A Couple of Pandemic Gifts

Send a card to someone home-bound with ME/CFS

I’m a resource person who rarely comes away from seeing or speaking to someone without a note to send them a connection of some sort. It might be a link to an article about a breakthrough in a medical issue they mentioned, a writing or art opportunity, or an interesting piece about a group training barbers to increase the mental health of their customers.

This week, I’ve created this post for you with two great resources that I’m enjoying, and hope that many of you will as well.

The first is Chronic Cards Market and the second is the free virtual Georgetown Creativity Jumpstart sessions. How are they connected? I learned about Chronic Cards Market through the wonderful artist Jennifer Wilkin Penick who teaches those classes.

I love that something fun I did for myself ended up connecting me with great people making a positive difference in the world and inspiring me.

A pandemic gift

The whole thing was the result of one of those unexpected pandemic gifts. In 2023, I signed up for Jennifer Wilkins Penick’s wonderful, free Georgetown Lombardi Arts & Humanities Creativity Jumpstart Sessions. The classes were only in-person prior to the pandemic and have been a huge success online.

Attending them was part of my quest to create more visual art. Jennifer has a seemingly endless box full of fun creative projects, and she makes them so easy and accessible. First, she shows pictures of what we're going to do, then she shares images of different artists’ creative takes on the same idea. Next, she walks us through the steps before letting us loose.

It’s like a play date. People can show how their project is going if they want. We often collage and make marks, and we are jazzed by color. It’s like the most fun after-school art class you and your buddies got to go to at a neighbor’s house, only I didn’t have that neighbor as a kid. We can be silly and experiment away. I know that many, like me, sometimes become obsessed with whatever we've made that week: freestyle collaged houses, “reupholstered” pictures of vases or furniture, stylized birds.

Try it out

If you like to mess around with art supplies or want to inject more fun into your current practice, Jennifer’s Monday or Wednesday classes are a no-pressure joy. We can go to a page ahead of each date to see if there are any downloads and get an idea of what we're going to do next and which materials from our stash we might want to play with. If we miss a class, it’s all on there, the how-to, and the inspired artist versions.

If we email Jennifer pics, she posts our creations on a second site. I love checking out what others did during the class or weeks afterward. Everyone’s take is so unique, even when we begin with templates. Since drawing isn’t my forte, templates are beneficial. Other people start with free-form drawing. Jennifer is always helpful, kind, fun, and excited to see what we've created.

Other classes

Georgetown Lombardi Art & Humanities also has free Yoga, expressive writing, and creative mindfulness sessions. The Eventbrite sign-up is a little awkward. Even if a class runs for seven sessions, you have to sign up for each one individually. To make it faster, create a free account with your contact information.

Serendipity

Last year, I began sending my mixed media artwork out into the world, so when I heard about Chronic Cards from Jennifer, I signed up. April Thompson’s passion project is bringing awareness to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) by matching people to send art cards to people who are house or bed-bound with that condition or related chronic ones.

I hadn’t realized how many people have ME/CFS or how devastating it can be. The market is where people with that chronic condition can sell their creations.

April’s Story

Here is a short video about April’s story, titled “So Much To Do.” She climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and now her energy level is at 5% as she describes it, likening it to a constantly low battery. Even a small exertion could take a long time to recharge to that 5%. Needless to say, such a condition is a life-altering change. Right now, there is no cure.

I love receiving the now oh-so-rare piece of personal snail mail on real paper, and jumped at the opportunity to brighten the day of someone who is house or bed bound with a piece of artwork.

Chronic Cards Market

Chronic Cards Market is April Thompson’s brainchild and such a wonderful project.

When I received my match, she was such an interesting person. I think the idea was to just send one card and that might be it, but we have been emailing, and I ended up enjoying making and sending her an art card for New Year's as well. She has done amazing creative things professionally and kindly offered to be a beta reader for my mystery. Another unexpected gift.

My match shared how much it meant to her to be surprised by my first art card in the mail. I feel like I have a small, albeit limited idea of what it’s like to feel like other people’s lives are going on around you while yours is on pause from my back issues, which sometimes sideline me for months. Mine is temporary, thankfully. There is no cure for ME/CFS right now, and much more attention and research is needed.

There are similarities between Long Covid, which we now know affects many more people than previously thought, and ME/CFS. Hopefully, the research into Long Covid will result in understanding and addressing ME/CFS as well.

Send or receive an art card

Chronic Cards April Thompson makes all the matches herself, so this project is open for now. She might be able to use a volunteer or two to help her with this if anyone is inspired by what she’s created.

If you have especially moderate to severe ME/CFS or a related chronic condition and would like to receive an art card, you can sign up at the link above.

To sign up to brighten someone’s day by creating an art card, here's that link: Chronic Cards. It doesn’t have to be capital A art. Mine were collage, and I tried to include something April had shared about the person my card was for. She’d done a lot of travel.

Chronic Market is where people with ME/CFS can sell their creations. Check it out and maybe buy a gift for yourself or someone else and spread the word if you’re inspired. The sellers are people who likely can no longer do their previous work, being largely house or bed-bound, and they create when they have the energy.

If you’re a creator with this condition or a related one, this could be a great outlet for your work.

My Inspiration

When I began this Substack a couple of weeks ago, I thought about mentioning Chronic Cards Market. One of my early subscribers was my fellow London Writers Salon (LWS) member

Hal Walker

I don’t know Hal, but found that he is a musician and multiple creative who writes about living with ME/CFS. His Substack is called Living in a Body.

I wondered if Hal and his readers knew about Chronic Cards Market and decided to write about them sooner rather than later.

The other day, as I revised this post during an LWS writers' hour, we heard from

Lyd Epp Schmidt

, who was simultaneously writing a love letter to her chronic fatigue on her Substack, Always Tired. She shared that it was her first post in two years. I can only imagine what it took to write a love letter to such a fraught condition. So if you’d like some insight into what it’s like to live with ME/CFS, check out Hal and Lyd’s Substacks.