Finally! The arts!

I have to tell you y’all, it’s nice to have a paycheck after going without one for ten years. Now that I am earning, allowance has been doubled for everyone in our household, which means our son can save up for his tablet sooner and our daughter can give more money to the World Wildlife Fund.

As for my husband and me? We can finally buy art for our home. Original art, with texture and paint and canvas. Art that the artist stepped up to, and stepped back from, and touched, and connected with in its creation. I sit at our dining room table now, or on our couch, or stand in the kitchen doorway and gaze at our new painting, its colors deep and rich and soul-saturating. Our daughter got up close to it to examine the brush strokes, and I could see her artistic wheels turning before she turned and asked us about paints and canvases for her own experimentation. Our son tilted his head and asked about the numbers. What do they mean?

Whatever you want them to mean, little man.

On a smaller scale, now that my personal allowance gives me a little breathing room, I am thrilled to move beyond the occasional cup of coffee as a treat to myself. That was about as far as my pennies took me before. Yesterday, when I saw a tweet about a Kickstarter campaign for one of my favorite online magazines, I clapped my hands and squealed because Now I can support things like this!

Vela Magazine, where I read Simone Gorrindo’s gorgeous, evocative pieces A Hidden Writing Life and An Unwanted Guest, is raising money so that they can pay their writers. What more noble goal is there? None, I tell you.

The main purpose of my earning is to be able to save for things like braces and college and retirement, along with those daily necessities like food and shelter and clothing. But there’s a little bit left over after that, and my husband and me are very excited to increase our charitable giving.

Now that I have a little bit of green in my wallet, I was able to click that “Support Vela on KIckstarter” button. And it felt awesome to do it.

For the past three years, Vela has taken steps to help close the byline gender gap by publishing exceptional nonfiction written by women… Vela is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to pay writers. If you’ve enjoyed and shared a Vela story in the past, please consider donating to their campaign.