Clotheshorse = me, Amanda. And today is my birthday! I don’t have any big plans: work, taking Conway to the vet, and then dinner at my favorite restaurant in Lancaster, @cafepasserine. In honor of this occasion, I made you some (fake) cakes.
As a full-time over thinker, naturally I am reflecting on my life, what it feels like to be alive right now, and what happens next.
In 2017-2020, Dustin and I lost many friends to “deaths of despair.” And every time we learned that another rad person was gone, we said “I get it.” Because it felt like hope was in short supply, like there was no light to be found. We got through it by sort of keeping out heads down, clinging to one another, and working really hard to find any shred of joy.
The past two years have been a repeat of that darkness, except darker. And yet...I have more hope than ever!
❤️ Rather than putting our heads down and powering through it, we are lifting our heads up, extending a hand to one another, saying “nice to meet you, I’m here to help.”
❤️ We realize the importance of community and our roles within it. We see that nothing gets better for anyone without all of us getting involved. We know that we all have a part to play in the fight for a better world.
❤️ We see that we are unstoppable when we work together...and that’s why the worst people would prefer that we spend our days tearing one another apart on social media.
❤️ We understand that for years we have been sold this idea that we should aspire to have as much stuff as possible, that life was a competition to see who could have the most stuff, the most expensive clothes/food/trips/lifestyle, and the most curated social media page....and it turns out that all of that just lined billionaires’ pockets, leaving us broke, unsatisfied, and lonely.
❤️ We realize that the all of life’s magic, hope, and joy...that comes from the people, animals, and world around us. And we are here to fight for that.
I am not a spiritual person, but I find hope, faith, and meaning in the people around me. In our ability to build, create, and innovate. In the unmatchable power we have when we all work together toward a common purpose.
I believe in us.
About this post: OBVIOUSLY I did NOT use AI to create these cakes. They began as scans from vintage Wilton cake decorating books. I used photoshop to "redecorate" them, using a variety of brushes, layers, shadows, etc. It is a laborious process. I have shared some of the cakes in this post in the past. Making the new ones (yesterday) took five hours.
