Festive Fall Nervous System Malfunctions

complete with a new baby and new art!

Hello, hello! Melody here, inviting you to take a break from your last-minute pumpkin harvesting and costume designing, and sit with me for a minute. Let’s pretend like we’re easing into our porch chairs, with a pleasant fall breeze whipping all around us, settling in for a nice chat. I don’t know about you, but I need to relax my shoulders and my neck. I need to look away from my screen and out toward the sky. I need to stretch like a cartoon character just getting out of bed. Most of all, I need a few minutes with a friend. Join me!

A lot has happened in my life since I last reached out; for one thing, we have our new baby! I would send you 100 pictures, but she’s not my baby (she’s my daughter’s baby), so we’ll do our part to keep her off the internet for now. Just imagine the softest, sleepiest little bean, with perfect bobblehead proportions, whose mittened hands are always tucked up by her chin, and whose legs occasionally spring out, revealing the saggiest knees she’ll have between now and when she’s 90, because there’s so much good room left to fatten up. All she does is sleep, so every time I see her, I just hold her and admire all of her little parts. I take her socks off and peek at her little toes, and I bend and wiggle her arms and legs. I touch her nose, then I touch her ear, and then every once in a while I whisper “wake up baby!” in my nicest voice but she doesn’t listen. I’m not used to babies who let you sit still, so I find myself jiggling her around a little, bouncing or swaying like you do, but I don’t think she notices. She just sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. She’s the sleepiest, most peaceful baby I’ve ever met, and I’d say that’s exactly the energy we needed to finish off this year.

How is your nervous system these days? Mine has been a little shout-y. I can tell because it will assertively interrupt whatever I was going to do, like make a sandwich, and redirect me to do something entirely different, like sit down and cry for a little bit. It’s like a season of summer storms, where everything is sunny and lovely and then you glance over your shoulder to see a billowing black cloud and you have about 40 seconds to run inside or else. I think the goal is to let the storm pass so that it leaves everything, at least temporarily, fresh and clear.

We are all enduring a lot these days! We hold so many things at once: neverending atrocities while still having to think about dinner, scary news and beautiful weather, our fun projects and our chaotic schedules, our favorite people and our stupid phones, collective grief and weekend plans and the uncertain future. We are using our Superstrength™ to hold it all together right now. Let’s tell ourselves we’re doing a good job, the way you would talk to a little kid when you really mean it.

There’s so much advice right now for dealing with things, and I am particularly drawn to the DO LESS school of slowing down and reconnecting with your gentle self, but also, there are literally so many things I want to do right now, so that’s gonna have to wait. I live in Atlanta and I signed up to be a vendor in the Indie Craft Experience Holiday Shopping Spectacular Dec 6-7. For months, I’ve been eeking out little moments during my evenings and weekends to make some new art (I really love doing this, it is so much fun for me). Some of the pieces I’m most excited about are new holiday decorations printed on plywood. The wreath is life size and the little cartons are tree ornaments. There is going to be lots of new art and stickers and other fun stuff as well!

New art for Indie Craft Experience in Atlanta!

Back to our programming of slowing down and doing less, I have spent absolutely no creative energy on Halloween and I’m completely at peace with that. We plan to spend the evening with friends on their porch giving away boatloads of candy, and then I hope to get at least a little quiet time this weekend, and of course, I have to see that baby.

Wishing you a happy and festive halloween!