Aurora Kelly

Sitting at my kitchen table, staring out the window, I find myself reflecting on seemingly discordant things. The weather, this morning, tried to throw every precipitation in it’s considerable arsenal our way. And I’m realizing that, in our current political climate, I’m mirroring that behavior in an odd fashion. Hobbies I’ve dabbled in are coming out of the woodwork to demand my focus.

I’m growing potatoes under the table I’m seated at. I just acquired new jars to attempt a sourdough starter, bread I made last week not enough to quell the sudden urge to bake, to make. A seed catalog draws my eye off to the side, dozens of plants marked to order and reminding me to plot out my garden for this year (spoiler, it’s going to be at least twice the size of what I attempted last year). The potted plants surrounding me are exploding with growth, unusual for winter, but a result of my near incessant urge to be watering them, peeking at their progress, marveling at my sudden ability to keep them alive after decades of a brown thumb. A tab lays open to Lowe’s on my phone, the cart reflecting one of the woodworking projects I’m attempting to piece together.

Even what I got for Christmas this year reflects this strange shift: A tabletop corn grinder, a saw, miniature plant trellises, a propagation station. And as I take this inventory, I realize what it stems from, what the shift really is. It is not, as I feared, some subliminal, terrifying descent into trad-wifery, it’s stepping away from the hobbies that I always try to commodify. Stepping out of the capitalistic cycle.

I discovered a love of polymer clay a few months ago and it consumed me. But it wasn’t long before I was making things to sell. The same problem I had with knitting, with painting, with embroidery, with writing. I tried to monetize my passions, over and over again, and faced with the soul-crushing events on a national scale, I’ve dropped myself out of the race. I’m sewing my own clothes, finally realizing I can modify what I own however I like. I’m baking my own bread, trying recipes and flavor combinations with abandon.

At I time where I feel my freedom has never been more threatened, I’m carving out my own, inch by inch, to revel in. And you should too.