I sew and I bake bread. I make practical things, like the jacket I have worn for the past three years, or the bread I toast for breakfast every morning. But practical as they may be, I could much more easily buy jackets and loaves of bread readymade at the store, along with practically anything else I know how to make. Something compels me to keep making things, though. I don’t need to make everything, but I need to make something. Beauty exists in the act of making. 

Today, in general, we want most things to be fast and efficient. Sometimes I just want to be deliberately slow, slow, slow. I want to pause until I can feel my place in time and space, even for one moment. I want to make something with my own hands, an act that, to me, feels like a special moment in time.

In Common asks, what do we share with each other and everyone who came before us? Can we slow down and pay attention to all of the pieces of being human and all of the things we have in common with each other and everyone who came before us? By making things with my hands, I feel a connection to my humanness, and to other humans, past and present.