liezel graham

Today’s work is quiet and slow.

The taking of some string, two sticks, and an idea, and then the making of a thing that someone will wear next to their skin, or slip onto their new baby’s tiny feet—the knowledge of this, is a feeling I have never gotten used to.

That someone will wake up, make themselves a cup of coffee, look out the window at the clouds building in the sky, then decide to slip on a pair of gloves to warm their hands as they walk to work.

They feel the soft merino wool next to their skin, perhaps the hand that their lover will hold when they meet later for a drink.

Perhaps they love the particular shade of yellow; the way that the stitches form a pattern that they sometimes run their fingers over when they are lost in thought.

This is the power of creativity.

The joy of making the world a more beautiful place, whether by something as quietly ordinary as knitting, or by writing, or by moving your body to the song that you turn up on the radio as you cook pasta for dinner.

We are born to be creative—the desire to create lies within our bones.

As Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book, Big Magic, it is both sacred, and not.

Either way it is a key to joy and something that keeps us young inside and brings meaning to a life.

I wish you quiet work, and wild work, and big work, and small work!

And may you know that the sheer act of making something—of adding art, or beauty to the world in whichever way you can, is a brave act!