First off:

There are four new folded greeting card designs available. If you like yellow or blue, you will want to check these out- they each feature a different ink painting in a set of four I recently finished and each one started with a sunny lemon yellow. (If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you’ve probably seen at least a couple of them.) The 120lb silk cover stock DOES play well with fountain pens and fountain pen ink, with either a short dry time or a blotter. I’ve tested with both Everglades and Death Valley formulas in my own inks, so I’d imagine other brands should play similarly well.

There are also four new Bebes in the shop – one each in Fortune, Dark Matter, Mist, and Grim Dark.

I’m working my way through back stock of casts I pre-cut last month right now. You’re going to want to keep an eye on Instagram for sneak peeks. I’m not giving away what’s coming up, but I will say that it’s a lot of The Very Last Blanks Of A Cast type material. (Most of y’all know I don’t really do recasts and don’t take commissions to repeat colors, either. Doing new material casts is one of my favorite parts. So…)

And off we go.

There’s a kids’ TV show I watched both in my childhood and again as an adult that I still quote on a regular basis. Mind you, I didn’t watch it because I liked it as a kid, but because my younger brother was obsessed with it. Seeing as how I found myself babysitting him often, I ended up watching it – and then I ended up watching it again as an adult because my own sons liked it. That show is Thomas the Tank Engine.

If you have been spared watching it, the basic premise is that it’s a trainyard of anthropomorphic train engines of various emotional intelligence levels managed by one exceedingly patronizing conductor who was using the engines. The conductor, Sir Topham Hatt, as he was named, drove me batty as a kid, but as an adult? I had to sit with what it meant that a claymation figure in a top hat made me reconsider my ethics on cement shoes and duct tape. Yet, despite the eye-twitch inducing levels of rage Sir Topham Hatt inspired in me, the star and namesake of the show, Thomas the Tank Engine, was worse.

Thomas’ entire life purpose and desire was to be a Very Useful Engine. He caused no end of problems in his quest to be deemed useful and wanted – every single episode, it seemed like – and the resolution of the problems he caused, often at the expense of the other engines, made for excellent moralizing at the end of each episode. I hated Thomas, with his constant drive for the validation of his self-worth as a Very Useful Engine. I hated him with a passion I could barely keep in check enough to make it through the episodes. Life doesn’t work that way, Thomas, I’d think; in real life, no one cares for long if you’re useful, not if you cause problems or get in the way or need things. If you cause problems, you get yelled at, punished, and shamed – at best, no one notices and you deal with the problems you caused on your own.

I quote the show now as a reminder that the drive in children to be a Very Useful Engine is the outward expression of the human need to be wanted and part of a community that understands your humanity. The very normal drive to feel safe and wanted, even when you make mistakes. To have the authority figures you look up to be ones that wanted you, were willing to teach you through mistakes, to not shame you for the parts of you that you still struggle with, to want to share your enthusiasm and interests. I quote it now, as an adult to other adults, because if that need isn’t met as a child, you seek that validation for the rest of your life – until you find the community that welcomes you, holds space as you learn, doesn’t shame you as you make mistakes and learn, and walks with you as find that acceptance and validation within yourself. I quote it now to remind myself to have compassion for myself and with others who are still seeking acceptance, safety, welcome, and places to grow in.

You don’t make peace and stop resenting the Thomas the Tank Engines in your life and within yourself until you acknowledge that you’ve always been a Very Useful Engine yourself, deserving of acceptance and validation through mistakes as you grow, even if you never had a conductor to tell you as much before. It’s okay if you have to learn how to be your own conductor – one that cares about your inner Thomas, even when it causes problems, even when you have to learn how to make space for the mistakes that your inner Thomas the Tank Engine will inevitably make learning how to be a Very Useful Engine.

All aboard to the Island of Sodor… and self-acceptance,

-A. Markov