kill your darlings.
make space for something new. introducing, make / do.
I’m writing from the same sidewalk-found desk that I always write from, but today I’m sending this missive from a newsletter with a new name. Introducing Make / Do. It’s the same letter as always, with a name that pipes up a little bit louder about what it is I’m doing here.
It’s been just over two years since I transitioned from writing mostly on my own website, Reading My Tea Leaves, supported mostly by paid advertisers, to writing mostly in this newsletter, supported mostly by readers. I’m still reading my proverbial tea leaves, but my sense of what it is I’m doing, here in this place, feels more certain.
From this small and scrappy corner of my apartment, comes a small and scrappy newsletter about living creatively, consuming thoughtfully, acting boldly, and making do, at home and elsewhere. It’s not a polished or perfect place, which is precisely the point. My hope is that this can be a quiet landing place on a loud internet where creativity, resourcefulness, and thrift rule the day, where people and planet come first, and where we can celebrate slowing down, appreciating what we have, making things ourselves, and seeking delight wherever it can be found.
As I turn to this new chapter, I’m hoping that everything arrives smoothly and with the proper name, but some of the polishing and primping might still be forthcoming. Thank you, thank you for being here.
Over the weekend, James and I decided to do something I’d known for a month or more that we needed to do, but that I hadn’t quite mustered the resolve to follow through on.
It involved undoing a project that had taken me more hours to complete than I care to contemplate. I was defiant that something I’d worked so hard on could end up just not working out. I was afraid dismantling it would feel like a defeat and maybe also expose a bigger problem. I didn’t want to kill my darling, no matter how much it felt like it was starting to kill me.