Hello Maker,

I can’t stop thinking how tender, precious, and fragile this life is — all of which make awe possible. It makes me want to write something like a non-sectarian sermon (which I kind of did, see below).

But first, I guess a lot of people feel tender about birthdays, and today is my book’s birthday: MAKING TIME can now be in your hot little hands. How strange! Let me get my mind around it.

Let’s quantify this thing.

A book in numbers:

• 2 years and 7 months in the official process.

• 6 rounds of editing.

• 604 cups of coffee.

• 2 trips to an Airbnb in Wisconsin to wander in the woods and stare at the wall and sometimes type.

• 713 walks taken in my neighborhood.

• 56 “what do I doooooo” conversations and just as many tears.

My ego, my producer-self, wants to count to get control. I want to manage what happens to me, the world, strangers, the climate, my image, my friends, my kid (et al.) so badly!

Yet today all I can think in the face of all of this — the abundance of grace and pain, the sheer excess pouring out of everything, I want to fall to my knees and touch the earth. Who am I to withhold my presence, hoard my ideas, and protect my ego?

Here is that sermon-shaped thing:

A homily for why

“You could not be born at a better period than the present, when we have lost everything.”
― Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

Do not stop now. Do not ask why.

Create to find your center.
Create to meet the world with your highest intelligence.
Create because it is an act of generosity.
Create because your process reveals how to be part of the larger, collective process.
Create because your process and the world’s are inseparable.

Create to offer the world a reflection of its living contradictions.
Create because consuming will dull you.
Create because consuming the status quo's imagination will shape you in its image.
Create because a blank page or a lump of clay reminds you: beginnings are possible.
Create to find the fertile silence within.
Create because that silence will teach you how to bear it.
Create because your community deserves to see beauty made real, now and always.

Create because you are a bell no one else can ring.
Create because shaping something outside yourself clarifies what’s within.
Create because sharing your consciousness — however you do it —bridges isolation and connection.
Create because making is a conversation with existence itself.
Create because to make something is to tell the universe: “I am listening. I am answering.”

3 Easy Ways to Help Making Time Find Its People

Here’s how you can help it ripple outward into the world:

• Ask your library to carry it. Libraries are so good. They will be happy to hear your request! They often have forms on their website for requests like this.

• Goodread It. If you’re on Goodreads, mark it as “want to read.” And when you’ve read it, a short review (just one insight or thought that stuck with you) can go further than you think.

• Pass it on. If something in the book moves you, share it with a friend or post about it. We all trust the books our people swear by, and your voice can make that connection happen.

• Leave a comment on Amazon. A single sentence about what resonated with you is a big deal.

Thanks for helping this little book find its way; it means more than you know.

Love,

Maria