Attention is a Sewing Machine

clearing brain dust

Out for a brain clearing walk with my dog 10/31/24

This past Tuesday, I took a sewing machine maintenance class at a nearby maker space. I love my sewing machine, which I inherited from my mother-in-law, but also I don’t know it very well. It came with a tiny container of oil, which I had never used. It came with a manual, which I read when I need to figure out how to do something specific, but which is also full of sewing machine terms that I don’t understand. I’m often left scratching my head. 

Black…hook…race…cover?

Sewing machine maintenance class was about carefully taking apart our machines and brushing out the dust with satisfying little tools. Sewing produces lint and some of that lint ends up inside the sewing machine. There was a lot of dust. The instructor said we had a relatively normal amount of dust, that sometimes people open their machines and giant fluffy mountains of dust fall out. 

By the time we were done, the table was covered in tiny dust bunnies. Then we put strategic drops of oil onto some moving parts. Two drops of oil, that’s all I needed. 

At the end of the class, we sewed on some scraps of fabric to make sure our sewing machines were working fine, and there was a satisfying hum as all of the machines happily did their jobs. Some of the other machines had been having issues before the class, making clunking sounds or breaking threads. Now they all hummed and purred. 

Cleaning a sewing machine is fairly straightforward, although, before Tuesday, I didn’t know how to do it. 

There are so many ways to get lint and dust into our brains (metaphorically). If we keep cramming in more information, more news, then the dust will clog our attention. There are tools I use for writing – pens, notebooks, a computer – but the tool I use most is my brain, and I can feel when it’s getting too dusty. I sit down to write and am thinking about other things, and I continue to think about other things even while I’m trying to write. It’s at those times when I need to do the equivalent of brushing out the dust with a satisfying little tool. 

And just like the actual dust in a sewing machine, if I clean it out regularly, it won’t build up too much. It’s easier to get back to a clear-headed set point where I can get fully into the deep work of writing if I do regular maintenance of some sort. But when I forget, when I am tired and unfocused and spending too much time clicking around, then it is harder and takes longer to get to that dust-free space.

The good news is, it’s not that hard to clean out a sewing machine, or my attention. It just takes intentional effort. The dust isn’t going to magically fall out on its own. It will keep accumulating until it gets cleared out.

Here is how I clear my own brain: 

• meditate

• jump up and get far away from my computer and do anything analog without my phone nearby, from folding laundry to elaborate craft projects to starting dinner

• do a tarot card spread (maybe about my specific book project and what to write next)

• read a book (sometimes it’s more efficient to read an entire book for the head-clearing than it is to keep trying to write with a dusty brain)

• go for a walk

• take a nap

Those are some of the things that work for me; what works for you might be different. Maybe you clear your brain by baking cakes or running. As long as you know what works, and how it feels when everything has gotten too dusty.

The little bottle of oil. I am mostly guessing the vintage of my sewing machine based on this lady on the back of the owner's manual.

I keep thinking, also, about my sewing machine only needing two tiny drops of oil. I’m sure the little bottle of oil I have is the same one that came with the sewing machine when it was new, which was, I think, 40 years ago. The bottle is still mostly full, since all you need is two drops of oil about once a year. Which has me thinking, also, like: we don’t need much! You don’t need to book a writing residency or a silent retreat or throw out your smartphone (although you certainly can). You just need to know what it feels like when your head is getting a little dusty, and know what works for you to clear it.

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

I don’t know about you, but my general feeling these days is Election Anxiety Tornado. I voted in person two weeks ago, and I’m glad to have already done my part in the voting department. It was surprisingly busy! My only complaint is my “I Voted” sticker fell off immediately. I would like to vote for better sticker adhesion technology

Cosmo will continue to make this face at you until you vote.

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If you’re in the U.S., have you voted yet? If not, do you have a voting plan? You can go to vote.org to see where your polling place is.

I was proud to add my name to the list of writers for Harris (that’s a link to my Instagram post about it).

I enjoy this website: 270 Reasons to Vote for Harris/Walz, which has a series of short reasons and then also longer, well-written essays from everyone from Margaret Atwood to Dave Eggers to George Saunders.

Every vote matters. This election is so important. I was going to write “it feels like our democracy is on the line” but it doesn’t “feel like” that — it’s true. I love what

Ben Greene

posted yesterday about looking beyond what we don’t want, and toward what we do want, as a way to reframe election anxiety into election hope. I want elected leaders who value the lives and rights of humans who look and are different from them. I want a government that values the environment. I want normalization of reading and books of all kinds. (I also want universal health care, but that doesn’t appear to be on the ballot just yet, that’s ok.)

It was hard for me to write those wants without veering into negatives (“I want a President who cares about people besides himself,” for instance). But veering into negatives is not a great place for me to dwell.

Selfishly, I want a government that makes it easy for me to write from a place of humor and joy. It is, frankly, a more efficient way to write children’s books. I wrote so many books from 2017-2020 that were about characters escaping burning buildings or being haunted by specters, which was cathartic but not appropriate for children, and required a great deal of revision to even show to my agent. WHO HAS THE TIME, I ASK? Not me. So I voted for Harris/Walz (ha, as if that’s the only reason) (though if you vote for Harris for only one reason, that’s fine).

I am also looking at my list of brain-clearing activities from my essay this week and thinking about how much I need to remember their existence in the coming days. We probably won’t have the final results of the election for days, maybe even weeks. Obsessively refreshing the internet probably won’t help.

Thoughts and Links

• Saturday, November 2 is “Julie Falatko Day” (!!!) at Play Me a Story at Portland Stage. They’ll be doing staged readings of two of my books, Help Wanted: One Rooster, and No Boring Stories, at 10:30. I’ll be there!

• Time is beans.

• Maybe we all just need a focus coach.

• I really enjoyed Donald Glover interviewing Donald Glover for Interview.

• Imagine if the end of sewing machine maintenance class had been like this.

• I am inspired by Dina Litovsky’s photography Substack, and will point you to her recent post of photos from NYC’s dog parade, which she approached with a mindset of “what would David Lynch do?” and also making sure the photos (of dogs in costumes!) were not cute. They’re so great. (Her post yesterday about photographing Trump rallies is incredibly interesting.)

Books I read recently and loved

Disclosure: book links in this newsletter are affiliate links to Bookshop.org, a site which supports independent bookshops.

• Have you read The First Week of School by Drew Beckmeyer? Not since Mr. S. has a picture book about seemingly normal school activities taken such a hilarious and surprising turn.

• I think I keep forgetting to formally shout out my love for Uprooted by my friend and two-time illustrator Ruth Chan. (I have talked about it many, many times informally, to people near me.) It is so, so good. The way Ruth handles the different languages (like, the technical way she handles it) is so cool. I truly love everything about this book. There is a thing where…like, I forgot that memoirs are about actual people. And then to read the memoir of someone I know, it felt like I was reading her diary. Part of me felt like, “does Ruth know I’m reading this?” That’s never happened to me before. Anyway, read it. It’s incredible.

• I got flu and covid shots on the same last week (get ‘em over with!) and was very sleepy the next day, and decided to listen to my body and rest. So I lazed around and read an entire book: The Memo by Rachel Dodes and Lauren Mechling. It is extremely fun and not at all what I expected when I picked it up.