Reclaiming a Life One Menial Task at a Time

How folding laundry might just be the answer to the deep sorrow of the right now

What am I doing with my life?

This is the question I keep asking myself as a sensitive, deeply feeling person who is grieving too many things. I’m tired of the question. I’m tired of the grief. Grief makes no sense, and it takes its own time. I used to talk a lot about divine timing and how it’s never too late to live your purpose. I’ll tell you what: it’s harder to believe in all that when you’ve spent the last few months dismantling your beloved creative business including your website and wonder if you will ever recover. I don’t talk about this much with my parents whose needs have become central and whose lives have become timeless. I’m watching my dad retreat into himself and my mother hold on. I’m watching the family I knew succumb to the fate of all families as I spend my days folding laundry for two households. I’m reconsidering how to move forward, how to return to writing and ritual with others, how to be who I was born to be once again.

What am I doing with my life? Living it, exactly as it is.

I write about this here because (the paring down of my life is teaching me) our story matters, too. The stories of those who do the invisible work matter. The stories of the old ones who the world sees as invisible matter. These stories of universal heartbreak have always mattered, even though history only reports on strong men and empires and our current overculture wants to distract you with shiny, youthful things.

What I know is that writing about the details of mom and dad’s lives feels like a betrayal right now. My story exists inside theirs, but still…I don’t have the energy to go there in this public space. And that’s okay. For now, I will share what’s on my heart, what I’m making time for. The Buddhists say to notice the small things, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m living into the smallness of my life rather than insisting that I expand, expand, expand. There will be time for all that again one day…or there won’t. I can’t be concerned about the not-quite-there yet nor the nevermore. All I have (all we have) is this singular moment. Breathe in, breathe out. That’s it.

The Business of “Making” a Living

What I see out in the world is most people pushing through life, not noticing the subtleties, ignoring the pain. This is more than just a survival tactic for them. It’s a way of life. They are able to work over 40 hours per week or run their own business. They are able to show up no matter what. They take vacations, but they do not rest. They work. They perform. They produce. This isn’t about money. It’s simply what 80% of the population understands as “normal.” It’s Capitalism. It’s just business.

As a sensitive, intuitive person, my business is noticing subtlety. My business is beauty.

I don’t have the capacity for any other kind of business right now. These days, I’m tending to my own needs as I care for my mother, my father, my household, my friendships. I’m tending to my body. I have also found a therapist who I believe will help me explore the reasons for my inability to “do all the things” while caregiving. Yes, I am struggling. Yes, I find it hard to write about feelings that I haven’t even unraveled. And yet, here I am.

For the record, I do not consider Substack a business. I consider it an artist’s studio and gallery where people choose to become patrons of my particular art. I am profoundly grateful to those of you who see my expression as something worth supporting financially and equally grateful to those of you who read and comment.

What my art looks like this right now:

• reorganizing my bookshelf and spice rack

• companioning and caring for mom & dad

• gathering up refuse from around my own house and either putting it away or throwing it away (mom won’t let me do anything close to this at her house)

• digging deep into the soil in my yard to find and remove layers of black garden netting and replacing it with cardboard so that the Earth can breathe again

• collecting herbs from my garden and hanging bundles from twine to dry or plucking leaf by leaf for fresh herbal tea

• folding loads and loads of laundry

• gently cleaning vintage wood objects to bring them back their beauty

• letting myself write or not write, trusting that my voice will always be there

• and, finally, spending lots of time with The Wise

As much as The Wise have helped me and served as archetypal messengers of truth and beauty, it’s all the boring stuff that seems to be stitching me back together. Doing the invisible, unappreciated work that women have been doing since the beginning of time is healing something inside me. The feminist in me is screaming, but my inner Wise knows the truth of it.

This is a reclamation. I am being re-enchanted.

Women have healed themselves one folded shirt after another for eons. They have held the Earth in their hands and let it hold them. They have transformed their pain into works of art that they never signed. I don’t have the constitution for complete anonymity, so I will not shame myself for taking my time, for quietly contemplating the way the light filters through the trees, for making art my own way, and for signing my name to everything I create. If Mary Oliver could do it, so can I.

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If you are in the midst of grief right now (who isn’t?), perhaps you will take some comfort in my mundane list of chores. If you are sensitive, perhaps you will give yourself a break for not being able to do all the things all the time like the other 80% of the population. Perhaps, you will make your own list and realize–like I did–how full and meaningful your life happens to be…just as it is.

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When I’m not folding laundry, I’m reading. I’m listening. I’m learning. I’m realizing I’m not alone because women have voices now, and they are using them. I feel so grateful for the companions I’m finding here on Substack and beyond.

• I’ve been held in love reading the poetry of my dear friend and mentor, Jan Haag. One day, I hope to translate more of my life into more poetry I’m willing to share. Her poetry helps me remember it’s possible.

• I’ve learned about the Dreamfield from Molly Nevins. If you have been given the label of neurodivergent in any way (including HSP), her perspective is so beautiful and so welcome.

• I’ve felt held by kindred spirit, Heather Plett, who says, “Just as grief and love are sisters, grief and joy are also sisters.” She reminds me of the both/and of life.

• I’ve been inspired to write my CV in a whole new way by Catriona Knapman. I will let it be a list of the immeasurable “soft” skills, such as my compassion and my creativity, that define my worth far more than “work” experience.

• I’ve danced with my grief under the Scorpio full moon with Amanda Yates Garcia. She is teaching me so much about interconnectedness, enchantment, and inner power. So grateful.

And one more…

I’ve decided to borrow a new title to define who I am and what I do:

Anti-Disciplinary Artist

This is how Adele Bertei defined herself in a recent interview on the Blue Medicine Journal podcast. She just published a book about Sinead O’Connor called Universal Mother (also the name of one of my favorite albums by Sinead). You might choose to define both of these women as rebels. I see them as real. Isn’t that we all want? To be real? To be seen? To be loved?

With deep gratitude,

Holly