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I’m overdue for sharing some things I’ve had the honor to participate in recently.

First, I gave a sermon at First Unitarian of Albuquerque, called “A Daily Practice of Reliable Joy.” Its about how the fiber arts for me have brought a reliable joy to my life which strengthens me and allows me to have the ability to work for good in other ways. You can find the video here or the audio podcast here . Giving this sermon was deeply meaningful for me, and has led to more connections with people in my community.

Second, I am on the most recent episode of the Autistic Culture Podcast, talking about “Autism and the Myth of Success.” You can find the episode here. I enjoyed getting to talk about writing, success, and how it all interlinks with my various neurodivergent identities.

Third, this has been going on for a YEAR now… but I have a fiber arts podcast on YouTube — Desert Agave Fiber Arts. My most recent episode is a knit and chat where I go deep about things like mourning the loss of the career that I expected to have, the experience of giving a sermon, and more.

Truly, I feel so honored to be able to share in these ways. The world is hard right now, terrifying even. But I’ve been feeling the power that comes from sharing my words however I can.

I’m really proud to have an essay up at Ply Magazine’s blog: https://plymagazine.com/2025/02/the-woolly-animal-of-dawn/ This one is about spinning as mental-health self-care, and while I wrote it almost a year ago, it is so very applicable now.

I wrote On Being a Gift: Test Knitting as a Fat Person awhile back for Jen and Bess at One Wild Designs and they shared it in an email newsletter. I’d approached them after having a troubling experience test knitting for another designer, and they offered me the chance to write about it for them. We all agreed it would be best not to name the actual person; we weren’t out to “get” anyone, but to share an experience, and some thoughts about the test knitting experience as a fat knitter. Today, they’ve shared the same piece on their blog. I’m happy it has a permanent home on the internet.

I’m also happy, that in reading it, I’m still proud of the little essay. It isn’t just about having an unpleasant experience as a test knitter, but more broadly about having and clothing a fat body, and what that means. It is about viewing your body as a gift, not just to yourself, but to the world. And, I’m proud that it adds a bit to the size-inclusivity discussion in the knitting world by pointing out that being size-inclusive really needs to include an educational aspect to counteract the historical effects of fat knitters not having patterns that fit them until recently.

I’m thankful to One Wild for giving the piece a home, and even more thankful that they took it as a chance to think about their own designs, and how they want them to operate in the world. Truly, I admire Bess and Jen, and am proud to count them as friends.

I started listening to Dr Mia Hobb’s Why I Knit podcast soon after I started knitting in 2023. Each episode interviews a different person about how knitting helps their mental health. Eventually, I decided to take a chance and reached out to her, saying I’d love to be a guest on her show. I was thrilled when she replied, and we set up an interview time.

That was more than six months ago, and I was nervous as I listened to this episode this week; I’d totally forgotten what I’d said. Thankfully, I found I still agreed with everything I said, and I was glad the conversation was recorded, as some of the insights I shared I promptly forgot about afterwards. I’m so glad to be reminded!

Last night my husband and son listened together, and afterwards my son exclaimed at how interesting it was, and how much he’d learned about me. He also said, “You talked about me in an interview in a real podcast! I’m famous!” Nice to have impressed my almost-teen.

You can find it herehttps://www.therapeuticknitting.org/podcast/episode/1b68317c/discovering-a-grounded-joy-with-christina-socorro-yovovich

I’m long overdue to update here. I’ve had two publications since my last entry. I published my birth story, “Breathing Through” at Mutha magazine in two parts in September. And then, I published a memoir piece about my entry to the fiber arts, “Clothing Myself in Joy” in Body of Work. Both publications are meaningful to me, and I’m so happy to have them out in the world.

