9 Years.

I intentionally saved Monday’s newsletter for today, 7.13. It’s a special day for me and I always acknowledge it with some words of reflection, so thank you for accepting this special edition. Today marks 9 years of sobriety. Alcohol was my drug of choice and it is seriously nothing short of a miracle that this lush has done 9 years of life without a sip.

Time can be stingy with her insight. I was so full of questions in the beginning. I wanted to know, Why did I do that? Why was I made this way? Why did it take me so long to quit? Why, why, why? But Time, in her ever omniscient wisdom, has only answered a few of those questions and the bulk of the story is still developing.

Here are a few things I know:

Being a lush was fun and glamorous for a long time until it wasn’t, as they say, but I was unaware of the moment it went from was to wasn’t.

Closing every party like an even sadder version of Peggy Lee singing “Is That All There Is?” is definitely a sign of that shift, but you can find forgiveness for yourself for not seeing it.

Windows of clarity are as real but as elusive as my kitty and anyone who gets close to one is very fortunate.

Many of life’s problems can be attributed to alcohol’s fallout but no matter how much karma debt you’ve paid off, sometimes life will just wreck you. You will find ways to respond that will surprise you.

You can be spontaneous and impulsive, you can have many ideas that hit the cutting room floor but you can also make daily right choices, you can follow through, and be proud of yourself for doing so.

I’ll say one more thing with you in mind. It’s no coincidence that I quit drinking in the thick of perimenopause. My body was in revolt (sorry I’m about to get corporeal up in here). I was bleeding like I’d been murdered, I couldn’t sleep for sweat and anxiety pouring out of me at 2am every morning like an alarm bell. I was constipated, creatively and well, all the ways. The body is always the first to send out the SOS and I believe it’s merely the messenger sent from the soul, but I shot the messenger, over and over until that aforementioned window of clarity that I just knew if I didn’t try, I’d die. So I wedged myself through.

If you need some support, my inbox is open.

Eight ways from Sunday.

I just returned from a ten day roadtrip across ‘Merica. We explored Little Rock, Memphis, Blackfalls State Park in West Virginia (and so many tiny hill-nestled towns) and finally, Pittsburg. Many hikes through the most beautiful forests I’ve ever treaded. Mushrooms of all colors and shapes (I actually do not like the taste of mushrooms but I’m obsessed with them all the same), ferns, mosses, seedlings and decay, my awareness acute due the this audio book I finished up while vagabonding. Blues seeping out of every crack in Memphis, Little Rock felt like a Little Austin and we daydreamed about moving there for more than a few minutes. We ate sandwiches in Pittsburg that were so wide they required a mouth opening usually only reserved the dentist’s chair and was introduced to the most generous, transparent stranger I’ve ever met, full of so much magic it was ridiculous. And get this, he wasn’t the only smiling and kind face we came across. Yep, America can be a swirling bowl of turds and being trapped inside a news cycle, it’s certainly the only perspective I’ve seen of late. It had become urgent for me to see beauty and poverty and skin and teeth and rot and birth to remember that yes, there is a point of no return, but like Suzanne Simard reminded me, the Earth wants to heal.

And so do I. I mean, I have. You see, this trip is always a bit loaded for me. It has nothing to do with location, only history, as the first week of July is where our Summer trips usually fall. And since the Summer trip of 2014 was the last time I was loaded (clever, I know), the history of that settles in like a fog, not particularly heavy but muddles my vision a bit. I have a playback that triggers now on our Summer trips. It’s of me dragging around a giant box of wine from place to place, firmly centered in my myopic activity while the world (and let’s include my family in this world) swirled around me. I don’t need to tell you what it was like…you may have your own version of this story. But because I now drag around books (I read 3 this trip) and puzzles and journals and a camera and my colossal curiosity is proof that I’ve healed.

So while I’m full of joy that today I’m eight years free from alcohol, I know that change is always dynamic. I’m still self-centered, not a great friend, have an insatiable hole for experiences that I don’t always see to the end. I tend to not follow rules, suggestions or even best practices unless they are my ideas first and can be very petulant if they are anyone else’s. But because I no longer wake up dead-brained every single blessed day, I’m at the very least aware of my very humanistic flaws. There is hope for me yet.

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I’d love to tell you about some fun collaborations I’m participating in this Summer. First is a Stitch-A-Long. Founded by Crispina ffrench, it is a community sewing experience and fundraiser that will support the building of a quilting studio in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. And get this…I get to team teach this with Mary Margaret Pettway, a many generations Gee’s Bend quilter. Pinch me. Tickets to participate are going on sale this Friday, and I’ll be sharing much more about the whole process then. But for now, we’d love your help! We are accepting votes on which square design we (you, if you participate) will use in this quilt. Head over to Crispina’s page to cast your vote!

Second, I recently did a pod interview with again, Crispina, on her new podcast called Rags to Riches! It is a podcast about textile upcycling, so if you are interested in how I got my start in that space, I’d love it if you checked it out! (This is the Spotify link, but it’s found on most of the podcast platforms.)

Finally, just another reminder that I now take Afterpay in my Marketplace! So if you’ve had your eyes on anything there, you value slow-made fashion but inflation and gas prices makes it all feel cost prohibitive, you can break items up into four payments. I personally use Afterpay all the time. And if you’d like to talk about custom work, like an heirloom textile that you have in mind for a fabulous upcycle, feel free to reply to this email! I’m always open to commissions and I could set that up with an Afterpay option as well.

Take care, sweet friends. It is a sweet old world, sometimes. Thanks, Lucinda.