Do you make this weighted blanket Earth-sized? 🌎

And put some eucalyptus in the giant humidifier while you're at it.

In my 20+ year career as a bartender and waitress, teetering on the edge of chaos was a regular experience. You'd walk into a Friday Happy Hour or Sunday Brunch suited up and prepared for it, and then could be totally blindsided on a Tuesday night when half the staff was sent home before anyone remembered the concert nextdoor wouldn't end until 9pm and the line of drunk and hungry would spill out onto the sidewalk until midnight. But like turning the burner off of a pot of water right before it boils over, the only thing that ever kept me from taking off my apron, walking out to my car and driving away mid-shift was knowing there was someone that had my back. That someone was usually a manager and when it was a good one on shift (they certainly weren't all created equal), there was a feeling of safety where you just knew that no matter what, that manager would keep the train from going off the tracks. My adrenals could be pushed right near explosion, but knowing there was a leader in control, I was operable. 

My life as a drunk looked very similar, except there was no manager to keep the train on the tracks. The train derailed many times but the irony is the thing that derails the train also makes you oblivious to the derailment, so you just keep getting back on the train. When I got sober for the last time in 2014, I was so desperate for a feeling of safety. I needed to drain myself of cortisol. I wanted nothing more than the feeling of being on a Grandma's couch, any Grandma would do, wrapped up in her crocheted blanket with a never-ending supply of hot tea and scones on a floral tray within arm's reach. Even when your intoxicated brain is oblivious to your lack of safety, your body knows. It took some critical self-care to come back from the decades long cycle of intensity and exhaustion I'd been through, but I finally met that feeling of safety I was desperate for.

Then came 2016 and suddenly there was no competent manager. The old survivor's flinch crept back, 2020 took it to 11 and on January 6th, the train derailed. America's train derailed, that is, and remarkably my manager named Sobriety kept my train on the tracks. But how do we live with collective cortisol? I can't stop thinking about the Black, Brown and Indigenous in this country that live their entire lives under inherited and constantly present fight or flight response. The Mayo Clinic says that when it's always on, "the long-term activation of the stress-response system and the overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones that follows can disrupt almost all your body's processes." After the events that happened in DC on Wednesday, I think I finally realize what a privilege it is to experience  any amount of relief from the feeling of unsafety. You can breach the Capitol of the United States and if you are White, barely a hair on your pale body will be harmed. That is the privilege of safety. Working in my studio cocoon for six hours yesterday is what kept my personal train from derailing but my gratitude for the accessibility of my tools is enormous right now. 

Now if I could just crochet a blanket big enough to throw over the rest of you, I'd do it in a heartbeat.