I grew up during the heady years of the 60s with the wondrous introduction of the world of instant-everything.

 

 

Who needed to squeeze oranges when you could drink the same powdered orange stuff as the astronauts?!

And why slice your cheese when it’s been done for you AND each piece is individually wrapped in plastic!?

And let us never forget the family fun to be had by just adding water to Shake-A-Pudd’n!

After all, there was no mess AND nothing to wash! This era was also fraught with an awful lot of exclamation marks!

 

 

Never peel another potatoe! Buy Shirriff instant flakes!

 

 

I remember the one and only time Mom came home with a box of those newfangled flakes. My Mennonite mother took frugal to dizzying heights, so you have to know that when she gave me the rest of the box to shake into my mud pies, those flakes must have been pretty bad.

I am old enough to remember going with Mom to the fancy dress store on Main Street in Mission City. Lane’s Ready-to-Wear was part of a new trend. No more patterns, buying fabric and notions and then pinning and sewing your own outfits. Lane’s Ready-to-Wear sold dresses ready to wear right out of the store. Crazy!

To my mom’s credit, she never really bought into the whole business of fast and off-the-shelf. Her food was still mostly made from scratch, though I recall a lot of desserts in the 70s covered with tons of that nuclear-red cherry pie filling and while Mom bought most of her clothes, she also kept sewing.

So though the world of fast food and fast everything was part of the world around me, I knew that good soup was started from a chicken carcass simmering on the stove. That pillows for the sofa were made by sewing squares of fabric and that kneading dough produced heavenly bread, and cookies came from ingredients, not a bag on a shelf.

With Dad, I learned to pull out and straighten nails to reuse them in our endless tree fort projects. He was always building something and I loved sawing and hammering beside him.  I still love nothing better than the smell of a freshly cut piece of lumber.

It turns out cheap and fast is a lie. If it’s cheaply produced, it likely comes at a horrible human and planetary cost.

When we contracted out all of our basic needs of shelter, clothing and food, we lost more than we gained. Crafting, creating, cooking, whatever it is that we choose to make with our two hands, has an honour and a healing bound up in the making.

I’m typing this from the deck of our log home. I can hear the banging as Kevin pounds nails into the new shed he’s building behind our house. He’s created a solid structure and I know he’s enjoying every minute of the building process. There is so much satisfaction in working with your hands.

I wish we could say we built this house, but hey, I know my limits. So though we didn’t actually stack the logs of this home we now inhabit, we’ve met the man who did. Living within such a simple structure, with logs so up close and personal, makes this place feel grounded and basic.

I spent the last couple of days with my sewing machine and some thrift store items, up-cycling and rejigging them into one-of-a-kind pieces. My mother did a lot of alterations as she ripped out seams and adjusted hems on the hand-me-downs I inherited from my older sisters, but the resulting pieces were always true to the pattern. My new pieces are mostly unrecognizable from their origins and if it’s not quite how I want it to look, I decide it’s part of my learning and move on.

There is a deeper connection to life when we produce something ourselves. Whether stitching a small detail on a shirt, chopping an onion, painting a picture or picking out a tune on an instrument, the goal is not perfection. Instead, the beauty is in the process.

Our hands are meant to do more than scroll through a digitized news feed.

Pick up some clay. Splatter some paint on a board. Stitch. Knit. Sew.

 

 

Making things with our own two hands nourishes our soul. Creating something where it previously did not exist is a satisfying endeavour. It connects us to the earth and grounds us in our life.

Forget fast food and fast fashion. Make it slow.

Chop your own onions. Up-cycle some clothing you already own or find a thrift store dress you can cut into something completely new.

If that’s not your thing, than chop some wood, mend that tear in your shirt, find a new recipe and stir your way into a wonderful frame of mind.

 

 

Our hands connect us to our heart.

Slow down. Breathe deeply. Make your life.