How Exiting Social Media for Good is Saving My Life

I’ve always had a fraught, ambivalent relationship with social media. I’ve switched platforms, taken extended breaks, but never “broken up” with it for good – until now. So, if you’re reading this you’ve found me in the only place I’m going to be online. I can’t promise how much or how often, because my primary commitment is full engagement with life in the present, the here-and-now. What a beautiful liberty it is to enjoy the serendipity of choices made based on my values, available resources, and desires without having to worry about a constant third rail of an audience. I find myself much more able to live what feels like an authentic life, not a performative one. I highly recommend exiting social media. I encourage current users to question why they’re there, at what cost (both individually and collectively), and how might their experience of life change without it? In spite of what we tell ourselves, social media is built to deliver eyeballs to advertising, further enriching a scant handful of the world’s pathologically wealthiest individuals (none of whom exhibit any inclination towards benevolent aims with their spoils – and not that any amount of charity can justify the scourge of ever expanding income inequality). Can you imagine what would happen if we the people recognized our power and harnessed it to exact a mass exodus off of social media? That would get some attention that might actually matter and make a difference. You do you, no judgment. I’m just sayin, come on in, the waters are fine.

In the meantime, I continue to piece quilts. I also have an ambivalent relationship with my creative practice. It stretches my resources to or beyond the limits, but repeatedly I find I don’t have much choice, I must do this. It goes beyond simple pleasure. It’s survival. It’s all I really know how to do. It’s how I show up. It’s what I’ll be doing on deck while and as the Titanic sinks. Asteroid headed toward planet earth? You’ll find me in my studio sewing. It’s an act of resistance inasmuch as it’s an act of hope.

I have long been fascinated by the pattern of the molded concrete block of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Millard House in Pasadena, California. The recent devastating fires in Los Angeles spurred me to pursue this idea out of the many that await fruition from piles of sketches.

The quilt is made of 144 seven-inch blocks (four-squared cross), 63 of which I have completed as of today. I chose a warm, earthy palette of terra cotta, cranberry reds, and dirt browns – for no particular reason other than it appeals to me. Though, I did realize it’s also the branded palette of Popeyes franchise buildings – a far Cajun cry from Wright’s cerebral masterpiece – but has delivered a good chuckle to a small group (an entrepreneur & sculptor in California; a shepherd in Iowa; my singer-songwriter, single-mom sister in Texas; an ENT nurse practitioner, handquilting, natural dyeing quiltmaker in Maine; and a librarian and quiltmaker in Missouri) I text my work-in-progress to stave off isolation, and sustain my momentum and inspiration.

Blessings to you all as we watch this beloved country dismantled by frail, deranged, self-serving, broken egos.