Empty Matchboxes- On not making

I had so many plans for this month. Despite pneumonia sinking me through the end of December, I pulled through the blue shapeless hours by accumulating ideas. When I had energy, I printed out a Paper Cut pattern for lounge pants and set up the fabric I would use (hot pink linen!). I made lists of writing projects to edit and editors to query and jobs to apply to. I thought I might teach a mixed genre class or host a Perimenopausal Rage book club at my favorite RVA art center, Quarry. But my body said, Bitch, have you really not learned yet? We need to actually rest.

Ever since I inherited my grandmother’s fabric supplies in 2022- glossy bamboo knitting needles, a fever dream of crochet hooks, and a loom the size of a grand piano-making things has been a steady source of joy and healing, a way to get out of my head and create in a way that connects me to others. It has expanded my life, and I find that I am at my best with bright scraps stitched between my hands. It is mostly a refuge. But sometimes even that can be twisted into creative anxiety. Who am I when I’m not creating?

The wisest writers I know say that not-writing is as essential as writing. Ocean Vuong says “loneliness is still time spent with the world.” Mary Oliver is forever immortalized in her lines: “attention is the beginning of devotion” and

“I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?”

Halfway into January, I have made nothing. And I am astonished by how full life still feels. Although the first part is not quite true. I made tea, I snuggled my children. I listened to audiobooks about grumpy booksellers. I slept.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

I stored away my dreams of making in a little box, a glass bottle, a miniature time capsule, to be opened up again when I’m ready.

Maybe this is why I am in love with the idea of tiny vessels. Particularly, my haphazard collection of glass jam jars from our Bonne Maman advent calendar (they can store buttons, be made into candles! Or terrariums of lichen and moss!) and the empty match boxes that look like they could be a secret drawer where a family of mice or fairies live.

Andre Breton says of small closed spaces: “The wardrobe is filled with linen./ There are even moonbeams which I can unfold.”

I am making a life even as I make nothing tangible. I have my tiny empty vessels. I am creating safe spaces. A place to drift and heal and dream. There are even moonbeams.