Learning the craft of making junk journals has been a transformative experience for me. When I began last summer I didn’t have high hopes. My lifelong (thus far) experience with arts and crafts has been dismal. However, technology has made crafting much more accessible to those of us who happen to be left handed. We comprise 10-13% of the U.S. population.
Though we aren’t a huge group, we’ve asked for decades to be able to use implements and tools that are comfortable for us to use. Many of us grew up using items made for right-handed people. Two that stick in my mind are scissors and pie and cake cutters/serversl. Back in the day the sharp part of the blade existed on the left side of the cutter to enable ease for the right-handed server. How was that for digression?
The first nugget of wisdom I gained was the knowledge that I was capable. After denying my crafty desires for decades, I discovered that I do have some ability. A little confidence goes a long way and it spurs me on to learn new techniques and ideas.
One wonderful lesson for this perfectionist is embracing patience. I can be grossly impatient with myself. And I’m a thrower. When exasperated, I throw stuff…within reason. Never have I done this unless I’m alone. And it’s usually the closest thing at hand that goes airborne. Pens, books, eating implements, etc. The exception, because there’s always at least one, was when I was making dinner for my mom at my first new house. That incident involved me throwing a container of paprika at the kitchen wall. What a mess. To top it off, it scared the daylights out of my mom as she had never seen me display this behavior.
My gift of grace to myself while crafting is heaven sent. It allows me to let go of feelings of inadequacy and to give myself a peaceful mindset in which to create. This is a new concept and feeling for me. Seriously. I’m thankful to have achieved it at this stage in my life, though its development is in early stages.
I’m still not relaxed while creating but I’m content. I have a playlist for fun listening and sometimes I sing. I have a counter height craft table so my chair is also high. It allows me to play drums with my feet while my hands are busy cutting and gluing.
Crafting is enjoyable for me in a very different manner than my passion for writing. I’m driven to write. I’m not driven to craft. But I’m working on transferring some of this patience to my writing. I need to quit comparing myself. In the world of junk journaling, it’s easy to see the different styles that people use. Some styles are completely individual. My journals are purely mine and I’m happy with that. I will manage to find that peace with my writing.
My crafting walk-up song, as I approach the craft table, is likely to be something like “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Interesting it’s not on my playlist. Conversely, my writing walk-up song is the Pentatonix cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” My writing process is intense and listening to thought-heavy, passionate music is what I need. It brings to mind my appreciation of poetry Dylan Thomas. “In my craft or sullen art/Exercised in the still of night/When only the moon rages…”. Though Thomas never wrote at night, it’s a nice representation of the solitary environment of a writer. Also the subject of his poem writes for the sake of writing, not for fame or money.
I actually do write at night. My sleep patterns are erratic and I prefer to get up and do something if I’m unable to sleep. As far as music goes, there are some great songs about creators and their craft.. Think of: “Vincent,” by Don McLean; “The Leader of the Band,” by Dan Fogelberg; “If You Could Read my Mind,” by Gordon Lightfoot. Just a tip of the iceberg.
For now, I prefer to embrace my current walk-up song for daily life: “Won’t be turned around/And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down/Gonna stand my ground…” from Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”
Stories Are For Eternity 