Sorry it dwarfs the space, at 14″x14″, but this site really is tiny!)
Are there galleries like this in your city? would love to see more pics… a healthy art scene does such wonders for the soul…
It may seem odd to spend weeks making a quilt for a stranger and yet that is exactly what I’ve been doing. “Respect” quilt no. 10 is now done! As I worked, I reread the book which inspired it and realized on p. 230, that the quilt manifests an insight within.
“For the first time in my life, I was dedicated to loving myself so fully that the natural response was also to love unconditionally any authenticity I found in others.”
–Michele Harper, M.D., The Beauty in Breaking, p. 230.
I so admire that line and the mindset it suggests; would that everyone felt equally strong and capable of loving, despite the hardships and pain it may bring. Harper’s candid and sometimes heart-breaking writing provides a beacon of hope, and a means of connection, for us readers.
I hope she’ll like the quilt.
Hello,
Today is grey and rainy, and after reading Vanessa Friedman’s article about face masks in the style section of the New York Times, I was feeling like a loser. The prices I charge are well below market, I realize (not to mention all the ones I give away for free), even though mine are made by hand with great care and the finest fabrics. I am not selling them on-line or paying for advertising, but getting the word out on local blogs, and focusing on the neighborhood where I live and my fellow Seattlelites. Some friends have sent in orders, and I was encouraged to submit a bid for 50 masks yesterday: I have so much business that I’ll be wrapped up in face-mask production well into the month of June! Yet I wonder how long I can or want to go on doing this? (I have to admit it is tiring and hard on the back!) Thus the suspicion, awakened by Friedman’s comments on the fortunes being made during this crisis: have my better intentions made me into a schmuck? Being a schmuck—a simpleton or dupe—about money is an anxiety shared by many; one of my articles targets this very topic: how people are ridiculed for such credulity by sarcastic French writers of the Enlightenment, and the American media today!*
However, after a bit of thought and a return to my bookshelf, peace has returned. I’ll copy it here for the pleasure of sharing and reflecting on the message, before heading out on my morning walk and another nice quiet day of sewing masks for people:
It’s from the great Stoic philosopher Epictetus, The Art of Living:
“Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. Personal merit cannot be derived from an external source. It is not to be found in your personal associations, nor can it be found in the regard of other people. It is a fact of life that other people, even people who love you, will not necessarily agree with your ideas, understand you, or share your enthusiasms. Grow up! Who cares what other people think about you!
Create your own merit.
… Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don’t be concerned who is watching you. Do your own useful work without regard for the honor or admiration your efforts might win from others. There is no such thing as vicarious merit.
… Think about it. What is really your own? The use you make of the ideas, resources, and opportunities that come your way. Do you have books? Read them. Learn from them. Apply their wisdom. … Do you have tools? Get them out and build or repair things with them. Do you have a good idea? Follow up and follow through on it. Make the most of what you’ve got, what is actually yours.”
Epictetus, The Art of Living, pp. 12-13.
___
Yesterday’s face mask production, fyi
* Julia V. Douthwaite, Is Charity for Schmucks? The Legitimacy of Bienfaisance, ca. 1762-82 and ca. 2013-15”: available on academia.com.
Hello!
Dec. 18 is a very exciting date. It is the day that kicks off the “caring profession thank-you week”: a tradition I created last year as CEO of my own business, Honey Girl Books and Gifts (est. 2017).
Each year in the week before Christmas (beginning Dec. 18), Honey Girl Books and Gifts gives away a Tranquility Pillow ($80 value plus free shipping in the USA) to the first five “caring professionals” who request one (with a scanned ID or other proof of profession). Caring professions include K-12 teachers and counselors, nurses, midwives, doulas, fire and police officers, and day care providers. In return, we’d like a little feedback about the product’s therapeutic effects and permission to share those anecdotes.
Want to join the contest? email juliawsea@gmail.com beginning on 12/18 (that is, for the eager, at midnight tonight)
Don’t delay! inquiries have already arrived from teachers and nannies in cities ranging from Seattle and New Orleans to South Bend, Indiana!
Thank you for your service to humanity; we could not survive without you!
This year’s winners will receive a Night model in the Moonrise design, as seen below.
Inspiration struck again this morning! Despite the fog outside, we are in a heightened state of happy anticipation in the house. Why? Two fun reasons:
1) we’re waiting with baited breath to learn the name of our mystery guest(s) for Thanksgiving and other dinners to come, an international student (or two) from the UW. Can’t wait to welcome them into our home! Hope we’ll be able to see across Elliott Bay by then…
2) Ever since arriving here last summer, I’ve had a hunch this might be the kind of place where an “alternative economy” might exist. Inspired by my former student Brittany Ebeling (now at Sciences Po, Paris), who’s already created a solid background as an expert in alternatives to capitalism in her research in Senegal and Denmark, I’ve been looking around in curiosity. Swallowing my fear of rejection, I managed to do a “cold call” with the owner of a beloved toy store, Curious Kidstuff, in West Seattle’s thriving Junction neighborhood. Much to my amazement, I was not only warmly welcomed but invited to do pop-up events during the holidays (next pop up Sunday 11/25 from 11-3!) and to teach the free writing workshop for children, “Write YOUR Story,” next semester in the activity room upstairs. Wow! Talk about support for local business and education!
This morning, I discovered another heartening endeavor: West Seattle Impact. It is what is called “a local giving circle”–basically a group of philanthropists who happen to be women living in West Seattle. They vow to donate $100 at Quarterly Meetings held in a public place and spread throughout the year, on an ongoing basis. Founded this past summer by some of my awesome neighbors, Impact West Seattle corresponds perfectly to my desire to give back, as seen in the Sustainability page on the HGBG site. Naturally I signed up immediately and can’t wait to meet them at the next meeting in January! Here’s their site: https://www.impactwestseattle.com/
Thank you neighbors, readers, and mystery guests, for making life so much fun. And for sustaining these many ways of connecting with each other! we can prove the doomsayers wrong by working together despite the national fog…
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Hello readers!
It is an elementary truth of capitalism that you must make people pay for what you sell. Yet there is something irresistible about generosity! As Harvard University economist Stephen Marglin writes:
Love is a very special commodity,
An irregular economical oddity.
Bread, when you take, there’s less on the shelf.
Love, when you make it, it grows of itself.*
***
Honey Girl Books and Gifts wants to help spread love and fellow-feeling! Thus our offer, which is good until 12/25/17 this year, and will be good again each year in the week before Christmas: to honor and assist people in the caring professions, each year in the week before Christmas we will give away Tranquility Pillows ($150 value) to all K-12 teachers and counselors, nurses, fire or police officers who request one. Contact juliawsea@gmail.com with your request. Thank you for your service to humanity; we could not survive without you!
***
* Stephen A. Marglin, The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 18.
Daily Joy with Honey Girl 