Glow by Lady E

  Some things from the atelier are useful. Some are beautiful. And some exist because I wanted tiny cats, ribbons, sequins, stars, hearts and miniature smiling emojis to bounce around inside a bookmark. 😆 Meet my Shaker Kitties . Each one started with patterned paper, then slowly acquired its own tiny world. There are cats having snacks, cats traveling, cats surrounded by stationery, cats doing absolutely nothing productive at home. Basically, they have lives. I layered the designs with stickers and little bits of ephemera, added shaker pieces, sealed everything inside clear pockets, and finished them with ribbons at the top. And because I make these one at a time, none of them really turns out exactly like another. Even when I begin with the same idea, the pieces fall differently. A star lands somewhere unexpected. A tiny heart decides it belongs beside a cat. The shaker mix gathers in its own peculiar way. I think that’s part of why I enjoy making them. There is a point in creat...

  I’ve been thinking about the strange guilt that sometimes comes with wanting more. More money. More space. More success. More beautiful things. More ease. We’re often told to be grateful for what we have, and I believe in gratitude deeply. But somewhere along the way, gratitude can become confused with staying exactly where we are. As though wanting more means what I already have isn’t good enough. I don’t think those things have to contradict each other. I can love my life and still want to expand it. I can appreciate what my business earns today and still want it to earn more. I can be thankful for my home and still dream about having more space. I can be perfectly content with my art supplies and then see a new watercolor set and want that, too.  I can enjoy what I own and still put something beautiful in my shopping basket. Wanting more doesn’t require contempt for what came before it. In fact, I think there’s something lovely about building from gratitude rather than di...

Come sit with me for a while. I have my journal open, and tonight I’ve been thinking about something I suspect I do more often than I realize. I turn healing into another thing I need to accomplish. I want to know when I’ll be over something. When I’ll stop thinking about it. When something that hurt will finally stop hurting. When I’ll feel like myself again. And somewhere along the way, healing quietly becomes another deadline. Another invisible date on a calendar. Another thing I can somehow be late for. But maybe healing doesn’t work particularly well under project management. Maybe there are things I will understand quickly and things I’ll have to revisit again and again. Maybe I’ll feel completely fine one day and unexpectedly tender the next. That doesn’t mean I’ve gone backwards. It means I’m still moving through it. I remember one day, many years ago, when I had fibromyalgia. I lived in constant pain. I just couldn’t get a good day. And then one day, in the office...

  I really liked this dress. Enough that I stood there looking at it for far longer than necessary, having that familiar little debate with myself. It was black. Simple. Very me. I could already imagine how I would wear it. There was only one problem. The fabric was thick. And perhaps in another climate, or another version of my life, that wouldn’t matter very much. But I live in the Philippines. We’re going through El Niño. Heat and I are already not particularly good friends, and my histamine sensitivity has made me even less willing to wear something that might leave me uncomfortable simply because it looks good. Still, I stood there. Because sometimes walking away from something we like is strangely difficult, even when we already know it isn’t right for us. We start negotiating. Maybe I’ll only wear it indoors. Maybe the fabric isn’t that thick. Maybe I’ll regret leaving it behind. Then I realized I was trying awfully hard to convince myself to buy something my body had alrea...

  There is a photograph of me setting up a booth filled with books I created. I remember that version of me. She was building something she believed in. She had plans for where it might go. Ideas about what came next. Things she wanted badly enough to spend her time, energy and creativity making them real. She wasn’t pretending. She really wanted that life. And then, eventually, I didn’t. I think one of the strangest things about changing is looking back at something you once wanted desperately and realizing that you no longer want it in quite the same way. For a long time, that unsettled me. Because if I could change my mind about something that had once mattered so much, what did that say about all the choices I had made before? Had I been wrong? Had I wasted my time? Had that earlier version of me simply not known herself well enough? After that particular chapter of my work ended, I went through a period filled with realizations and questions I hadn’t expected to have. Not beca...