If You Can, Do

Black Boots on Wood, Sharon, VT Fall 2020 Photo by ERSwett

Sometimes
a gal has to shake things
up a bit.

Embroidered Moccasins by Sarah C. Swett sometime in the 1980's. Photo by ERSwett

If, for
example, she
can't actually walk in
other people's shoes, she can
at least experiment with wearing her
own in new & different places.
Or, perhaps, not wear
​any at all.

Barefoot in Fall Self Portrait, October 2020

It turns
out, for example,
that feeling cold wet leaves
beneath your toes while staring at
your camera is quite
luxurious.

Self Portrait at The Land, October 2020 Photo by ERSwett

I've
been needing
these experiences this past
week, because while those in power
continue to belittle women's voices, & the
voices of those without power, I
struggle to find
​mine.

The Dress - Blowing in the Wind, October 2020 Photo by ERSwett

The dress,
like so many past
beliefs is gone, blowing
in the wind, beautiful but not
useful anymore. 

Reclining on a Wood Pile - Self Portrait October 2020

And I
​recline on a
wood pile, wearing
those cool black boots from
The Pink Alligator & a black shirt
dress from Revolution.
It all feels quite
​liberating...

Hydrangea at The Landfill, October 2020 Photo by ERSwett

Each
step in my
own shoes brings
me closer to what I love --
finding balance & power at the landfill
& in my compost pile, each photograph transforming
the discord & pain I feel in the world
around me into something
​else entirely.

Now
the demitasse,
filled with coffee, sits on
the coffee grinds from which it came,
connected and real. In times
like this, it helps to
stay real.

Self Portrait with Panels, Fall 2020 Photo by ERSwett

And then
I remembered
how powerful I felt
when we ​first installed our
solar panels in 2010. For less than
the cost of most new cars, we could actually
generate power - - 56,000 Kwh to date, in fact. So
I created this self portrait, wearing those
same black boots & holding a mug
of coffee made by a good
friend. This
is ​real.

2020 Ballot Photo by ERSwett

And
this is real
too. So after the
photo shoot at the panels,
I filled in my ballot & delivered it
to Town Hall, feeling very very powerful.
I hope that on November 3, 2020 you will vote
as if your life & the lives of your children's
children's great grandchildren
depended on it.

Self Portrait - - As a Tree, October 2020

Because
here's the deal.
If you can, do. If you
believe in your power, you
can generate power, not just with
solar panels and your vote, but with the
very core of who you are. I'm a mover & maker,
so I learned to embroider so that I could
share Whitman's poem, This
Compost, and the oh
so powerful final
​stanza...

This Compost on a Jacket - - Self Portrait, October 2020

---

Now I am terrified at the earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis,
with such endless successions of diseased waste, 
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials and accepts such leavings from [us all].

-Walt Whitman, This Compost (From Leaves of Grass)

---

The Connecticut River at Dawn, September 2005 Photo by ERSwett

Renewal
is the operative
word.  Like all this stuff
about demitasse & cotillion dresses
& going deeper into who we are & what we
believe. It's so much easier to
explore when feeling
​powerful. 

Self Portrait - Being a Tree in the Fen, October 2020 in Sharon, VT

Afraid
of what might
happen this week? Be a
tree & remember, if you can, do.
Connect with the earth.
Stand tall. Be
Real.

Self Portrait - Being Real, October 2020 in Sharon, VT