What My Hands Know That I Don’t

How a jelly jar, Rapunzel, and a few fairy lights helped me understand why I need to make things.

A reader recently mentioned that she missed my Monday messages here on Substack.

I miss doing them, too.

When I started writing here, I thought of Substack as another way to stay in touch with readers. And yes, I know many authors view it as a marketing tool—a way to remind people we have books for sale.

But something unexpected happened.

Slowly, this became a conversation.

Before Substack, I wrote something, sent it out into the universe, and hoped it landed somewhere. Occasionally, I’d hear from a reader at a book event or receive an email.

Now I live my life, process what happened, try to assign some meaning to it, write about it—and eagerly wait to hear what you think.

Even when I don’t respond directly to every comment, I read them. I register them. They become part of what I’m thinking about.

And sometimes you make me reconsider what I thought I knew.

Months ago, for example, I wrote a piece that was sympathetic to Tiger Woods. I was trying to stretch my imagination—to understand pressures I’ll never experience as a top athlete and celebrity.

I stumbled.

Several of you thought I hadn’t come down hard enough on his reckless behavior.

You were right.

Your comments made me think more deeply about the way he had used—or misused—the privileges his celebrity gave him.

That’s the thing about a real conversation: You don’t always get to walk away thinking exactly what you thought when you arrived.

And isn’t that part of the great adventure of being alive?

We try to make sense of this glorious, confusing world. We try to find our place in it. And, if we’re lucky, we find other people willing to compare notes along the way.

Knowing you’re out there makes me less flippant and more thoughtful.

Lately, it has also made me more thoughtful about something else:

Why do I make things?

I’ve always been a maker.

Usually a project begins because some image on Pinterest or social media strikes my fancy. I think, Ooh. I could make that.

Then I dig through my supplies and dive in.

I haven’t spent much time wondering why.

But my recent health crisis has brought a lot of things into sharper focus.

Why am I doing this rather than that?

Do I care about the finished product?

The process?

Keeping my hands busy?

Keeping my mind busy?

Or is something else going on?

After my surgery, I tried to crochet something very ordinary.

My hands knew how to crochet. I’ve done it countless times.

Except suddenly...

That darn crochet hook couldn’t find the right holes.

I couldn’t concentrate on the sequence of twists and stabs and pull-throughs that had always seemed so automatic.

It was incredibly frustrating.

I’d always dismissed those abilities as “muscle memory,” as though my hands operated independently while the rest of me thought about something more important.

Apparently not.

There is an intricate conversation taking place between brain and eye and hand every time we make something. I hadn’t appreciated what a finely tuned machine my body was until, temporarily, it wasn’t.

So, yes, for now I’ll leave the rock climbing to my friend Michael Holmes.

Although one day I still plan to go with him and experience it.

MH? You’ve been warned.

All of this is a long way of explaining what has happened to my creative life since surgery.

Or maybe how my creative life has helped me since surgery.

Because I’ve discovered something else:

I simply can’t survive without making things.

My sister Margaret recently retired from teaching art, and bless her heart, she became my caregiver after surgery while David attended to business up in DC.

Without really discussing it, Margaret and I realized I needed a project.

Not a giant project.

Not something that required hauling out half the contents of a craft store.

I needed what I now think of as a kitchen-table project: accessible, short-term, medium-to-low mess, but interesting enough to make me forget about everything else for a while.

Fortunately, I had been hanging onto a tall blackberry jelly jar.

This is what other people call “hoarding” because they don’t understand the importance of having raw materials available at a moment’s whim.

I looked at that jar and saw...

A tower.

Over the course of several days, the jelly jar disappeared beneath paper clay. It became a rough stone cylinder with tiny openings for arrow slots or windows and a peaked roof.

Then Margaret and I fiddled with a little Rapunzel figure until we had her positioned half-in and half-out of a balcony.

My sister Jane informed us that Rapunzel means “radish,” which seems a remarkably unromantic name for a fairy-tale heroine, but there you have it.

The real magic happened when I dropped a strand of fairy lights inside the tower.

And suddenly...

There she was.

Rapunzel.

Maybe I chose her because some part of me was feeling trapped.

Maybe she reminds me that the way forward isn’t always straight. Sometimes it circles around. Sometimes it climbs. Sometimes it zigzags.

Maybe I like the fact that Rapunzel isn’t afraid to call out for help.

Or maybe I’m overthinking the whole thing and I simply wanted to turn a jelly jar into a tower.

That’s possible, too.

But I know this:

While I worked on her, the hours flew by.

For a little while, I wasn’t thinking about doctors or recovery or what I could do before that I can’t quite do yet.

I was wondering whether the roof needed another dab of clay.

Whether Rapunzel was sitting correctly.

Where the fairy lights should go.

And somehow my worries became as small as the tiny chinks between the stones.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons human beings have always made things.

Sometimes our hands know what we need before the rest of us catches up.

I hope you like my Rapunzel.

And yes, if you want to know how I made her, ask away. I’m happy to share.

But I’m even more curious about you.

When life has knocked you sideways, what have you reached for?

Knitting? Gardening? Baking? Woodworking? Painting? Music? A jigsaw puzzle? Working on an old car? Something else entirely?

Has making something—or simply doing something with your hands—ever helped you through a difficult stretch?

I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Because that’s what I’ve come to treasure about these Monday messages.

They’re no longer just something I write and send out into the universe.

They’re a conversation.

And I’ve missed talking with you.

Love, J