“Breathing Through” is a piece I read at the Bad Mouth reading series in Albuquerque, New Mexico a few months before the pandemic in late 2019. I never would have started submitting it if it weren’t for that reading. I figured most wouldn’t care about a birth story. But after I read, multiple people asked where they could read the whole thing, and when they heard it wasn’t published yet, they encouraged me to submit it because it was ready. I submitted it the next day, and kept submitting it throughout the pandemic. I sent it to around 30 literary magazines, but didn’t get any acceptances. Finally, I sent it to Mutha, which is a magazine I love and where I’ve published before. I let them know that I knew it was more than 2 times their maximum length limit, but that I thought maybe they’d be interested? And could publish it in installments, or request just a part of it? And to my delight, Meg, the editor, wrote me back and proposed they publish an edited version of it in two parts. Then she gave it loving attention, cutting the parts that weren’t needed, and streamlining it into a much better piece of work. I’m grateful for the careful editing, and even more grateful to have the story out in the world.

My publication in Body of Work is notable for being my first time that I was paid to write a piece, and also the first time my work is behind a paywall. Most of my friends and family actually haven’t read it, as they aren’t knitters and thus aren’t moved to pay money to buy a knitting magazine. But ever since I published, I’ve had hits on this website every single day from outside the United States and Canada. Many days, the majority of my hits come from Germany or the Netherlands. I make sure to show my husband, who has Norwegian heritage, when I get hits from Norway. And I sent my father a screenshot of my stats the day I got a hit from Montenegro, which is the country his father was from. I haven’t been doing much traveling, but my words have, and that is a thrill. I’m eager to write more about the fiber arts. I have multiple ideas brewing.

I attended another Bad Mouth reading just this weekend. All three featured readers were people I know and care about who write work that I admire, so going was a no-brainer. It was a great reading and I was glad I went. I was also asked to read again for the series, in 6-9 months depending on how the schedule goes. I said yes, and am thrilled to have another deadline to write towards. One problem with writing outside of grad school is that I rarely get a real deadline, and I find them so very useful and motivating. But I’m definitely going to have something new ready for this reading, I think something about the fiber arts and living with bipolar and PTSD. I have a break from the fundraising writing I do for my Unitarian church coming soon, and that will leave me with more writing energy and a place to focus it.

I also submitted a proposal for a piece to a fiber arts magazine recently and should hear back in December or so. I have no idea if they’ll be interested, but it felt good to try. If they accept my proposal, then I’ll have a smaller piece due in May or so. I hope to write about my pre-dawn spinning practice. Knitting is for daylight and evenings, but for me, spinning is for the pre-dawn hours before the sun or my family rises. I have a little lyrical piece about that brewing in my head, and I’m hoping hard this magazine will ask me to write it.

I’ll update this blog again sooner rather than later. My year of chasing joy is drawing to an end, and I have things to say about it, and about my plans for the new year.

Yesterday the Atticus Review published my essay, Book of Proofs. I’m happy and proud to have the essay out in the world. I was asked recently why I choose to write about my mental illness. The fact of my writing about my mental illness is such a fundamental part of me that I rarely think explicitly anymore about why I choose to do it. But the reasons are all still there.  

I write about my experiences with bipolar disorder so that other people with mental illness will see a part of themselves reflected in the words. When I was first diagnosed at age 22, I couldn’t find much writing that I related to. It was lonely, isolating. I hope to help people to feel less isolated.  

I also write about my experiences with bipolar disorder to educate, to try to instill empathy in those who otherwise don’t have much experience with mental illness. The first time I was hospitalized, I found myself in an emergency room surrounded by people who didn’t treat me like I was a person too. I overheard one doctor say to my then boyfriend that I wouldn’t remember anything that was happening because I was mentally too far gone. Since they believed I wouldn’t remember anything, they didn’t bother to explain to me what was going on, or to say kind words. The experience, to put it mildly, was traumatic. I vowed to write about what I remembered to teach people that even while insane, I was human, and worthy of compassionate care. To teach people that anyone with a mental illness is human, and worthy of compassionate care.  

This essay began its life as a series of poems. These poems formed a section of my poetry book which appeared in my MFA dissertation. I tried for years to get the poems published with little success. Eventually, I took out all the line breaks, added some text, cut some text, moved things around, and turned the poems into this essay. I showed it to a writing friend, who was encouraging, and then sat on it for four years. This summer I found the essay in my files, cut the part my friend had suggested I cut, and sent it to the Atticus Review with a promise to myself that I’d send it to many other magazines this fall when submission periods opened. Only, to my great shock and delight, the Atticus Review accepted it. It is published now in their latest issue, and I’m so proud to be a part of it.

