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After an unplanned hiatus, I have returned to Crivello! Thank you for sticking around. Since my last post on September 1, so much has happened; mostly very good, and some very chaotic. I celebrated my 33rd birthday (which seems forever ago now), won a prize (!!!), started a new job that requires me to travel to Ottawa every week, participated in two conferences (one virtually, and one in Toronto), sold my art in my first pop up market with my cousin, and started selling my work in a beautiful boutique in Ottawa called Victoire. It has really be one of the most positive periods of the last five years. But I spent a lot of it quite sleep deprived.
Now that I’m settling into my new normal routine (I feel like I’ve lived so many different routines this year), I am working on creating a sustainable writing schedule so that I can finish all the half-written posts I have lingering in my drafts.
I wanted to sneak my way back into your inboxes this Sunday to say: we will back to regularly scheduled programming in the new year. That is, a monthly post on the last Friday of the month, and bi-weekly Sunday Stories.
And to wish you all a Happy New Year!
2024 has taught me a lot about how I can imagine carving a future for myself despite precarity. There are core things that are certain, that speak to the soul. The people I love, the work I can’t stop thinking about, even when I can’t do it. The kind of world I want to exist in.
It’s been a year of Dalla valigia alla tavola. That, too, came with some darkness. But the relationships formed as a result of this project, the messages we received from those who have stumbled upon it, and the ongoing celebration of the small region my ancestors came from, sustain the light through it all.
Though I wasn’t able to accomplish all the ideas I have swirling around in the (somewhat) organized chaos of my mind, collaboration pulled through. My friend, Jordan, and I were able to end the year having put Pezz’ a culore: A Molisan dialect colouring book out into the world. Another friend, Jac, and I launched our shared newsletter, notyrgirls, for which I owe a post on diaries. This has also fallen victim to the job, travel, getting sick, etc. etc. etc. Coming soon!
I always keep my tarot pulls for the monthly posts, but I wanted to pull a card for the year end. In the description for the Reclamation card, these quotes resonated: “The raspberry plant, full of thorns, but also fruit, lets us know that our labour will be hard but worth it. […] This is a time to reclaim your narrative. […] We are all marked with a darkness inside to help us grow and learn.” It is a card of self and shadow work, confronting narratives, changing perspective, confidence. This not only speaks to my personal journal this year, but I see the message of the card reflected in the collective work to be done in the face of actual fascist, conspiracy theorist, fear-mongering, zealots terrorizing our political and social spheres. Yes, I am scared. But I’m also determined.
I end 2024 feeling the most true to myself I have ever felt. Part of that has been Crivello. I really can’t thank you enough for sharing this part of the internet with me.
To quote
’s Two Years of Working With the Kitchen Door Open: “Keep writing, keep working, keep reading. You’re good enough.” That I will do and I will remember.And I will begin 2025 in true virgo fashion: (1) re-organizing my home office, (2) finally putting up the gallery wall of our family photos in the living room.
Love,
Cass
