2026,

December 30th, 2025, -Something earnest & flowing & new:

We’re always changing aren’t we?

Growth is mostly slow - you know, like one day we realize our pants don’t fit, or our old ways of doing something don’t feel right.
2025 was a year. I mean A Year, -at least for me.

As I sit here on December 30th I have been mulling over a lot about what I am, and what I’m not. And what I’d like to grow to be.

My whole life I’ve had a kind of frenetic energy. So many ideas, so many plans, so many fervent dreams that feel like there are not enough hours in the day for all I want to get done, (unless I’m at a playground, and then time has definitely ground to a ding dang halt, never to go forward again. -I hate a playground).

I made some beautiful decisions in 2025 that dang near busted me. I didn’t know it at the time, I mean, how can you know when you’ve finally bitten off more than you can chew until you find you aren’t really keeping up with chewing it?

If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have learned that I needed to change some things & slow majorly down. That frenzied energy I’ve always had is never going to be satisfied. All those kitschy mugs or stickers or shirts of “it’s about the journey, not the destination” - yeah, it’s not my thing. I want to get to the top so I can clearly see -and then I want to get to the next peak and the peak after and and and.

∞∞∞∞∞

My buddy Sarah said to me a couple years ago when I was on a rant about how whale pods are led by post-menopausal females, and clearly all of humanity should have grandmas as leaders, blah blah blah, she said - “Um, or can’t we just have fun and rest?”
She’s a rant killer. -And…

I’ve learned I’m at my best hosting thousands of people at an arts market at our farmplace and checking in on everyone. Solving problems, watching my spouse and neighbors working alongside each other with camaraderie. My friend Taleese says that the Highwomen wrote “Crowded Table” so I could have an anthem, and she’s totally right.

I love serving, and laughing, and teaching, learning, & collaborating.

-and then I need long walks in a moon-less sky alone.

In 2025 I failed out of yet another weight loss scheme, and it makes me chuckle at myself every time, and then it sobers me right up. We lost some dear humans in 2025, women gone before their time. What they would give to hold their loved ones with fat arms, what their loved ones would give to be held by them.

And don’t get me wrong, that sounds noble, but I also wish my knees weren’t aching from bodily expansion due to my need to eat everything not nailed down at holiday time.

I’m learning that I shouldn’t get rid of my full-moon pants, that I’ll prolly never be a crescent moon again, and that I don’t really want to be. (Though if someone has a wand to wave to make my heavy tits magically 3 times smaller, that would be amazing…)

I’m learning to let winter night walks soothe me, the cold air a balm to a busy mind.

I know, I’m telling you a lot of vague things about a hard year. So here’s the concrete:

I’m renting a new public studio outside our farmplace.
Yes, my personal studio is the stuff of dreams, and was just finished a year ago. Yes, I’ve thought I was an introvert for half my life, but no -it turns out I just need authentic connection, and then being around other humans is a damn gift, and even a lifeline.

I love people, all the good ones and even a few of the assholes.

I’ve learned a lot this year -right on time, like the right music is healing, and beauty is healing (whilst also relative).
The older I get, the less I care if my cursing is affronting.
Women will save your ass if you let them, and they’ll save themselves too if they’ve battled enough demons.

That we’re all a little broken, or a little crazy, or a little scared, and the best of us are letting our arses hang out there flapping in the wind and doing it anyways.
My paternal grandfather was a real asshole, and he was also right, I’m from the soil and the clay of north carolina. It’s up to all of us, to do right by each other and right by our roots - especially when our roots got it wrong.

In 2025 I became even more crystal dang clear on what I’ve always known:
Bodies are more like changing seasons or moon phases than they will ever be like statues.
We’re made up of stars which is both miraculous, and common as dirt, dirt being just literal star dust too …but ask a potter if it’s magic. Or a weaver about how rainfall affects flax, or any number of makers about the commonality of dust and how it has a part to play, just like us, and our handful of hopes, our hands full up of what could be.

One of my teachers follows where her path leads, instead of what’s always worked, or some idea that she should just keep on keeping on.

This year I’m doing it different.
I want to learn how to make cheap and cheerful pdf patterns for you out of old standby patterns I’ve used for decades.
I want to make one of a kind apparel pieces for sale too.

I want to let the river lead me, instead of trying to predict the rise of the water.

So I’ll see you in the public studio on an island in the middle of a raging river. That french broad is always raging, even when she looks peaceful, and if enough of us listen to her call, we can change our worlds.