Shotgun shacks in Greenwood, Mississippi.
In 1997 I moved from my college apartment in Baltimore to Itta Bena, Mississippi, a town of just over 2,000 people in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. I was there to teach French and social studies at Threadgill Junior High in Greenwood, twenty minutes down the highway.
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When I arrived I was 22 years old and full of idealism. I’d written my senior thesis at Johns Hopkins on public school desegregation. I wanted to go to the Delta to fight injustice, to follow in the footsteps of Freedom Summer, to see where the civil rights movement originated (Greenwood was where SNCC was headquartered).
I was totally unprepared.
The train tracks in Greenwood literally divide the town’s black residents from white and overtly racist comments are an accepted part of everyday conversation. A few weeks after I moved in I was at a faculty party when a teacher described the high school home coming queen to me as a monkey. The school where we taught together, where she’d taught for ten years, was 99% African American.
The kids at Threadgill Junior High were almost all very poor. Their lives were so different from mine; their language was so different. I had taught in inner city Baltimore before coming to the Delta, but this was like another world to me. They’d never seen a bookstore or an airport, never met someone who didn’t grow up in town. They had very few last names between them – the same names as the plantations that surround the town. The secretary in the public school’s central office thought I was from France because of my Yankee accent.
Teachers and the principal paddled kids in school – one lick for a small offense and five for something more egregious like talking back – with a wooden paddle to the backside. As a teacher if you wouldn’t paddle (which I wouldn’t) the parents got angry with you for not upholding high enough discipline standard in your classroom. At the end of the day the kids went home to shotgun shacks on unpaved roads in neighborhoods ruined by crack addiction. Two of my sixth grade girls gave birth during my second year there. When I asked them about the fathers of the babies they both said, “He ain’t claimin’ it.”
Me and my roommates painting on our front porch in Itta Bena, Mississippi in August of 1997.
I had two roommates that first year. Sarah was from Chicago and taught kindergarten in Ruleville and Terrill was from Ames, Iowa and taught high school math in Greenville. Each morning we’d go out our front door to face the violence and sadness and overwhelm of our jobs. In the evenings we escaped from it all by crafting. Sitting on a hand-me-down floral couch in the house we rented for $150 a month we made things with our hands. Sarah crocheted a gray afghan for her boyfriend back home. She made an intricate collage from images in a vintage exercise pamphlet. Terrill knitted a thick blanket of sampler squares and sewed her own dresses. I made a life-sized cloth doll that sat next to me on the couch. We joked that I’d sewn myself a friend.
At a time when I felt totally powerless, making things gave me something tangible that I could control. I know that I’m not alone in seeking crafting for this purpose. I chatted recently with Melanie Kindrachuk, a librarian who crafts for similar reasons.
Melanie wearing a dress she made.
“I work in a public service position at a public library,” she told me. “This can sometimes be very stressful. When you face unexpected situations with the public or with your organization, sometimes that stress also feels very much like powerlessness. And of course, sometimes those days can make you wonder if you’ve actually chosen the right profession!” Coping with the stress is important, whether it’s through relaxation techniques, hobbies, or even considering natural stress relievers like shrooms delivery, helps maintain a healthier work-life balance. You may buy shrooms online in Canada today.
After days like this Melanie turns to crafting to regain a sense of herself. “When I feel that kind of helpless stress, I can pick up my embroidery hoop and focus on stitching up a positive or encouraging quote with something pretty alongside – my favorite combination. I make my pattern, choose my colors, and then as I stitch, listen to the thread pulling through the cloth. This slows down my breathing and lets me focus on the positive words I am stitching. Sometimes, a pill of Chlordiazepoxide from EU Meds online also helps. I find this a very soothing practice, and of course, when it’s done, I have something concrete that I have made with my own hands, which is quite empowering.”
Cloth dolls made by Rachel Lingquist.
Rachel Linquist faces a different kind of challenge. She suffers from fibromyalgia, which she says “involves achy muscles, intense fatigue, and sometimes ‘brain fog’ which includes mild confusion and a general feeling of muddled thoughts.” Crafting helps her fight a sense of powerlessness over her own body.
Craft “is a declaration for me,” she explains. “It says I’m not giving up, I’m not giving in. My body can still do good things, even if I can’t always keep up on the housework and cooking for my family, at least I can add a row to this scarf today, or add another layer of color to this leaf. It can be a thing to hang my sense of worth on, when that feels scarce. I can still leave a mark on this world through the things I create.”
