July : Slow Living

This past year I've been playing around with changing my relationship to social media. Taking long breaks, checking in, noticing what I feel when I do.

What I found was there was a time when I needed other people to know what I was doing so that I could believe it mattered.

I think I’m slowly learning something quieter.

My life does not become more real because it is seen by many.

It becomes more real because I pay attention to it.

I missed the reflecting. The writing, The sharing.

Perhaps writing it is my way of bearing witness.

And I've realized something else.

I still want to share. Just on my own terms.

Somehow a blog feels different to me. It isn't interrupted by advertisements or fueled by outrage. There isn't another video waiting to pull me a way before I finished a thought. It doesn't ask me to keep scrolling after I've stopped enjoying the read.

It's simply a place to linger. Years ago, I stumbled across an artist's blog and, over time, read nearly every post she had written. It wasn't the big milestones I remember. It was the accumulation of ordinary days made more extraordinary by the way she noticed them. By the end, I felt like I had been able to witness a part of her life and how she valued the small moments. I've never forgotten that feeling.

Maybe these words are mostly for me.

Maybe they are for my friends.

Maybe someday they'll find a stranger who needed them.

Whatever the reason, here they are...

Some notes from my journal on how July went after returning from Europe.

Friends

After seventeen days away, every conversation felt like a gift.

A quick dinner.

Running into someone in the grocery store.

Coffee.

A hug in a parking lot.

It surprised me how much I needed people.

Not many people.

Just my people.

Morning walks

The dogs don’t know they are keeping me grounded.

Fish Eddy Landing.

Golden grass.

Blackberries.

Chicory.

The river moving whether I notice it or not.

Some mornings I leave with nothing but a photograph.

Some mornings I come home with myself anew.

A family table

I added 3 painted houses (center) to an heirloom table that was painted in the 80s of all the houses a family called home.

The best kind of art isn’t always meant for galleries.

Sometimes it’s meant for grandchildren.

Garden

July tastes like basil.

Like pesto frozen into little green circles.

Like cucumbers that finally decide to grow.

Like standing in the evening deciding where the Hicks yew will someday cast shade.

Gardens have become one of the ways I imagine the future.

Quiet evenings

I’ve spent more evenings inside than I used to.

A soft blanket.

A fan humming.

Watching movies mostly.

Stories where, for a little while, justice prevails.

Lately, those stories have felt like a balm. A reminder that integrity still exists even when it feels difficult to find.

Some seasons ask us to chase sunsets.

Others ask us to rest.

July

If someone asked what I did this month, I could make quite a list.

Europe.

Gardening.

Painting.

Friends.

Movies.

Walking.

Writing.

But that isn’t really what happened.

What happened is that I inhabited my days.

Tell me about your July.

Not the highlight reel.

The quiet parts.

If you were keeping your own notes, what did you notice?