Banana Slugs

After my grandmother died in 2010, I took a few months off work to mourn. Almost compulsively, I started making things; feather headbands, hats, bird’s nest hair clips. I did anything to keep from crumbling beneath my own grief. Crafting was something I had grown up doing with my grandma, so it was only fitting that I would fill my time making things. Eventually I decided to open an etsy shop, to make some money off of my compulsive collection of hobbies.

One day, I made some banana slug hair clips—more for myself than anything else.

As a child I had a fascination—or, rather, obsession—with all things creepy crawly. The Banana Slug Hair Clip was something of an adult manifestation of my great childhood love. In a sense, I've never truly given up my obsession with creepy crawlies. It’s something I kept secret for a long time—my personal secret, my first great obsession and love. The banana slugs were my first step away from keeping that love a secret.

I’m not even sure why it was a secret to begin with.

I eventually closed my shop because I hate going to the post office. Yet, for a while after I closed my shop I still made my banana slugs—perfecting my methods, trying new applications, like pins instead of hair clips.

Out of the blue, I received a message from a from a woman whose son—a first grader—had been studying banana slugs as a project for school.

She had come across this image featured on someone’s blog about banana slugs and decided to reach out to me. Her son wanted to by one of my clips for his teacher.

Despite my shop having been closed for more than a year, I decided to open it back up for just one purchase. I thought it so appropriate that a child with a fascination would want to buy something that signifies a childhood fascination of my own.

For some reason, I’ve never forgotten that. I think, for some reason, it signaled the beginning of my emergence from grief.