Writing, Grieving, and Crafting
How have you been? I'm doing...Okay...
TW: mentions of school shootings, mental health
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. I made a Substack a whole year ago, then forgot about it.
Maybe you’ve found yourself in the same position as me - dreaming of exercising your creative writing muscles with a blog of your own only to discover that life always gets in the way. Motivation flags, ideas run dry, and you let it go.
I’m not quite ready to do that though, I think. I’m in a better place now, my life is a little bit more balanced and at the same time thrown completely off-kilter. Writing seems like a good place to go to find clarity.
After a tragedy, it’s hard to get back into the swing of things. It’s hard to find balance and clarity. I’m trying.
Just before Christmas, I was at work. I’d just started my day, it was maybe 9:30am so I hadn’t even been in for long, then I received a phone call.
It was my sister. “Hey, I wanted to call you to tell you before you see this in the news. There’s a shooting at [our brother’s] school. He just texted me. He’s okay.”
My heart plummeted straight through the floor. I felt like my head was swimming. “Thank you for calling me,” I responded immediately. My logistical brain was already working through the next steps - who to call, what to do, what would come next.
“Do you know if [husband’s brother] is safe?” I asked next. Both me and my spouse had younger siblings who still attended the school that we ourselves grew up in.
“No, just from our brother. I just wanted to let you know. I love you.” She responded.
“I love you too. Thank you. Stay in touch, call if you need anything. I’m going to make some calls.” We said our goodbyes and I hung up.
The surreal nature of being across the country but still so deeply affected by a school shooting has been my world since then. We live in Oregon while our family remains in Wisconsin, and yet the news of the tragedy followed me through my days. Reports on the radio, Instagram posts from friends and news outlets, Facebook updates from families assuring their safe status or giving the latest news about those who had been casualties.
The weekend following the shooting was the strangest part of it all. I attended a Public Information Officer training from OEM and FEMA up in Tillamook, OR. The very real nature of an emergency scenario like a school shooting reverberated in the back of my mind through the whole training, and every piece of information was impressed deeply upon my memory. As an anxious human, my brain is built to find the most efficient way out of any emergency scenario. I spent that weekend analyzing the response to my school family’s tragedy. Even weeks out now these concepts still overlay every post and conversation.
One thing has been a gentle reprieve from the mental spiral - crafting.
I have discovered that I am, at this moment, a seasonal crafter. Perhaps it is just the natural desire to be warm and cozy that comes with the cooler weather here in the PNW. Maybe it’s the sudden realization that I have several gifts to give, several of which could be handmade, over the holiday season. Crochet and knitting have surfaced as the two crafts that are most accessible to me in this moment, and during this season of emotional turmoil they have been a great ally.
If you are a yarn crafter, then you might be familiar with the level of meditative focus that comes with a new project. Crafting 3D objects from string is no simple task, even if a pattern says it’s beginner-friendly. I’ve been mulling over the positive aspects of these crafts and a few things have surfaced:
Slowing Down: Meditation - not just an activity done sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat. According to a paper published in 2019, meditation is “an exercise in which the individual turns attention or awareness to dwell upon a single object, concept, sound, image, or experience, with the intention of gaining greater spiritual or experiential and existential insight, or of achieving improved psychological well-being.”
While meditation is incredibly diverse in its practice, the concept of mindful contemplation stands out. Fiber arts require a level of focus on the singular act of creation. While this focus can vary between a few different tasks, the goal remains the same. Make something.
Mental Health: Yarn crafting provides a level of control, satisfaction, and choice that folks like me with anxiety brains can’t get enough of. Many artistic crafts scratch this itch.
Knitting is incredibly predictable and generally satisfying. You find or create a pattern, take up your needles and yarn, and work until you have a completed object in your hands. NPR reported on a team of researchers who published a paper in 2017, asserting that “making art may have benefit for people dealing with health conditions that activate the reward pathways in the brain, like addictive behaviors, eating disorders or mood disorders.” Their research found that creating something increased blood flow to the reward centers of the brain, producing dopamine and in turn creating a pleasurable connection to these activities.
Leveling and challenge: Knitting and crochet can be incredibly frustrating. Learning new stitches, honing dexterity, increasing efficiency - all of these are factors that can make someone throw in the towel…But this is also the beauty of the craft.
Textile arts are one of the oldest forms of art in human civilization. Because of this, it’s easy to find techniques and patterns that work for almost anyone regardless of physical or cognitive ability. Humans have a tendency to complicate things and show off, but we are also incredible problem solvers and will find the easiest and most efficient way to succeed at a goal.
In summary, I’m treating my fiber art endeavors as mental healthcare. I can separate the art of these tasks from the tactile satisfaction of them in a way that is more difficult with painting or drawing. I can choose to achieve near-perfection if I want to, or I can choose to work up a fabric just because I like the repetition of a crochet hook looping together strands of yarn to make a scarf. This is something I can control.
If you’re going through something similar right now, I encourage you to find something that gives you a quiet space with no judgement. Somewhere you can just exist. You don’t have to be productive, you don’t have to make something, but if you can quiet your mind then you’ll be able to find space to heal and move forward.