The absolute freedom of smallness

I flip on the overhead light, which is not my favorite light, but it works fine for now. My foot brushes a pile of empty boxes and filler paper from the shipment that arrived a few days ago. I still need to break that down. Bucky has taken her place on the high pile checkered rug that’s looking a little dull from vacuuming neglect. She’s right where I need to work, but I decide to embrace the orange furry speed bump.

I peel through the stack of order receipts and start organizing them by date, item ordered, and finally color choice. I see so many familiar names of complete strangers. Folks who have ordered something of mine for years. Folks who are just learning about what I make. The total magic of knowing absolutely nothing about people except for that they are about to have something of mine that I made, delivered to their lives. The trust they have that this thing will be lovely. That magic is still here.

*pfffffft*. I tear the brown paper and wrap each order. Each one looking like some sort of special delivery from the preindustrial age until I seal it with a bright logo sticker. *sshhhooo clink clink clink clink* I pull the lever on the tape machine and feel the cut (never underestimate the satisfaction of a perfectly measured and cut piece of tape). Scribble a name and number, weigh the box, plop on the floor.

*pffffft* *sshhhooo, clink clink clink clink*

Plop.

*pffffft* *sshhhooo, clink clink clink clink*

Plop.

The process continues for at least 50 more times. It’s the kind of trance that lets your mind out of the basket. My body is here but my thoughts have stepped just outside of the small window that lights the table as I work. As my hands move I remember the first time I felt this feeling of small room imagining. I was just a kid, but only just barely not a baby. I was about my son’s age of 4, playing in the linen closet that was at the base of our dusty 1920s staircase. The secret alleyway at the bend, the arm nook of our home. There was a tiny closet with a tiny door that housed sheets, spare pillows, and my toys. It was dimly lit, as was the rest of our big old house. It was called “Bear Corner”, and it was my personal curiosity world.

The area itself was not big, but it had a shape. There was just enough room to feel like it was my own special place, complete with a secret doorway to unknowns. To my parents this area of the house was just a space to keep said toys out of the way, I’m sure. A place to corral the energy of a tiny sensitive. Being the youngest of 4 siblings, the oldest being about 18 years my senior, I felt I was left to my own devices most days. This time in the “Bear Corner” seems to have left some sort of mark on me and the attempt to recreate that world follows me today. My corner of the art building in high school where I hid. My tiny studio apartment in Cobble Hill. My sketchbook. I had a Bear Corner in my spare bedroom when I started my first Etsy shop in 2011, and now I’m back again. Back in an imagination portal that has always drifted along with me. Starting over my creative career in a 100 sq ft room with too bright overhead lighting.

But it is within these tiny spaces where my visions have thrived, time and time again.

Like popcorn on the stove, bright and shiny new ideas explode onto the next. The sensation of feelings that comes when I feel tapped in; it’s like a warm flood and I’m floating on top. I’m home again, both literal and meaningful. There is a complete freedom for me that only exists when I am working within a small space, a small budget, and small stakes. I had completely forgotten this thrill. I have been so busy thinking that I needed to do more and be more that I have neglected my soul’s request to feel cozy and content. My need for a small space to think and feel deeply. I used to think expansion of space and offerings would bring an expanse of inspiration, but that has proven to be the opposite for me time and time again. My creative spirit fits within no walls, but it absolutely thrives within the squeeze of a small room.

*pffffft* *sshhhooo, clink clink clink clink*

Plop.

*pffffft* *sshhhooo, clink clink clink clink*

Plop.

Packing orders feels special again. Printing the labels feels special again. Floating in the hypnosis of monotone work has once again opened up a new era of ideas. I’m feeling a new type of hope. Maybe it is possible to try this again. Maybe I can do this without the story of what I thought I needed to be. The desire for personal space that at one time made me question if I was doing things right is, I see now, the very basis of what brings me joy. Within smallness I can experiment. In this small space is where I can finally write. With lower expectations I can stretch my legs without the fear of a strict bottom line. Inside of a cozy world I can support myself and also be wild.

The portal does not have to be vast and lucrative to take me far, turns out.

It’s so easy to discredit how much I have changed. I often don’t realize I’m accomplishing a small dream until lots of time has passed. I suppose most of us are like that because time is translucent. We can’t see the real lessons of history until years have lapsed, and everyone has had a chance to solidify their experience. So much of what I felt was missing in my life during these last few years has been because of my own disbelief in myself. I didn’t believe that I could stop or change the way I was operating. I didn’t think I had room to be spontaneous or weird. I believed it was too late to refocus on the art that I truly enjoyed because I was scared of letting people down, and yet I wasn’t proud of what I was making. I had built some imaginary wall of conflicting feelings that only I had the ability to see (or at least I thought). It was tall and cumbersome, and it seemed like it was always getting wider. Every time I added a new brick to the wall I took another step back from my secret desire to expand in a completely new direction. I really wanted to play music. I wanted to draw new things. I wanted to use my words to reveal an untapped world. At that time I didn’t feel like I had enough room to do those things, so I just kept making the room larger. I would add a few more resentful bricks. I would keep making greeting cards.

Now I am in 100 sq ft of endless possibility. It feels like I’m reliving a Bear Corner moment, except this time, I have already been places. I have shown what I can do, and I’m less wanting. Maybe I will try this selling art thing again. Maybe I can remember to keep myself open to new experiences. Maybe I can remember that being small and nimble is where my freedom lives. I am not starting at square one exactly, but I’m starting at the precipice of a new version of myself. Even when a caterpillar becomes the butterfly, they are still a wiggly and wide eyed child inside. With the risk of sounding trite, I feel like I have some sort of wet new wings and I’m ready to fumble my way. This time with more respect for the young Leela who has always needed her own small portal.

This time with more honor for the childlike wonder that makes great art in the first place.