Creative Abundance in a Time of Desperation
The ley lines that run currents beneath my feet drag me back to Brisbane again and again. Three months ago the roots we planted in Brisbane were ripped up by a flood that carried us to Hervey Bay and back again. I used to think I was a sentimental person, but the only things I miss are my diaries, the millions of words I carved into tree pulp with the scalpel of my pen. I dug my best and worst selves into the pages over the last ten years; the people I was are gone now, and I have nothing but my spotty memory to remind me of who they were.
This month we’re vegetising in the Sunny Coast mountains. Next week, who knows? Sure enough, we’ll head back to Brisbane, with everything we own packed into our red Mitsubishi, Abaddon - the canopy of hope, the last of it we have - hanging over our heads like the trees in the rainforests surrounding us. Distrustful and weary, how am I to do the one thing I was put on this earth for? It’s in my bones to create. Like the water that nourishes my body and my wife’s touch keeping my heart full, I have to do it to survive.
Last week, I had $40 burning a hole in my bank account I was desperate to fill with stuff and things. I want a choker necklace. I want nicer underwear. I want an extension cord for my computer charger. But struck with a need, I drove from Buderim to Maroochydore and strode into Spotlight with single-minded purpose. I needed yarn.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
In 2020, at the height of the plague, many people were picking up hobbies for the first time: some tried rollerblading, some tried Youtube, some tried baking bread. Bored and rich with that sweet Covid supplement, I decided to pick up something I hadn’t done in a very long time: crochet. So I typed the word Spotlight (a craft store here in Australia) into my Chrome search bar, and thus began a hobby I have loved everyday since. When my hooks and yarn came, probably that cheap but good Stallion 8ply that I used up until the flood, I set my mind to the task of creating anything and everything I could.
I made the amigurumi bee plushies everyone on TikTok was making - mine were horrible, made of the 12 Seasons Spot Saver that felt ghastly to the touch, and came out misshapen. I tried making the crop tops that made CrochetbyKaylee famous before she moved onto other projects; mine never fit over my huge honka jonkas, and I soon gave up hope I would ever make something that could. Eventually I was making amigurumi bears that took at least two days and whose nail polished-painted eyes followed me around the room. But I loved them. I had crafted them with my own hands, and given them names. They were my children whom I gave to my friends as gifts. And I haven’t thought about them since.
Eventually, my crocheting got so out of control that I ran out of people to give things to. It was then that I partnered with my knitter mother to make a business out of selling them. For about a year, we went to markets once or twice a month, with our inventory in tow, and made at least $100 each time. I usually didn’t wake up before midday on days I didn’t need to, but being in the sun on cold winter mornings to meet locals looking for a bargain, mild-mannered nans selling books they’d collected for forty years, and gardeners with thumbs greener than the dew-spoiled grass was something I cherished.
“Creation defines me; I am both Doctor and Monster, creating myself as I create things and stuff.”
When the flood ravaged my wife’s apartment in February of this year, I lost up to $300 worth of inventory. As we scurried around the apartment in our confusion, the water level rose to almost our knees. The boxes we used to store our books and clothes in overturned and dumped whatever was on top of them in the water. I scraped my foot on something, thankfully not badly enough that it bled or became infected. It smelled like sewerage, so thick in the air I could taste it. Worst of all was the yarn, waterlogged and floating amongst the rest of our belongings. I’d curated my stash myself, picked every scrap, held each ball in my hands, and loved every second I touched them as I wound them into shapes. And then I left them and their potential to be wasted by nature.
Art has always been more than an escape for me: it’s the blood running through my veins. I know I’m depressed when I can’t create, and when I can’t create I get depressed. I’ve written four books over the past four years. I’ve studied drawing and even applied to a graphic design course. When I gave up crochet after the flood, I bought $500 worth of fabric, patterns and thread because I wanted to start a sewing business. I have a very unsuccessful YouTube channel where I post over hour-long analysis of movies and tv shows that haven’t been relevant in years. In my spare time, I like to do weird things involving my face and Chemist Warehouse makeup. I have a folder full of ideas I want to do on my TikTok, like make mi goreng in the bath and post a parody of Carrie while covered in fake blood. For a very long time I didn’t know how to see my worth without counting the things I’ve made. Creation defines me; I am both Doctor and Monster, creating myself as I create things and stuff.
So I went into Spotlight. I searched the yarn aisle for almost an hour. I touched the yarn, felt the threads in my fingers, and imagined all the things I could craft with them. Memories uprooted themselves from the depths of my mind: the black teddy with blue eyes; the oversized cream cow I gave to a friend’s niece; the Captain Ameribee, complete with shield. They are lost now, scattered like leaves in the breeze, but the threads they’re made of tangle around my feet and lead me back home.
Words: Lysa Aubigney
