“When you take time and space from a passion, work, project…and then return to it, your perspective has changed. You see it in a whole new light and sometimes that’s all it takes to move forward.”

Let me tell you the story of a rice bag…

I loved embroidery as a young girl, but didn’t have much time for hand sewing when my children were little. One of the positives that came from the awful time of lock down was that I had space to get back into or try slow pastimes. Slow stitching became such a solace for me right when I needed it most. I left full time work to begin a doctorate and time spent sewing helped me process and connect.

A couple of years into the program, I saw a lovely pattern for a rice bag which involved sewing together five rectangles. It was perfect because I could design each rectangle separately and work on one at a time – designing along the way and leaning into my intuitive preferences.

With each rectangle, I stitched designs and used specific stitches that I enjoyed at the time, using colored threads I loved and lovely linen fabric hand dyed by an independent seller. Yes, the practice was soothing and healing after years of burnout, but I listened to textbooks and articles and something else was being built inside of me. This Quiet Alchemy Space took shape over the year or so as I worked on the rectangles and then I stopped.

To assemble the rice bag, I had to face the “good” side of the rectangle against another and so on until it was seamed together. I hated that part of the project, the way it hurt my hands and gave me no sense of how it was all going to come together. And, though nearly finished, I set the whole mess on a shelf for several months while I worked to finish writing my dissertation.

If you are a crafter, artist, or hobbyist I am sure you have a shelf or more of projects you just paused for a while. There are so many reasons to put them on the shelf and sometimes we just quit them altogether. Not so with the rice bag for me. There came a day when I decided I wanted to start finishing some of my projects. I think I go through phases of this need for completion. There is something about bringing out a half finished project and completing it that is similar to deep cleaning a room in your house. The accomplishment feels so good and the confidence that comes from the completion is so motivating and down right addictive!

So, I took the rice bag off the shelf after months of seeing the back sides of all the rectangles. I simply picked up where I left off and the view was of the inside seams and the blank felt backing. I kept at it until one evening I stitched the final stitch and felt ready to turn the project inside out to see how I did with the construction. I always love this part of a project when stitching clothing, a bag, etc. You can see the fully formed project and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Oh was I to be surprised! Sitting on the shelf over the past few months, I only saw the unfinished back. When I turned the piece inside out and saw the tops of the rectangles I literally caught my breath. Not because I was so proud of the work, or how amazing the stitches. Oh no, the beauty was in seeing how all that detailed work had come together to make a beautiful piece of functional art. My focus had been on the unfinished outside, and I had forgotten the beautiful work and detailed designs I created on each rectangle. I looked at each rectangle again and again remembering the work, the thoughts, and marveling that I had forgotten each piece.

This story is for all of you building something day by day. You might focus on the small parts and work at the highly detailed level and might not take time often enough to pause and look back at what you’ve accomplished. When I set my project on the shelf, I did so at the same time I paused on developing my business plan. I couldn’t see how everything went together while building it and it the work feel disconnected, unfinished, and not ready to share. After pausing, my perspective had changed on both the rice bag and the business and it was a beautiful and positive synchronicity.

Maybe you put off something to set it “on the shelf” in some way. Maybe you lost interest, gave up hope that it could be something, or lost confidence in your ability to complete it. Go back to it.

The new perspective you have now, after time away, might have allowed you to…

• forget the mistakes that seemed obvious
• reframe what felt like failure or a flaw until it lost a bit or all of its sting
• reconnect with the beauty of the thing you forgot because you were too up close, too into the nitty-gritty work of the thing

Sometimes we are just too focused on what is not happening or what something isn’t that we miss what is.

Nearly two weeks ago I led my first in person workshop, teaching the Photo Harvest Journal Method to a room of midlife women after years of building it quietly inside this Quiet Alchemy Space. For so long the method had lived only in my head, where the benefits and the details had started to blur the way anything does when you are too close to it for too long. Watching women during my workshop choose a photograph/image, sit with it, journal, and then say aloud the meaning they had made in the space of two hours was my own turning inside out. I saw the whole of it at once, the way I saw the finished rice bag, and I caught my breath all over again.

I nearly left this work on the shelf for good. Something kept me from it. So I am taking it down, dusting it off, and stepping past sharing only my own midlife experience here. The journal club is built, and I will soon open the first online version of the workshop and the cohort sessions that follow; for women who are ready to turn their own lives inside out and finally see what they have been building all along.

To learn more about the Photo Harvest Journal Method see the named tab in the menu or follow the link here.