002: Justice for 'small' creatives, ethical Moroccan rugs, and why I'd be ok with dying tomorrow
(Don't worry, I'm not dying)
The thing I loved the most this week was a journal entry I wrote about how…
I’m OK with dying.
Ok I won’t bury the lede - I AM NOT DYING.
Can’t stress that enough.
But I’d be happy with the life I’ve lived if I did.
PAUSE: Before I get into it, a MAJOR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of what a privilege it is to be able to say this feels necessary. I’m communicating this from a place of deep gratitude and I hope that comes through.
I was driving in the with my mom a couple months ago and we were chatting away as we do. We were on the subject of mortality (we’re a lot of fun - invite us to your parties) and I said… I’m by no means done, there is so much more of life that I want to experience, but If I died tomorrow, I’d be really happy with the live I’ve lived so far.
That - if I may say so myself - feels like a remarkable thing to be able to say at the age of 34. Don’t get me wrong, this does not mean that I’ve seen and done and felt it all. I haven’t. I haven’t experienced a healthy & beautiful romantic love. But I’ve loved deeply and am loved deeply in return by my friends and family. I haven’t seen every country or visited every city on my bucket list but I’ve had the incredible privilege of traveling to many inspiring places. I haven’t accomplished everything creatively or professionally that I aspire to, but with the support and privilege of a solid safety net, I took the risk and became self employed in my 20’s and my quality of life has improved dramatically since.
This reflection, the result of that conversation in the car with my mom, prompted me to consider the whole idea of “more” that we are all being sold every single day of our lives on every single platform that gets a hold of our attention. This constant bombardment often leaves me forgetful of what I have and where I’ve already been. It’s not that more is an inherently bad thing - it isn’t! In fact, it can be a totally beautiful thing. AND. I’m also making the effort to remember all of the incredibly places I’ve been, the incredible people I’m loving and loved by, the things I’m grateful for.
I’ve had the immense privilege of being able to follow my curiosities and they have brought me to more beautifully unexpected places than I ever could’ve imagined.
Feel free to use this in my eventual eulogy.
(Not a hot take but I’ll say it anyways…) Thinking about your mortality can also serve as a reminder to let go. To change course when we’re not living in alignment because we’ve only got one life.
If you died tomorrow, would you be content with the journey you’ve had here?
Shall we move on to lighter things? Yes, let’s.
A newsletter I’m thrilled to receive every. single. damn. day.
My Instagram-turned-IRL friend Taylor just launched a daily newsletter. The literal only daily newsletter I’d ever subscribe to because every other daily newsletter I’ve encountered stresses me tf out. Taylor’s has the opposite effect. It’s a moment of zen in my inbox that I am deeply hooked on and she only launched it three days ago.
First things first, committing to sending a daily newsletter is no small feat. I can’t commend her enough for this creative undertaking. And what’s even more, is this undertaking has already been a YEAR in the making. We’re now at two years of creative exploration if anyone else is keeping track.
Taylor and her husband moved to Paris a year ago and Taylor embarked on a quest to photograph the city every single day. Here’s how she describes it:
I have been photographing anything and everything for over 15 years. Yet, I have also always photographed things based on my feelings. I would photograph when I “felt” like it or when I “felt” inspired. Rarely did I photograph with any sort of consistency, which I often felt led to stalled creative growth.
Hence, this big life change (moving to Paris) required a big creative change, and I decided to create a project of year-long consistency: photographing Paris every single day.
Now that a year has passed, Taylor has over 10,000 images of Paris and is sharing them one by one on the corresponding day, a year later. We’re only 3 days in and it’s already my favourite thing to see in my inbox every morning. I highly recommend signing up to enjoy this too! As you can see from the above snippet of her Instagram feed, it’s going to be a beautiful thing to open every day!
A related musing…
We’ve never had such unlimited access to all sorts of information and creativity. It’s truly unfathomable the sheer volume of… everything that exists in the world and on the internet at this point. We’re well beyond the sweet spot of being able to find cool new things to easily connect with and are steeping in over-saturation. As a result, it can feel understandably overwhelming to follow new people or decipher what’s what in all the #content that’s out there.
And then there’s the matter of opportunity. Audience size can determine opportunity these days. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it absolutely determines access to opportunity in more cases than not. And I find this deeply infuriating. Especially now that growing an audience online is not an easy feat, no matter how talented or creative or worthy of an audience you are. I’ll save the rest of my ‘justice for “small” creatives’ rant from my soap box for another day. (I say “small” because small in audience, mighty in talent and heart).
My hope with this weekly note is to introduce you to lesser known but so damn worthy of being known creatives, products, small businesses and more. So without further adieu…
URL Things I Loved This Week
This 100% artisan-owned rug business in Fez, Morocco is changing the game for local artisans who are often cut out of profiting from their art. Learn about them here and I highly recommend following them on Instagram - their stories content is SO GOOD.
This love letter to embracing our inner bookshop grandpa in 2023. I WISH I had written this myself it’s so good.
This small shop in Charlottetown that I’ve yet to visit but think about every day.
These thoughts on embracing January in all it’s slow, grey glory.
IRL Things I Loved This week
Dreary winter walks. Somehow the colours pop against the grey skies and I’m embracing it.
My impulse to take the long way home and the faint snow rainbow I saw because of it.
My morning breath work session on Wednesday that ended with the sun shining in my window after 4 days of cloudy skies.
A quote I’m keeping close:
So, collaboration, you would expect to be working with others, but it’s not. The collaboration section is about working with yourself and the universe that everything we make is a collaboration because we’re not doing anything ourselves. Everything we do is based on the information that we take in, our experiences in life, what we learned in school, a conversation we had yesterday, all of the things that make us who we are, we bring into all of our projects. So we’re always in collaboration. It’s never our idea.
- Rick Ruben on the Tim Ferriss Show
Til next week,
ilysm. xo Heather