The practice of using shit up.
the ottoman pouf is finally (mostly) finished.
on practice
I am a collector of materials, tools, mediums, unfinished projects, papers, journals, photos, documents, qualifications, skills, first drafts, etc.
I have carried an old sewing pattern with me on several cross-country moves, not because I wanted to sew the item designed, but because I couldn’t let it go, for a decade or more before finally finding a use for it in a book art project.
When I moved to Mom and Dad’s I gathered up all the old, kind of disgusting, and unnecessary bed linen, to use for—something and yes I brought them with me to Grandma’s in two big bins last year.
I found a waterlogged box of archived high school and college notes, neatly organized, labeled, and housed in binders in the loft storage space in my parents’ house.
As a writer, I’ve been certain that retaining journals even from junior high, is one of the most important things I can do, I scanned them all in 2015-1016, though I’m quite certain they will not serve me as well as David Sedaris’s journals have served him.
Late 2023 I had an inkling to use up some cloth I’d collected, so I designed and started sewing an ottoman pouf. Maybe you remember.
Simultaneously, I’d finally gotten around to dealing with the family archive I’d committed to organizing, including my own albums, and found I had no attachment whatsoever to so many of them: teenage boys flicking off the camera felt violent and unnecessary, random candids of people I was never that close with nor have I been in touch in the last 20 yrs, overexposed photos, photos of red splotches, half exposed/half blank photos, or completely blank photos. And everything in double.
I initially thought I’d shred them into long strips with the intention of weaving them into new images without realizing the shredder made one-inch confetti rather than long strips, so, actually, with quite a lot of relief, my intention changed. I remembered that a mentor and friend had used shredded paper to fill a pouf she made for her cats, and got to work gleefully shredding photo after photo in a productive destruction that gave me such a feeling of satisfaction.
Since then the project has been stop / start: the bobbin case in the old sewing machine I was using became incorrigible and finicky in every possible way and in the end, despite taking things apart and putting them back together several times, and with all the trouble I’ve had with sewing machines, I attached the top of the pouf by hand in December to finally finish the shell, and I got started shredding and filling.
And, folks, oh goodness, I took such pleasure in shredding past versions of myself. When I ran out of photos to shred, I moved on to the piles of school notes. And I started in on old holiday cards and non-sentimental letters but got overwhelmed making decisions. Bits of odd ephemera that meant something to me once, but now sparked little to nothing of even a memory.
The more I destroyed one thing to create another, the more I built something from the wreckage I’d been holding onto, the freer and lighter I felt. The more I let go of the past, the more I felt I could focus on the current version of myself.
Objects, photos, furniture, etc., they all carry weight and not just the literal physical weight they embody, but they’re like a mattress: the mattress you bring home on day one is as light as it will ever be, as you sleep on it skin cells, oils, dust, etc., starts embedding in the fibers (yep, it’s gross) and I’ve read that mattresses get heavier as the years go on.
All these objects (physical and digital) have an energetic weight, too, and I think this is what Marie Kondo is getting at, though I’ve never actually read her books: the objects that feel light and joyful, those that regulate our nervous systems, should definitely stay with us; the things that feel heavy and dreary (down-regulate) or maybe worse, those things that make us feel angry or anxious (up-regulate—like every time you feel irritated at the sofa you thought you loved in the store, but absolutely hate in your house) should definitely go, because though we may not be consciously aware that we’re holding onto or feeling those things from day-to-day and though I don’t understand how it works exactly, as long as we keep it in our lives, we keep it in our nervous systems.
It does really always come back to the nervous system and sometimes practicing regulation is as much a physical letting go as it is an emotional one.
I am and have been continually called to rehome, recycle, throw out, and otherwise use shit up. When I moved to Bath in 2008, I was faced with shelves of books I hadn’t even read, the thought of storing them or moving them felt like a big fat no in my body, so I donated them. Only being able to travel with a couple of suitcases, really brought these things into clarity.