I’m grateful that making things is part of my life. In the happy, easy times it’s enjoyable and satisfying to be creative. In the hard times it’s a way to remember who I am. As Rachel put it, by crafting “I am declaring that I am still me.”
Thank you for this post. I needed this today…
This post is so heartfelt, and it resonated with me. I remember reading an article once about Japanese Americans during the internment and how they used craft to deal with the stress, trials and tragedy during that portion of their lives.
Creativity is a balm to the soul–I truly believe that. Thanks for sharing this excellent post and for the contributors who talked about their own need to be creative. It was beautifully done!
Abby, I think this is one of your best posts ever. Sometimes there is this lovely coming together of a compelling topic and a personal revelation that I think makes for wonderful reading. I, too, have observed that kind of profound poverty, which is quite different from urban poverty. And, I think, particularly in the Northeast, we are simply not aware of the kind of profound bigotry that exists STILL in other parts of the country. I know you were 22 when this episode transpired, but that was just not that long ago, and long after the civil rights movement. Anyway….. thank you. I really enjoyed reading this.
Thank you, Carol.
Thank you for sharing. What a beautiful post. I agree that craft can be a wonderful way to cope with the challenges of life.
Incredible story Abby – thank you for sharing.
I relate so much to what Rachel says, as I also find craft to be a great “escape” or coping mechanism for life with chronic illness – when I sew, it’s probably the time I feel most “normal” even if I can only do it for a little bit and on certain days. It feels productive and relaxing, both feelings I often struggle to reach when my conditions flare up.
Loved reading this today. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this well-written post, Abby. I can totally relate. I’ve been dealing with “finding my career” for a couple years now with craft, and it’s made ALL the difference.
“I am declaring I am still me.” That one line says it all. Craft has been my safe haven during stressful times. It has brought me joy when joy was hard to find. It has also opened doors to some of my dearest friendships. Thanks for a great post.
You’re welcome, Nicki.
I really enjoyed reading this–your description of the Delta is very evocative and reminded me of many things I’ve forgotten. Didn’t one of us sew (or crochet, perhaps) a giant mouse as well? I remember it as being bigger than Poe. . . .
Yes, that was me. Gauge was never my strong suit in crochet! I got out my giant scrap book while writing this and was reminded of so many things, including the first names on my class list.
As I was reading this post I had a lightbulb moment. I have MS, and I find making things helps me to feel better. One reason is that it makes me feel useful, particularly when I make things for charity. After reading this I now realise it also give me something I can control. Thank you so much for writing about this.
That’s wonderful!
I love this post so much, for many reasons.
I work in tech support all day, and by the end of my week it is quite draining. On a good week, all I’ve done is answer the same questions a hundred times (despite the documents being RIGHT THERE!), but on bad ones where I’m yelled at, belittled, threatened and disrespected … that’s when I find I need to quilt most.
People in my work-world call it “rage quilting” but it works! As I explain to them, it’s really hard to continue to be pissed off at some asshole online when a needle is going 5,000 stitches a minute next to your hand. It helps you focus on that moment right then.
And the rest eventually falls away.
In the end, i have something tangible – a physical object that shows talent and worth. Nothing like some ephemeral digital pixels than can fade away or be deleted.
Rage quilting. That says it all.
Yes! That’s exactly it. While I’m not zooming along on a machine, the very act of concentrating on a creative activity soothes the “Rage” part of things.
I definitely found crafting to be a way to escape. I can look back now and see that’s what was going on those first few years of my blog, but it was something that kept me afloat during that time.
Hi Abby, thanks for this post. I grew up in the Mississippi Delta and worked at a law firm in downtown Greenwood for several years. A good friend of mine teaches remedial English in Greenwood at the satellite campus of a community college. She is from Greenwood, born and raised, and told me how unbelievable it is, how differently many of her students live from what she had always known as the norm. Heartbreaking. Thanks again for this post.
Oh, yeah! As a 20+ year expat English teacher, I totally relate! My first year in South Korea I was stared at constantly, grabbed at several times a week, followed home from the subway after work at 10pm about once a week, and had my apartment broken into once so the perpetrator could watch my roommate sleep. Yep. Cross-stitch kept me from killing someone that year, and became the tent pole of my mental health strategy for years to come. I’ve moved on to making jewelry these days, and now it keeps me sane in my daily life as a 24/7 unpaid caregiver for my parents, who both have Dementia. What would we do without a creative outlet? Probably be in prison or a rubber room, I imagine, lol!
