For the past year I’ve been looking for full-time work. It’s what people don’t like to admit, talk about, or even think about it because it stamps a giant “LOSER” on your forehead, whether you put it there, or society puts it there or, most regrettably, both. As I dove into this search, I stopped writing. The only thing I love that I also have gotten paid to do. The sharing, describing, rhythm, editing, creating of it all is so delightful that it hardly seems like work. Until you’re measuring yourself by the ante of your resume, one single piece of paper, and wondering how it came to this.

And during this year I stopped writing (except for notes on trains on scraps of paper), stopped writing emails, stopped going out, stopped living in my all-ending quest to find a job. To fit my very round peg into a very definite square. Hammering and hammering it until the hammer broke and I was left forcing it with my own two hands. All the while, I was finding myself after losing myself in a ridiculous relationship that taught many hard lessons, but ended up leaving me an even bigger believer in constructs like love and hope and trust. They whooshed in when the tide of that relationship blew out, leaving me empty and unsure, they showed up after I was spent and restless, and tired of spinning and whirring like a top. Expending so much energy without actually going anywhere.

Until I went somewhere. Still jobless, still not writing, but moving to DC. Watching men jingle change in cups to entice pedestrians to give, small children stare inquisitively at me on the metro as if they, too, were finding this all quite bizarre, sitting so close to someone also while trying to act like they don’t exist, women screaming on the streets at nothing in particular, schoolkids playing on the lawn in front of my apartment playing hide-and-seek. And the words started to come. Sometimes up would pop dialogue or a question I needed to write and explore in order to answer like the near blinding frustration and fear at a job market that hollows you out scooping your confidence and energy away like a melonballer until you’re just left a fragile husk that artfully gives the illusion of being whole. But there would be words.

And I’m still working on re-finding my own voice, and finding strength in inaudible words instead of what was half-heartedly coming out of my mouth. It is this struggle to find my own voice that places me again and again wondering about things like Afghan war rugs and arpilleras and other silent acts of documenting our mere existence on earth. With us, it’s easy to create records of our lives, send photos around the world, update our profiles, to document “we were here.” But what if documenting your life and sharing your story wasn’t contingent on getting a backlink or your friend from 1977 “liking” your new haircut? Would you still put it out there? Your story? Your truth? Even if it wasn’t a good truth?

The photos above have kept me going this past year, as they show bravery and hope and heart and strength and veracity for truth. Not for fame or kudos or links. They create and demonstrate the power that craft truly can have, showing how our own hands can be our mouthpieces against being forgotten, a cruel regime or living without hope. They remind me of why I fell in love with craft in the first place. It’s sincere and honest and true documentation of our lives, both our joys and our struggles. We don’t tend to curate it like we do our websites or Facebook profiles, putting our best foot forward, instead it just lays open what is there. No more, no more less, just the truth. It lets us stitch at our own pace, sew without too much self-editing and stand up against our true demons, wherever they might be.

So when people ask me, why do you care about items forgotten people made a half a world away, I tell them it’s because of the truths they carry. And because of the honesty and strength that thrives when you don’t curate the bad parts. When you don’t ignore the frustrations of a failed relationship or job hunt and just accept them as part of your ongoing story. Such truth and openness is deep and real and tangible and familiar, instead the glossy updates and ads all around me. I care about them because they are the real histories worth documenting and keeping around. And because they remind me to be real.

These photos above are not mine. While usually I keep records of where I found photos, these I cannot find. If they are yours, please get in touch.