At first, finding a hobby seemed doable.

It was March 2020. Long, dark hours in my apartment stretched before me: no happy hours or dates or parties. I forced myself to imagine the possibilities. I could finally devote this time toward discovering a hobby, I thought. I’d come out of the pandemic newly minted with some fabulous skill. So I dove in headfirst and … quickly failed.

Baking was messy. My embroidery and knitting attempts ended in tangles. Pottery crumbled under my hands. I realized I had little patience to continuously fail at something that just wasn’t clicking for me.

“Trying to ‘find a hobby’ is hard and I hate all of you who say you have them,” I tweeted in frustration last month. Almost instantly, friends and complete strangers poured into my replies, offering me their hobbies, from weaving to bracelet-making, as well as their advice: Be more patient, be more willing to fail, ask for help.

So I’m giving hobbies another go. This time, I asked three experts — a collage artist, a cocktail connoisseur and a plant whisperer — what to do. Here’s what I learned.

Time: Start with an hour 
(or more) per week.
Money: Less than $15.
Materials: A glue stick, scissors, 
paper and old magazines.

The first woman I turned to was Rachel Orr, 31, who’s design editor for The Lily, as well as a collage artist. A collage pro, Orr has taught workshops and sold her work. But it didn’t start out that way. She says she got into collaging after deciding she wanted a hobby that wasn’t tied to a computer. She jumped right in with a 100-day collaging challenge. 

“A big lesson I learned there was that it took me 174 days,” she says. “Because life happens. You’re not going to do it every day, and I actually found out I didn’t like doing this every day.” But, she says, taking time away from her collaging and picking it back up helped her break with the idea that every one of her projects had to be perfect.

“I have this all-or-nothing mind-set,” she says.

She calls collaging meditative: cutting and pasting something that is already made, and creating something new. Orr says that as she got more into collaging, she bought a $10 X-Acto knife, a cutting mat and fancy scissors, but beginners don’t need more than a glue stick, some paper, scissors and old magazines. Luckily, I had them all.

ICYMI

Three need-to-know stories

01.

As Texans reeled from a water crisis and going without power for days, a Dallas domestic violence shelter was forced to evacuate last week — leaving dozens of women and children scrambling to seek safety.

02.

Violence against Asian Americans continues to surge, including two separate attacks on Asian women in New York’s subway system. Women are leading the charge to bring awareness to the racism.

03.

Naomi Osaka beat Jennifer Brady in the Australian Open final, which means Osaka swept her first four Grand Slam finals — a feat only two other tennis players, Monica Seles and Roger Federer, have accomplished. 

Regram

A share from @thelilynews

Good news

A story to make you smile

In February 2015, Chauncia Boyd Rogers realized her then-5-year-old daughter, Ava, wasn’t learning about Black History Month in her prekindergarten class. “So I decided to teach her myself,” said Boyd Rogers, 37. She wanted Ava to learn about the many Black women who blazed the trail before her, so she decided to dress her up as a different icon each day and teach her about that person’s contributions. The project became an annual tradition, and now, at age 11, Ava is still dressing up as a different woman every day this month, writes Sydney Page in The Washington Post. 

Over the years, Ava has portrayed Phillis Wheatley, Michelle Obama, Ella Fitzgerald, Oprah Winfrey, Condoleezza Rice, Harriet Tubman, Robin Roberts, Serena Williams, Amanda Gorman and countless other icons. 

Until next time

But before we part, some recs

Lena Felton

Deputy editor, The Lily

What I’m looking forward to:

Themed cooking nights. My partner and I have started these as an excuse to discover new recipes: We recently made a French meal while watching “Ratatouille,” and mastered a couple of New Orleans recipes in honor of my family, who has lived there for generations (we ordered Tony Chachere’s seasoning online).

What I’m watching for respite:

Inspired by a recent Team Lily conversation on Slack, I went down a rabbit hole of silly old YouTube videos. At the top of my list are this jetpack fail, the “Sail” cat and the zombie kid who likes turtles. 

How I’m surviving winter:

One-minute mini vacations. I’ll look through old photos of trips to faraway, warm places, close my eyes and try to transport myself there. And I’ll remind myself that sometime in the future, we’ll all get to travel again. 

🖤

Thanks for reading.