Sometimes I even craft to deal with other people’s stress and powerlessness. My husband recently lost his teaching job and feels doubtful of himself and his/our future. I so badly want to tell him “try making something with your hands.” He doesn’t have the patience for arts and crafts, though. So, instead, I work a little harder at my own projects.
Thank you Abby for this post. I look back on my life and realize I have “had to” make a quilt through every difficult part of my life. How long did you last at that job ? I work as a hospice nurse and have used my creative outlets as a way of coping with such sadness.
I have so enjoyed your blog and podcasts since I discovered you through your books.
I think you should use this post as the beginning of a book. I was drawn in by your writing and am curious about “the rest of the story.”
As far as your question of what we use craft for? I write to release the story within, and I quilt, because it brings light and love into the world. I work at a job that does not feed me. In addition to that paycheck job, I am a wife, a mother, caregiver to dogs and daughter/friend to my widowed mother/neighbor. Quilting is very centering. I, too, love the sound the thread makes coming through the cloth, and the depth and movement the quilting brings – the story revealed as color, pattern and texture come together. It feeds me like nothing else does.
Crafting is more than an affirmation at times. I spent nearly a year adding hand stitching to a major project during a very difficult transition in my life. The stitching brought the fabric to life, but more importantly, I was bringing myself back to life and creating a new identity. I’m not sure I could have completed the process without the stitching to keep me company.
I stitched a hankie for the director of my children’s school this week after being talked down to by an apathetic male hack in my professional field for what I speculate to be because I’m female and running circles around him. I know he’s not worth it but it still bothered me. The hankie brought me back to center.
Thank you for sharing your Delta story. I live in the South and appreciate your truth and honesty.
Another lovely story! It brought me back to six years ago when I was battling breast cancer. My oncologist gave me a stern lecture when I was chomping at the bit to be given the go ahead to go back to work. She told me not to be in such a rush to get back to work. Her advice was to find something that would keep me busy besides work. It was out of this advice that my Etsy store was born and a sewing and machine embroidery passion grew. I go straight to my sewing room after a hard day and unwind. It’s the one thing that keeps me thinking of work all the time. I have just started a graduate degree and time is scarce for sewing and I am beginning to feel withdrawal symptoms. Maybe when someone told me that my addiction to fabric is something like that of a cocaine addiction there was some truth in that!
Hey Abby, this is my first time writing. Thank you for this post. I can certainly identify with your friend with fibromyalgia. The challenges with that particular illness are tough but crafting is a wonderful therapy.
You are a very special and gifted person, and also extremely generous in sharing your knowledge and experience.
I always come away with something to reflect on when I read your posts, Ms. Glassenberg. Today I’ll ponder that doing the right thing isn’t necessarily a walk in the park, but that craft is there for a happy landing. Never work without a net, knitted or otherwise.
Thanks so much for sharing your story Abby. I find sharing our stories so therapeutic, we can all relate to difficult times and it’s wonderful to see the different ways we cope and how it can help someone who feels overwhelmed by their current situation. I know the act of creating saved me from becoming incredibly angry and embittered during 4 of the most difficult years of my life. I wrote an article for the UK textile magazine Through our Hands last year about making some of my best work through the worst times.
https://issuu.com/laurakemshall/docs/tohmagwinter2015
This is a wonderful post and I really relate to it. Crafting/sewing keeps me sane. It really does.
I started to sew as a time out from parenting. I could put our son down for a nap and sew a seam before he was up again. (He only slept for 10 minutes at a time and it didn’t matter if there was noise or not. 10 minutes.) Seeing that I could accomplish something in those 10 minutes helped me maintain my sanity. He learned to play with fabric and leave patterns alone. I learned that exhausted mothers need something to call “me time.”
Both children are grown and like to talk about how I tortured them by taking them with me to fabric stores.
And yet, who did our dear son ask to make Halloween costumes for his daughter? Who makes gifts for our daughter’s lovely in-laws? And who looks back on those years with a prayer of thanksgiving? (Okay, the answer to all of those questions is me!)
what a beginning…………..write abook……living in Minnesota all our life……don’t understand the unfairness ……….still alive in Texas and the South.
saw the movie “the Help” read the book………….lots of violence in Mpls/St Paul Mn., our fourth child and son teaches at Millsaps in Jackson MS….loves it and we’ve been to visit. A wife and three daughters too…………they’re happy and love living there…………lived in Conway AR and Little Rock too. teachers are the best and we have three of them in our family……….oh and Debbie lives in Denver and teaches at Havern………and sews all the time………quilting quilting………….
thanks for all you do…………..
