On play as reset, on play as resistance
Hello!
Quick announcement for this weekend
San Diego Zine Fest is both days this weekend! I am tabling on Sunday, Oct 19th. Come say hi if you are in the area!
On Retreats and Play
I had the fortune to attend a Wayward Retreat on Quadra Island this year. In such a thoughtfully-curated container of care, there were many factors that contributed to the wonder and magic and restorative nature of the experience (a big factor being nature herself).
Today I want to touch on: PLAY. I came into retreat in low spirits, numbed out, and mostly anxious about (not) finding a job under a looming threat of precarity. I was resigned to maybe feeling disconnected from everyone and everything for potentially the whole week, and I had lowered my own expectations around working on my book project during the retreat.
Surprisingly and unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long at all for me to feel my self again — and more present with everything (including myself). All it took was someone to feed me a nice breakfast, give me an art dare, and let me raid their art supplies. The trick of it was: truly none of it mattered. I could play with yarn and weaving materials. (I ended up frogging everything.) I could try to sew together leaves foraged from the garden to try and make a tiny book with no paper. (It didn’t work.) I could help another retreater try to remember how many holes to punch to sew together a book signature without the internet for reference. (The answer ultimately didn’t come from my brain.) There was also something generous and generative about so much of our play and little projects at retreat being for other people. (A direct feedback loop between audience, reception, and satisfaction.)
It was all so needful and pleasant. Some of which led to other things that did work…which was both besides the point entirely AND the actual point.
The play was such a good reset for my creative self, like my too-slow brain-computer had been rebooted. Our modern-day creative minds are so trained to focus on: output, productivity, ROI, income possibilities, end goals, end goals in order to plan in order to prioritize in order to figure out what you’re going to to-do today. My anxiety has been so focused on the need the make an income, that I haven’t been able to protect my creative projects from my compulsion to box them into a commodifiable business plan. This doesn’t allow for surprise or growth or play or fun, because the risk of failure exceeds my nervous system’s tolerance when ‘creative output’ and ‘don’t lose your housing’ are too entangled.
It’s nice to take a break from all o’ that. Play helps the body remember: it’s not so serious.
We will see how long this reset lasts. I look forward to seeing what the ripple effects of the reset have on the upcoming seasons.
More stuff about play!!
🎧 Albert and I recorded a Foment podcast about the importance of play in our now-times — and what keeps us from being able to play. (Recorded pre-me-going-to-the-woods, but let’s say it was all very strategic…in the emergent strategy sense.)
🐌 Shing Yin Khor on Little Guys. Emerald Barkley on Butts and Burnout. Albert Kong on small fry.
🤡 Otpur (“resistance” in Serbian) has been trending in my inbox. It was a Serbian student-led civil resistance movement that used humor, satire, and culture to undermine pillars of support for an authoritarian regime. There’s a feature in this Conscious Citizens dispatch, and there’s an upcoming training in Feb 2026 from Ayni Institute on the art of campaign planning with Ivan Marović, one of the co-founders of Otpor.
🦄 Relatedly? »
🍴 Also, a lil report from Chicago from food cartoonist Sarah Becan: “When the government tells you Chicago is a hell hole or a war zone, they are lying to you. This is a city of community gardens, summer festivals, block parties and farmers markets…No one deserves masked secret police violently snatching law-abiding people off the streets with no oversight or accountability.” And Josh Kramer comics journalist on “what it’s like in DC right now”…in September anyway.
Even more things to share
💰 Over on my “Living the Questions” series at Patreon about art + capitalism, I can’t get over this line from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: “My ancestors didn't accumulate capital, they accumulated networks of meaningful, deep, fluid, intimate collective and individual relationships of trust.” So I share a bunch of links to practices of redistribution and do some inner work on my own baggage around accumulation.
📚 Lori Zaspel is putting together a grief-themed table for Philly Zine Fest happening Nov 1. Honored to have copies of It’s Okay That It’s Not Okay and Aging represented amongst this beautiful collection.
💌 I finally reprinted some Dear Daughter zines for San Diego Zine Fest (if the package arrives in time today). I’ll be putting some copies of that back in the online shop after the weekend! Stay tuned!
🩵 A couple grief resources on my radar to highlight:
Sick and tired of being sick and tired, a virtual discussion about chronic illness, grief, and holidays on Mon Nov 3.
I was really blown away by this process video of Grace DuVal’s piece for the World of Wearable Art show, inspired by and in collaboration with her dead dad. (Also, I always want more of this kind of creative process from Project Runway, but seems like more and more producer-amplified drama as seasons go on.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG5QlWo0M0w
Be well, take care, go play <3 Christina
