Oh, me? Macrame keychains. I'm not kidding. That fun craft you did at your local summer camp or with your babysitter didn't just push me over the edge, it karate kicked my ass off the ledge when I wasn't looking.
As previously mentioned, I'm now in the Craft Kit business. What that means is every week I coordinate with my students (truly a gift because prior to us being able to hire them back, I was making Kits alone in my house) and together we make around 130 bagged crafts with all the materials and an instruction sheet in each. Sometimes there's even an accompanying video. We then hang those kits up every Wednesday at noon on a makeshift clothesline in the Craft Center outdoor area. Students can then come up and retrieve crafts on their own and take them back to their dorms or apartments and complete them. It works well about 99% of the time.
That 1% where it doesn't work? That's macrame keychains.
Let me take you there: It's August 2020. It's miserably hot out and if you're on the west coast, you're about a month away from some of the worst fires you've ever seen in your life. Campaigning for the presidential election is in full swing and there's talk of a vaccine coming out the day before the election (sorry past you, it doesn't happen and won't for a while). You've been working from home or some variation of working from home for about five months. Your back hurts from the lack of ergonomic chairs in your house. You've made so much bread. Your cat has gone from being pumped to have the food robot home all day to being supremely annoyed that the food robot won't sit still long enough so they can take a four hour nap on your lap. Public transportation still freaks you out so you're walking 30 minutes to and from work every day. Your calves are fire, but so are you because, like I said, it's miserably hot out. Remember now? Okay, let's proceed.
Mid-August we were set to put out a macrame keychain kit. Really simple materials: four 36" 2mm macrame cord, a keychain, and key ring. The materials were all prepped. All I needed to do was make the instruction sheet. One problem: I know nothing about macrame. I didn't go to summer camp or have babysitters (Hi latch-key 90's kids!). I did what everyone does in this situation. I went to YouTube. Let me tell you about Macrame YouTube: It's a sham. You can choose between a video with no audio, so no one is explaining what or why they're knotting that way or you can have a video where a very intense macrame artist won't explain what or why they're knotting that way because they've gone over it so many times before (WHERE?!).
I'm trying to follow along and learn how to make a pattern while also trying to photograph each step and write out my own directions. You know the saying, "Don't put the cart before the horse." That person was a macrame artist. Go look it up.
It turns out you should complete a project and make sure it's possible before advertising that that's what you'll be doing and then buying materials and spending hours putting the materials together in sandwich bags. Five hours went by and all I had were about 500 images of me placing cords from one side to the other. I'm not exaggerating (see below).
And that was the second round. Apparently I long ago deleted my first attempt from my phone.
I couldn't figure it out and I felt defeated in a way that I was avoiding the entire pandemic. So I left work, I got on a bus for the first time in months (it wasn't that bad, everyone kept their mask on and I used half a bottle of Purell afterwards), I walked the rest of the way home, and I sobbed. I sobbed for a long time. Like if I were a toddler in a grocery store, other people would look over and refer to the display as a "tantrum." Exhibit A:
Listen, I'm not someone who likes posting photos of myself in general on the internet. I especially don't like to post photos of snot and tears all over my face, but that's transparency baby! Just a quick moment to acknowledge that there are also people existing in pain all the time and have no means of escape, so my tantrum (while I think it was okay to process through semi-private tears) is no comparison to what other people are going through and how our culture tries to dictate how they should appropriately express that emotion. My tears were welcomed by my Instagram community with shoulders and praise and that is absolutely because of my privilege as a white woman. And if you, dear reader, fall into that category take a break from this blog and donate to the Loveland Foundation to support the wellness of Black women and girls.
Was this really about macrame keychains? No. Not in the slightest. This was feeling overwhelmed that I couldn't fix a global pandemic, I couldn't change Trump supporters minds, I couldn't resolve my ancestors white supremacy, I couldn't solely fix climate change, I couldn't bring my students back to their jobs (yet), I couldn't get a Craft Kit out to every student on-campus. I made that face for about twenty more minutes and then came to the obvious realization that no one was asking me to mend all these problems in one day by myself. What I could do was wear a mask, wash my hands, and stay away from people, extend financial support to Fair Fight, continue my own every day work into being anti-racist and educate myself on my ancestors white supremacy as to not repeat it by taking steps forward, educate myself on climate change by subscribing to the Weekly Planet and find big and small ways to create effective change, create safety guidelines for when my students did come back they would be able to work in a healthy and stable environment, and just accept that I can't give a Craft Kit to every student and I never will be able to.
There is no one resolution, but a continuation of a lot of pieces of work to contribute to resolutions even if they are just local or in my own house. Don't let the macrame keychains kick your ass over the ledge. Or do, and let it put things back into perspective. Everyone is taking on more than ever should be asked of them. Do the work, but be nice to yourself in the process and show up for other people.
Also: I did finish the macrame keychain tutorial. I put it away for that day and went to bed early. The next day I picked it up again, did more research, and settled into the project knowing it was going to be difficult. And it was, but I took it one knot at a time and we got there. So will you.
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