It has been no secret inside my head that part of the hope behind my year of chasing joy was that it would start to lead me back to writing. For a long time after my son was born, writing was a pursuit on the margins of my life. He simply needed me too much, and I wrote at most 1-2 hours a week, often with him pounding on the closed office doors demanding to be let in. But eventually he started school, and time began to open up. Not as much time as you’d think, since I volunteered at school, there were therapy and doctor appointments, etc. But there was more time. And as he got older my school volunteering tapered off at his request, so there was even more time. But there wasn’t any joy. More and more I dreaded approaching the page. I dreaded working on my bipolar parenting memoir. When I did work on it, it felt terrible. The joy was simply not there, ever, it seemed.  

So I started using my time for other things. Embroidery at first. Then cross stitch. Then sewing, knitting, spinning, wool processing, sewing little quilts by hand, … As I’ve said, I gave myself permission to chase whatever joy I wanted to chase. And a little voice in my head said, maybe if you do this, you will find that sometimes writing brings you joy.  

I started returning to writing a couple months ago. I reread some old essays and found one that seemed done but had never been submitted anywhere. I submitted it to one place and promised myself I’d submit to many more this fall, when many magazines open for submissions. I took another essay that I’d been submitting for three years with no luck, and I submitted it to Mutha Magazine, which I’ve published in before. I sent it with a note, explaining that I knew the essay was wildly beyond their length limits, but that I thought it had value, and maybe she’d accept a part of it, or all of it installments? And I took yet another essay, a hard essay, one that deals with things I’ve been trying not to deal with for years (namely the childhood abuse I grew up with), and I started to work on it too.  

I’m still working on that essay. I think I’m getting close to being able to submit it to a bunch of places in September. It’s painful, working on it, but beneath the pain there is a sort of deep joy? I don’t exactly understand but it is there. In the meantime, that essay I submitted to one single magazine? That magazine accepted it and will publish it in August. And Meg, the head editor of Mutha, got back to me and said she’d like to take at least part of my essay, and then she got back to me a month later, and said she’d like to publish the whole thing in two installments, with her edits.  

I looked at the edits yesterday and was nearly moved to tears. She made the essay much shorter and fast moving but kept the parts that were important. She clearly spent a lot of time giving her loving editorial care to my words, more time than any editor has spent on my writing before, and I’m grateful. And joyful to know that the first of two installments will appear in Mutha in August or September.  

That’s my joy report. The chasing of joy is bringing me back to words. I’m not abandoning the rest of the stuff. I’ve got sewing plans, big ones. I’ve got three knitting projects going — a sweater, a colorwork and cabled sock, and a simple sock. I’m still spinning. I washed a damn fleece, found it was infested with wool moth grubs, and then by God found and washed a different fleece, which I’m learning to comb and spin. I’m ridiculous, and so very happy, even as parts of my life have been hard. That abuse essay, I think working on it inspired me to take a stand I didn’t have the bravery to take before. And that’s not easy. But behind it, the pain and the awfulness of it all, there is joy.

At the start of 2023, I didn’t exactly make a resolution, but I sort of organically came to the conclusion that this was going to be a year of chasing joy. As in, I was actively going to pursue the things that bring me joy to fullest extent possible, without worries about what I “should” be doing, if I was being reasonable or practical, none of that. Just, if it brought me joy, I was going to chase it. I’ve been calling it the Year of Chasing Joy in my head.

And I’ve been doing, I must say, a really good job of doing just that. I’ve still been doing mothering, and household tasks, and writing for church fundraising-type purposes. I’ve been a friend, and a wife, and things like that. But in the rest of my time, which is fairly plentiful, I’ve been chasing joy. I’ve continued on with sewing and embroidery, also re-learned how to knit, and started spinning. And other stuff too.

