It's been a really crap week

but divergent design is still the hill I will die on

Like, really really crappy. Like, a week ago, my partner Joel (the main breadwinner and health-insurer in our family) was laid off with one month’s notice and no severance.

And then things went steeply downhill from there.¹

My house is chaos. The kitchen is gross, the laundry is backed up, stacks of mail unopened. The fact that Christmas is next week—or more importantly for my own observances, that the Solstice is this weekend—is barely on my radar.

But my green studio is lovely! In fact, I’m sitting in it as I’m writing to you:

Last week I wrote about tracing my creative lineage through this green studio that many of you know from zoom calls and livestreams on YouTube. As I explained in there, I had come to understand my needs better, I realized that I needed to redesign this room yet again.²

As I was writing that post, the crap week was just beginning. But I had promised “after” photos, so I pushed through to finish this space: hanging art and curtains, clearing tools and paint cans, reshelving books and sorting through stacks of paper on the floor.

I’m so glad I did, because having a haven in the midst of the chaos of the rest of my house (and life) is going a long ways towards keeping my nervous system regulated right now.

I think interior design is often dismissed as “bougie,” but the I believe so fervently that our homes, the interior spaces we spend so much of our lives in, are vitally important to our well-being. This is true for all human beings, but especially so for neurodivergent human beings, for whom our sensory environment can be the difference between well-being and burnout.

Our literal interior spaces are inextricably linked to our metaphorical interior spaces. Divergent Design—creating spaces specifically designed to serve the actual needs of our neurodivergent bodyminds—is at the heart of understanding this and enacting it in our lives. Homemaking is not some trad-wife bullshit, but quite literally art. It is unmasking, prioritizing, and creating our own interior spaces, our own interior Selves.

I would really love to have you join me and Meg Max as we explore these ideas in our brand-new course for neurodivergent creatives, Coming Home to Ourselves (see below for more info). I know this is probably a financially tough time of year for many of you, but I hope you will consider giving this as a gift to yourself or someone else you know would love it!

And now, without further ado, the big reveal:

Coming Home To Ourselves: A Course for Neurodivergent Creatives

Overview

Coming Home To Ourselves includes:

• Access to all slides and creative invitations shared in Coming Home To Ourselves, alongside AI-generated notes (sessions will not be recorded in order to maintain privacy in our sharing together)

• Optional weekly Home Work to continue home making & creating outside of class

• Ongoing community to share Home Work and continue the conversations begun in the course and create community connections (platform TBD)

• Collaborative art-making opportunities through digital work or snail mail

• Home Making Salon after the course is done

Aside from a pen and paper, no specific materials are required- participants are encouraged to approach creative invitations and home making applications with what they enjoy using and have on hand.

Please note that the structure and overview shared below may shift as we create this home together- we welcome the chance to adapt and grow to create a welcoming and comfortable community for the folks who share this space with us.

Class Structure:

• Welcoming & reflection

• Conversation (may include slides, examples of art, sharing spaces in Meg & Marta’s studios and homes)

• Creation & application (reflective exercises, creation of art and home)

• Sharing (A chance to share words & work)

• Presentation of Home Work (optional ways to continue Home Making between in class sessions)

• Closing thoughts & goodbyes

Course Overview:

Week One: Containers

In our first session, Meg and Marta will usher you over the threshold through an overview of our time together, community agreements and introductions. Using reflection and art making, we will explore where you currently live, what makes a welcoming space for you as an individual and us as a group, and how to make yourself and each other feel at home over the next six weeks together.

Week Two: Past

We all have a past, places we’ve moved through and carry with us. Ways we were taught to think and ways we were made to feel about our creative work and its worth. Through reflective writing and mapmaking exercises, we will explore our individual creative lineages as a way of answering the question: How did we get here?

Week Three: Homewrecking

Having mapped our paths to the present, we’ll explore the feeling of alienation that many neurodivergent people feel. Through design thinking, making and writing, we pull apart the places where we’ve landed and reconstruct home as a place that suits us rather than a place we contort to fit ourselves into.

Week Four: Present

A home can be four walls, a body, something outside of us and places internal. We explore practical ways of creating our homes in ways that suit our creative work, alongside reflective practices and invitations to make that will help us explore our present realities and prepare a home for our creativity.

Week Five: Wayfinding

Many of us feel outside, craving community but unsure of how to build it. Using creative making and reflective exercises, we will clarify our own needs, wants and desires, centering how to feel at home in shared spaces as a way of leading us to envision ecosystems of support and finding our way back to ourselves when we inevitably get lost.

Week Six: Future (welcoming ourselves home)

Welcome home.

[A note from Meg & Marta: We’re leaving this session a little ambiguous because one of the things we are the most excited about is being able to tailor this offering to the folks who show in the space. We imagine a chance to integrate what we’ve done in previous weeks, space for questions and conversation, and a celebration of all we’ve created and learned together.]

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If you have any questions about course content or structure, please contact me or Meg directly at: marta@martarose.com and meg@writersinbloom.com.

If you have any questions about ticket booking or payment plans, please contact KR Moorhead at krmoorhead.lit@gmail.com.

1. I’ll probably share more about this later, but right now it’s just All Too Much.

2. I don’t often look back at my old work, but when I began redecorating this room, I found a reel on Instagram I had forgotten all about, which reminded me of the story of this green paint.