Arts and Crafts for Struggling Grown-Ups Like Me

I have been painting like crazy since the lead blanket of the pandemic made the days dark and the living heavy. Pools, tennis courts, bathtubs. Cake, beach chairs, kayakers. I set up a table on sawhorses in the garage and put on some Nathaniel Rateliff and sometimes crack into a hard kombucha. Within minutes, my hands are covered in color — which means I cannot touch my phone or laptop.

I am not super great at painting (good work requires a kind of patience I find elusive) and no one but my mother would want my stuff in her house. But looking back, I see that making paintings has been a godsend of novelty, flow and diversion — three heavenly states in hard times like these.

Making anything is a reminder of agency. Making is doing. Doing is satisfying. Completion is even better, especially for a person who takes years to write a book. But no matter what you do to make the rent, finishing anything will flood you with endorphins.

This weekend I sewed a patch into my jeans, the ones that still fit, the ones that have a decade of stories woven into the fabric. Then I cleared out a junk drawer. Just one. There are more waiting.

On my list for this weekend:

A curry meatball recipe