Reborn.
Reborn is a project that has been tumbling around my head for quite some time without any real direction. I started it in 2020 in peak COVID times as a means to sell off some clothes I no longer wanted after tearing my closet apart during our deepest isolation. And it’s taken me until 2024 to figure out if I want to make another go at something to document my thoughts and actions.
My middle name is Renee, a female past participle in French, meaning reborn. It comes from the verb renaître, where we get “renaissance.” I often joke my middle name is incredibly appropriate considering how many times I’ve shed one chapter of my life to grow into another. From places lived, education, and careers, it feels like I’ve lived a bunch of lives in a relatively short amount of time. Yet I can’t help but believe there are so many ways our lives morph and rebirth into something new as part of the human experience. (Something that can conjure challenging feelings for people.)
My goal with this account is to document some of the ways I’m learning new skills, give new life to objects, finding ways to make, mend, and restore. I’m coming at this with novice skills, but with ideas that have been forming at a slow burn for years. I find more and more the need to reject the rise of influencer culture, reject overconsumption, reject capitalism. My passion and quest for more sustainable practices have only deepened in the last few years, and I look to share what I know and what I’ve learned from my community over the years.
To start at the beginning would be to start at my actual birth. I was born in southwest Pennsylvania, at the intersection of Appalachia and the Rust Belt. I was raised in a working class, union family. One grandfather was in the coal mine, the other in the steel mill. I can’t say that my family was “poor,” but money wasn’t abundant. While I can’t speak to specific financial statuses, what I know now is that I was raised with in a culture that could be labeled sustainable nowadays. Everything was reused. Former butter containers became homes for buttons. The cookie tin became a home for sewing supplies. A grate stacked on some rocks became a grill. My great pappy cleaned up and fixed the walker seen here after he found it in the trash. My grandparents canned sauced to be used through winter. Clothes were dried on a line, which also doubled as our fort. Clothes were passed down to my sister and me from our community. Everyone pitched in to take care of one another.
As part of this culture, I also was fortunate to grow up around makers. The women in my family passed down sewing, embroidery, and quilting skills. I used to sit next to my grammy working on the little plastic canvas materials she set aside for me while the family sat around watching Antiques Roadshow or Lawrence Welk. My gram was part of a group in her church sweetly called “Ladies Circle” and during church bazaars, we would see all the crafts they made over the year and be able to buy them.
It’s only somewhat recently I’ve been able to understand how all of this deeply influenced me and how I got to this part of my journey.
And now here I am, in my late 30s, living in a 100-year-old home in Akron, Ohio, looking to restore it and so many other things.
But my journey here was not linear, as it so often is not. I’ve lived in different cities. I’ve held many different jobs. I’ve changed up my education many times.
I spent most of my time working jobs that were part-time, didn’t offer health insurance or other benefits, and were based in overconsumption. I spent over a decade working in independent and corporate fashion retail, which in turn fueled my own spending habits. I constantly felt pressure to stay on top of trends to be accepted into that world, to move up into management, to be seen as legitimate. Still, I lived pay check to pay check, and whenever I had extra money, I spent it on treats I thought I needed.
And then something in me broke. I had felt a burn out coming with where I was working and retail fashion in general. And while unpacking a new clothing shipment, a pricing list fell out. I saw how much the company paid for something (mere cents) and how much they were selling it for (over $40). Something snapped in me, and weeks later, I had quit and booked a one-way ticket to Pittsburgh from Phoenix without a plan and only some hope friends there would help me land softly. (I did eventually.)
I didn’t leave fashion retail completely, but switched to a buy-sell-trade store. I was fortunate enough to learn from some very knowledgeable people - now friends - about clothes: fabrics, quality, restoration, and history. While the job itself was a job, the people I worked with was worth it and I’ve continued to watch us grow out of and beyond that job.
Now, after building momentum, my focus has turn to sustainability, ethical practices, labor rights, and the rejection of capitalism and the embrace of community. I work in public health, but I see all of these things as part of that. Not just the need to improve our climate outcomes (tackle corporate greed and also change our individual mindsets), but also the health improvement of becoming reconnected to our community. Together, we can learn, share skills, and trade services.
I’m looking to reconnect with my roots, to learn, and to build community. Many others are doing just this with much more finesse, and I feel vulnerable in this process of starting my own public journey. But maybe I have a thing or two to share in my quest to restore and document my little thoughts.
My journey is mostly on Instagram, but I will update here from time to time as well. See you around!