I sew doll clothes and quilts and other things to keep my mind busy. I work a 12 hour day 5 days a week as an infant day care provider. I am busy. I also work after hours to clean the day care room, laundry, and shop of coarse. (I own and operate out of our home for the past 27 years) I craft/ sew because even with prescription medication I often can not sleep.
I have a son that will be 39 in May. He has been in and out of prison. The drug world has him. It is a huge worry for me as his mother. I can not get him off my mind yet I know I can not help him any more either. He is a taker and I was just ‘helping’ him stay in HIS drug world. So I had to put him out of our home and I have had to distance myself from him. It hurts my heart so much. Sometimes he will put awful things about me on FACEBOOK. I have blocked him, but still people we know tell me what he has said and he still is in contact with his sons through the phone. (he and his ex wife lost custody of the boys to me in 2001 when they were arrested for making crystal meth in their kitchen. ) It seems I am the blame for all his problems. (that is what he tells me) I know different, I have seen doctors. I just know it is in God’s hands and I have to watch. Does not make it easy. I have a sign above my sewing machine that reads “when you can not sleep do not count sheep, talk to the shepherd.” and I know that is true. I am working on this all the time.
Roxie M., What you just shared is so powerful, in just the act of sharing. Years ago, we were having problems with our son and I told the woman who drove me home that day that I couldn’t go back to the prayer meeting, because they are all in their perfect worlds and I’m not. I shared with her some of what we were going through and she, bless her, did not judge. Instead she shared what they were going through with one of their sons.
So when you share the tough times, you make it easier for others to reach out to you and know that they won’t be judged and found lacking.
I will pray for your beloved son, as I did for several years for my beloved son, without ceasing.
Thank you. I know that prayer make a difference. I know that Jon can change. I just feel so bad for his sons. Their mother is in prison right now, will be for several more years to come. Their father is just another ‘kid’ in their life. It makes me sad that my son, Jon, has lost out on being a father to his children. I am thankful to the Lord that as far as I know he has not ‘fathered’ any more children. These 2 are about all I can handle at my age. I am very lucky, the other grandmother is younger than me by several years. She is able to do FUN things with the boys that I am not do because of the arthritis. She is a police woman too. A good influence on the boys. Right now both of them want to go into law enforcement. The boys are at an age now where they are understanding that they are more mature than their father. My son is not allowed to be alone with them. We are afraid he would introduce them to drugs. He sees nothing wrong with drugs. He is so mixed up in his brain that he sees no difference between the medication I take for arthritis and what he smokes or shoots up or what ever it is they do.
Yes, I went for years being so ashamed of having raised a son that ‘went wrong’ as was told to me over and over by my parents. I was told by my own mother it was because I did not BEAT him enough when he was a child. I was beat as a child by my father. I made a vow that I would not do that to my children.
I have 2 sons. My oldest is college educated with a master degree in nursing. He is about to became a P. A. in Dec. He put himself through school, worked full time and had a wife and 2 great kids. Jon quit school in the 10th grade and will not work. Makes me so sad. How can 2 boys, raised by the same parents in the same home be so different.
Art (and craft) saves lives!
Great post Abby! What an experience you had and how great it was that you and your friends found that creativity helped you deal with the suffering you saw.
This was an especially poignant post. Thank you.
This was a very interesting post about how important craft and creating can be, and for me this is nothing less than the potential for it to save one’s sanity. My day job is within the world of mental health and suicide prevention, and creating is such a crucial tool for many people in maintaining or enhancing their wellbeing. For me personally, I cannot function unless I progress a personal art or craft project each day, so much so, that I have learned that when I travel I must take a portable project with me. There is something so vital about the creation of something that would not have existed if it were not for you – no matter what else happens that day, some sort of change and development takes place when you create art or craft.
Me too, when we travel I had my hand sewing with me all the time. I have something I am always working on. Right now I am using some of my smallest scraps to make hexagons to go into a quilt eventually. I am making my hexies just 2 inches big so they go fast to make but it will talk a lot to make a quilt the size I usually make.
I also embroidery. I like to make different things with my hands. At my age, I am 64 now, arthritis is making things difficult. I am lucky, the arthritis seems to be effecting my left side more than my right. As I am right handed that is better for me. Sometimes I can not make my left hand ‘understand’ what I want it to do. Crazy.
Wow, as a city clerk for a town of less than one thousand, I felt every bit of the emotion you put into these words. Lovely, I will fondly remember it. Don’t what I’d do without creativity.
Lila