When I moved from Iowa City back up to Minnesota, I was not so discerning and rented a small trailer. Over the last few years, I have quelled a growing desire to use up the things I collected and moved with me, downsize my belongings, and spend time deleting old emails and files because, I suspect, I felt I should be putting my attention elsewhere.
I should be writing (i.e., drafting something new, because going back to drafts is a whole other aspect of using shit up) or I should be making something to sell. I should be figuring out how to create a livable and sustainable income stream that doesn’t send me to the mental hospital for burnout. Not crocheting socks.
Cutting old clothes into scraps I can use to stuff the yoga bolster I have yet to sew or clearing out the unthinkably large and growing digital archive I’ve been lugging around felt like backlog projects, projects to do in downtime I never and always seemed to have, they were not the primary goal worth my attention. They can’t, after all, earn me money! (Capitalism just seeps in everywhere, doesn’t it?)
And yet, and yet, as 2025 came into being and I more or less finished the ottoman pouf (as I sit on it, the materials become compacted and it’s clear it needs even more stuffing), I noted the giddiness I felt in that productive destruction and release of all that energy. I felt how good it felt to make something from something else, and I made a decision: I wasn’t going to put off this urge any longer, though I don’t go for New Year’s goals or resolutions, 2025 is the year of putting my attention toward a practice of using shit up, clearing shit out, and otherwise offloading physical, digital, and energetic weight. (Not always because I dislike something, but sometimes because I want to share it!)
And just, you know, exploring how that’s applied to all kinds of projects and materials and seeing what happens. There’s no material end goal, such as Inbox Zero, it’s about taking pleasure in the practice, which may be a way in to a quieter inbox and finishing writing projects. Time will tell.
It’s a path to taking pleasure in watching materials and mediums dwindle: in the autumn I made a big hole in my yarn stash crocheting 20-plus hanger covers and I nearly threw a party. I cleared out a big bin of photos and documents to stuff the pouf and felt such a relief.
I’ve gotten around to using my Essential Oil diffuser and every time a small bottle goes empty I do a little dance of glee (a bottle of peppermint has only a few drops left in it!). I’m playing with some rubber stamps I collected awhile back and many have happily gone into the donate bin.
And I’ve made piles of collected ephemera, paper scraps, zines, artworks, prints, etc., some of which will be sent thoughtfully and lovingly back out into the universe to you, if you’re a Founding Member subscriber, as ephemera collections and zines. (I’m so excited, I feel like I’ve got a year’s worth of monthly things all planned out and I hate planning!)
They say it’s the little things. I know how absurd it is to feel gleeful that I’ve finished off a bottle of essential oils, but why fight it? I’m going to follow that feeling.
Of course, each of our journeys is different, what feels like heaviness to me, may feel like lightness and joy to you.
It’s becoming clear to me that this journey my soul is on, is not about being an archive, holding onto objects as an end goal (though of course, some); my journey is about periods of collection and drafting and then periods of using things up, building things from other things, completing drafts, and most importantly sending them back out into the world hopefully creating a joyful, or at least pleasant energy for the receiver.
I think this is what draws me to publishing as well—an act of collecting submissions and then sharing them out.
in the post (March)
I’ve begun gathering the ephemera pieces for the first ephemera packet! There are eight packets and I will blind draw amongst Founding Subscribers to determine recipients. Each packet is unique with small playful letterpress experiments, collected paper art or photographs by friends and colleagues (maybe you’ll find a new artist to love), and small artworks by me.
new in the shop
invitation to collaborate
unraveling, unmoored continues to seek collaborators in the categories of On Practice and Poetic Musings until March 15. I can’t wait to share your words with this publication’s growing readership. Submission Guidelines can be found on the About Page. If there are any questions, please send a message.
with love and gratitude,
I adore everything about this. And the formatting is a sight to behold, and that usually is not my jam.
But does it make me money creeps in quite often for me too, fuck capitalism.