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And, in my latest ridiculous pursuit, I’ve decided I really want to obtain a couple fleeces (you know, from sheep) and learn how to process them myself before I spin them. I’ve been doing research and networking and I think I’m on my way to getting a local Shetland fleece and a local Finn fleece. I found someone on my local No Buy group who also processes wool and offered to have me over for a demonstration. I’ve been learning online, but of course in person connections are excellent, and I’m definitely taking her up on this offer.

In the past, I also would find rabbit holes and dive down them with research. But I mostly wouldn’t actually complete the circuit and actually do the new thing I was researching. Because that would be silly. That would be too much. That wouldn’t be reasonable or practical. Because there were so many other things I should be doing. But this year, I don’t care about should. I’ve defined my responsibilities that I do not want to flake out on, and the rest of my time is for chasing joy.

And this month, that means texting and emailing sheep farmers, making plans to meet them at the upcoming Fiber Gathering in Edgewood, and learning how to scour, comb, and card my own wool. And also spin wool. And knit wool. And hand sew little quilts. And sew my own clothes. And learn a new form of embroidery with wool. And sew bags. It is ridiculous, and silly, and excessive, and I’ve NEVER had so much fun before. I’ve been so happy, even with my arthritic knees and various psychic wounds that I’ve been carrying around for decades.

So, if you’ve been wondering, this is a Year of Chasing Joy. Don’t worry about me. I’m just doing a thing. And I’m so lucky to be able to do it.

I make excellent oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The recipe isn’t a big secret. I found it online at the Quaker Oats site.  But the cookies are chewy and just what a cookie should be. I think I like them even better than regular chocolate chip cookies. Almost three years ago I baked a batch for my son’s birthday and sent him to school with them. He came home and said one of the kids told him it was the best cookie she’d ever had. A day later, the schools shut down because of the pandemic, but I like to think that wasn’t my cookies’ fault.

Today I baked a batch to send to school again. Tomorrow my son’s class is having a holiday party, and he requested the cookies. I have a stand mixer that lives on the counter, so making cookies is a breeze. But, for some reason I don’t entirely understand, I didn’t use it for the cookies today. Instead I creamed the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon and my own muscles. By the time everything was as it should be, my arms were spent. The whole time I kept telling myself I could just use the mixer, but somehow using my arm strength and a spoon seemed easier.

The cookies turned out just right. 30 of them are in a tin for the class party tomorrow. Ten of them were designated for home, and we’ve been enjoying them. I had my cookie with a cup of decaf earl gray tea. There is no big moral or meaning in this story. Just, I made cookies today. I did it the hard way, and they came out well. Tomorrow a classroom of kids will eat them, and hopefully one or two will think, wow. Good cookie.

Every Sunday morning our family has what we fondly call Special Breakfast. I started making Special Breakfast on Sunday morning when my son was small, pretty much pre-verbal in fact. At first, I made the same pancake recipe every week. I remember one week my tiny son coming downstairs, seeing me at work in the kitchen, and running over to me, pointing and grinning and saying “Cake! Cake!” It felt good to be appreciated.

My Sunday morning efforts are still appreciated, though I’m not necessarily told so every week. I’ve branched out from the weekly pancakes, and now also make things like muffins and turkey bacon, biscuits and gravy, waffles, and more. I don’t always feel like cooking on Sunday morning, but I don’t like to break the tradition. And if I really don’t feel like cooking, I can always order doughnuts or breakfast burritos.

This morning I made banana muffins with chocolate chips and turkey bacon. In a break from tradition, we ate in front of the tv. That’s because the World Cup was on, and my husband decided we should watch. He’s mostly given up his old football habit, so it is rare that our family watches sports together these days. It was a treat this morning to watch the game and root for Argentina. I don’t think anyone remembered to thank me for making muffins, not until I gave myself a compliment. But it was still a good morning.

I stepped away from the game for an hour to attend Zoom church for my UU congregation. We’re hunkering down a bit right now in an attempt to avoid illness — it seems everyone around us is sick with something — and I’m grateful that Zoom church is still an option. It’s good to be connected, even as we aren’t seeing very many people in person right now. I suppose that is part of why I’ve been doing this daily blogging thing this month. It is a little tendril sent out into the world even as I mostly am sticking to home. Saying, hi, hello, we are still here, hope you are here too.