we are not words

on defining ourselves & being seen

Just inland, the snow is over three feet deep. Here by the lake it’s just a few inches. I heard a rumor that south of here there’s almost snow. It feels like the lack of snow, the warm, gray winters creeps farther north every year.

February is usually the coldest month anyhow. And up here, there’s still a thick blanket of snow. The real, good winter is yet to come. That’s what I keep telling myself.

Lately I’ve been struggling with the need to find things beautiful. In a lot of ways, I think romanticizing your life can be useful. Getting up early to watch the way the sun catches in the steam from your coffee, sweeping and dusting, sitting in a clean space with a candle burning, going for your walk and noticing the crunch of the snow, the little boreal birds in the trees. Maybe that’s not romanticizing, rather mindfulness.

I am not struggling so much with any of that. The part I am struggling with is putting it online.

I think we’ve reached a point where many of us start to see our lives as content, as a pretty picture we can post on the internet. Your coffee isn’t your morning coffee, it’s an opportunity to show you’re a maple-latte person not a chai-oat-milk person. Your morning coffee stops being for you and instead says something about you. We are defined by what we consume. (Or rather we define ourselves by what we consume, rather than lean into that a person cannot have a definition because you are not words).

In the morning I make myself a full pot of black coffee and there’s frost on the window and the sun streams in butter yellow and I can see every speck of steam and the mug is warm in my hand and my hair isn’t brushed and it’s a beautiful moment, and I want to capture it and hold forever, to share it and say isn’t this beautiful? Isn’t the first light and the quiet part of the morning and heavy eyelids and warm coffee beautiful?

I cannot share the moment without imagining an audience to share it with. By imagining the audience, the moment is reduced to an image, potential for content, a three dimensional slice of time turned into an opportunity to garner clicks on the internet.

There is not a way for me to share the moment that doesn’t take away from it. The picture doesn’t exist, but the moment did.

It’s been warm with heavy gray clouds that make it feel like it’s 8am all day. I spent most of the day trying to shake off sleep. I am disappointed with all the things I haven’t accomplished. The early dark comes as a relief; I move on to dinner and rest.

It’s hard to romanticize life because life so often does not feel romantic. Heavy sleet and slick roads, dead deer littering the sides of them, the grocery bills that make everyone up here cringe, the pain in your lower back from shoveling, the car trouble from the cold, the Minnesota cold shoulder, the ice you slip on, the meeting you’re late for.

The sleet. Nothing is less romantic than sleet.

I think that the secret lies not in romanticizing, in playing with the light to make an image to show to other people and prove that your life is good and okay, but instead in practicing mindfulness; in approaching the little parts of your life with the intention to appreciate them just for you, with no one watching.

things that feel good to me right now:

• reading. I’ve been working really hard this month at sitting down and reading books in the evening rather than sitting on my phone in bed.

• Thinking about habits and trying to form good ones. I’m trying to pre-sort my recycling so it isn’t a mad scramble to do it. I’m trying to drink two cups of coffee in the morning not… more than that. I’m trying to cook and eat more vegetables and foods that make me feel good. I’m trying not to associate words like “good” or “bad” with food, other than how they make me feel physically. Food has no morality. (Ie, maple cinnamon rolls, smoothies, salads with chicken= good. Six slices of pizza followed by cheese breadsticks= bad for the obvious reasons of ouch).

• Being active in ways that don’t hurt! I have a tendency to jump into an athletic task, whether it’s paddling or running or hiking, and really get into the suffering part. But what’s the point in running through pain? What’s the point in hiking 12 miles when it’s hurting and you could just do 8 and call it a day. Being active in ways that cause harm is something I’m ready to grow out of.

• Learn more about folk arts. When I was little, my grandma taught me how to knit. I knit lots in high school, but lately with the help of Andy’s mom and grandma I’ve been getting more into some of the traditional Nordic knitting. I’ve learned a lot of different techniques this winter, and it’s felt good to create in a way that people have been creating for a couple thousand years. I like making something I can touch and use and is real. I feel like a lot of our lives are spent thinking about things that aren’t, ultimately, real.

• Use less social media. This is an always goal, and as right now part of my job necessitates social media use it’s not always an easy one. Still, it’s not really an environment I like to be in or create in. I’m putting less time and energy into creating on social media platforms and more time into writing here. I talked in my last post about hopefully heading to grad school next year, and I think whatever happens I will spend less time creating “content” for social media, and hopefully more time writing and taking photos that I find meaningful.

a few more photos, stories, & insight for paying subscribers! without your support, this newsletter would literally not be possible!