Hello lovely
How are you? It’s been a while!
Luckily, despite my inevitable fears to the contrary, the words are still here right where I left them. A little rusty, maybe, but still here. I’d love to be able to tell you that in the time I’ve spent not writing that I’ve finished my TBR pile, learned Hindi, and kept up a consistent yoga practice. Shockingly, though, none of those things have happened and I’m still just trying to keep it vaguely together as the world cycles through this dystopian hellscape. *slumps dramatically onto sofa*
Don’t worry, though, this isn’t a letter about all the things I haven’t done and should be doing. (I’ll save that for the internal monologue that will loop incessantly at 3am, like everyone else.) No, this is actually a letter about the importance of simple pleasures.
If you’ve visited here before, you’ll know that I’ve written about similar themes - noticing the little things, everyday magic, and life’s tiny joys - several times. They’re a thread that runs through everything I make whether that’s with words, photographs, or art. I wondered, when starting this piece, why I revisit these ideas so often and remain fascinated by them. Ultimately, I think it’s because when life is hard those simple things become rocks to cling to, safe havens inside an emotional storm. Matching my bookmark to my book (a high point of last week), using my favourite cup and saucer, or drinking coffee in bed, are all the sort of things that will make me smile every single time and pull me out of my head and into the present moment.
The question of how much of this we share online - and whether creating an aesthetic around simple pleasures rather than just experiencing them undermines the whole endeavour - is an area where some nuance is required. The internet could do with a dose of nuance, I feel, we seem to have left it by the roadside on the way into the machine age. We should certainly revel in the sensations of being alive, tasting, feeling, reading, thinking, without needing to seek out an audience to witness it in order to justify it. But that’s not to say that capturing it in some way is always performative or less authentic, and neither is sharing it. The internet is certainly not made worse by anyone sharing a photo of their dog. If you feel, though, that you’re not going to really enjoy the thing unless someone else approves of it, that’s when the territory gets a bit slipperier.
Finding a balance between this type of consuming and creating feels more elusive than ever, though, as we’ve been hoodwinked by the algorithms to think that we’ll feel much better if we just keep scrolling. Our attention has now been commodified to such a laughable degree that we can outsource our most basic thought processes to AI and not everyone is finding it horrifying. Sometimes I think it might be as simple as deleting social media, removing the wifi, and only having a landline but, for most of us at least, that’s not hugely practical or even entirely desirable. Instead, it feels worth a shot to take back some control over our devices, our corners of the internet, and reclaim our brains so we can get the best out of both worlds. I’ve been making a concerted effort to do that over the last few years and, as with most changes in habit, some days I do better than others.
One of my favourite quotations about writing is from Anaïs Nin: We write to taste life twice. This regularly shared snippet is a beautiful idea on its own but in the context of the wider paragraph from “The New Woman”, In Favor Of The Sensitive Man And Other Essays (1976), it’s even more so: We also write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely.
For me, this is an inspiration not just to write but to share that writing and find those connections with other people that are attempting “to record the journey into the labyrinth.” I’m here for the other souls searching for meaning and creating worlds within worlds, figuring it all out on the page. The snapshots I gather of life in writing and in photographs feel like a sort of fragmented journal scattered across my camera roll, notebooks, film canisters, sketchbooks, and digital files. Sharing them here encourages me to revisit and organise them - to “taste” them again.
Beyond the pressure to make thirty-second reels and the deafening noise of non-sensical politicians, there’s a sense of real community in pockets of the internet that I’d be loath to get rid of - this space with all of you, in particular. So, instead of throwing my phone in the sea (tempting), I’m trying to remember to be present, to pursue simple pleasures for absolutely no reason whatsoever - making puzzles, taking photos on film, filling out a puzzle book, doing some extremely ropey-looking embroidery. All of that feels like the antithesis of the consumption and white noise that it’s all too easy to be pulled into when we pick up our phones to innocently check the weather forecast.
In this day and age these pursuits are an act of defiance, a reminder of the best parts of what makes us human, and that is never a waste of time. Pursuing beauty for the sake of it, learning just because we’re curious, and pottering about with hobbies that no one witnesses with no desire to monetise them or even get good at them… These things are the whole point. Taking up some of this endless internet space to share a few of these lovely things is a legitimate way to push back against the grim tide of insufferable grifters on podcasts and angry men shouting in cars.
To share something hopeful, or beautiful, or helpful can feel like a miniature protest. To fight against the bleakness with the handmade and the imperfect and to preserve the human is not a foolish endeavour. We can stay furious about the patriarchy and enjoy a pastry. And we should, on both counts. Whether or not you want to share a photo of it, is entirely up to you - I just hope you savour the moment either way.
Right. That’s all from me for now and I’ll (hopefully!) be back in your inbox again very soon as I crawl back into writing regularly again. I’ve got a lot more to say about the things I’m doing to get off the screens and reclaim my brain. It feels good to have made a start.
I’ve missed you.
See you in the comments,
PS Something else I’ve really missed recently is the photo-sharing we used to do each week on Notes so I’m restarting that Saturday thread with a focus on a simple pleasure you’ve recently enjoyed. Can’t wait to see what you show me - words, pictures, or both are very welcome.
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