Letting Go of Hysteria

Hi friends,

This year, I’ve written to you about stretching beyond my comfort zone to write more nonfiction and about deadlines. So I’m thrilled to share one of the results. Last week The Millions published my personal essay about how bookbinding and book arts inspired me to write, and later to find my voice as a writer. I hope you’ll give it a read.

There’s a bit of irony here, however, because I’ve been drafting this post for weeks — and it’s about my decision to finally let go of an unfinished bookbinding project. Truth be told, I’ve been struggling with what to say about it, because I haven’t been sure what the point is, how to wrap it up neatly for you with some encouraging tie-in to your writing this week. But right now, while I’m on Long Island visiting family and I have a quiet early morning, I’m seeing it differently, like maybe I don’t need to force any meaning onto it at all. Maybe I just need to get it off my chest, and you — supportive, wise, and creative community — will find your own meaning in it. At least that’s my hope.

So. In mid-August, my family and I took a working staycation to sort through all the stuff that’s been cluttering our basement for nearly two decades, turning it into more of a storage room than a living space. The biggest challenge was/is the bookbinding equipment and supplies I’ve been holding onto since I shuttered my the business side of my bindery and small press, LunaSea, after my son was born fifteen years ago.

When I moved upstate from Brooklyn in the early aughts, I took the biggest risk of my life. I invested the little money I had in starting my own business — making and repairing books by hand and (theoretically) publishing limited-edition artists’ books focused on women’s issues and gender. Thus LunaSea Bindery & Press was born.

I was in my late twenties. I knew lots about bookbinding and nothing about owning a business. After I secured a part-time paying job, I sought out a reasonably priced supplier of bookbinding equipment, set up shop in a big used book store — where I bartered for rent — and hung my OPEN sign. What could go wrong?

For a while, nothing! It went surprisingly well. The bookstore owner referred rare book dealers to me. A local wedding photographer began to offer my handmade custom photo albums as part of his packages. And I had a few artist clients left over from my days living in New York City. Business wasn’t exactly booming, but it was enough.

Once I felt established, I worked with my poet and writer friends to put out a call for submissions for my first LunaSea Press book: Hysteria: An Anthology of Poetry, Prose, and Visual Art on the Subject of Women’s Mental Health. The submissions poured in, and I successfully commissioned Jane Ussher, an Australian scholar focused on gendered health, to write the introduction. I found a wonderful graphic designer to lay out the interior and a local printer to create the pages.

My plan seemed doable enough: I would hand-bind 100 hardcover, cloth copies and have another 100 paperback copies machine bound. I’d done some edition binding, so I believed 100 handbound copies would be a manageable number.

You can probably see where this is going.

With a little help from an intern, I successfully bound something like 25 to 30 copies of the hardcover. The rest, tragically, have been languishing for two decades in various states of done-ness — from completely unbound to sewn to sewn and glued to almost finished. Fortunately, I sold most of the paperbacks, but the partially finished handbound copies have remained on shelves and in drawers in my basement, haunting me. Taking up space, collecting dust, whispering to me of failure and irresponsiblity.

Then finally, last month, after years of gentle check-ins from my husband, I was ready to face them. “Don’t think of it as a failure,” he said. “Hysteria had its time and meant a lot to a lot of people.” In my better moments, I know he’s right. When it first published, I held a reading and exhibition. The space filled and the energy was amazing. One person in the audience told me she felt like the book and the evening had wrapped her in a warm blanket. What more can someone ask of a book that addresses women’s health?

HYSTERIA covers and text blocks in the recycling bin

So last month I not only let go of Hysteria. I let go of the idea that it failed. That I failed. I bit off more than I could chew, yes. But I learned a lot. I grew as a person and a writer (even though I didn’t yet know I was a writer). The truth is, letting go felt better than I’d imagined. It freed me from the weight of believing I had to finish it someday. Instead, finally allowing me to see it as done.

We saved a few of the mostly bound copies just in case, but now they take up one small shelf. We’ve reclaimed some of our living space, and I can breathe easier knowing the project had its time and I’m on to newer things — and (mostly) more realistic goals.

If you’re struggling to let go of something this week, I hope my story gives you a little courage. I hope you’ll find you can breathe a little easier too.

Meanwhile, I look forward to next time.

Yours,

Jen