(Photo) Blogs Matter
And it’s a big world out there. There’s always room for one more voice, for one more blog.
– Robert Breen (via Patrick)
misc
Ex Social Media
With Tweetdeck’s subscriber-only model comes the death of Twitter for me.
Yes, it was long in the tooth. Yes, it hadn’t been updated in years (until recently). But darn it, Tweetdeck was my version of Twitter: comprehensive, time-based, multiple accounts on one screen, and so simple to use.
Up to now, all the drama around the sale of Twitter and its loathsome owner hadn’t affected me. I built a comfortable corner of the platform – full of photographers, Mac enthusiasts, and funny Simpsons accounts. It was quiet, and I only saw what I wanted to see. My Twitter break last February helped even more because I eliminated a lot of political Twitter that affected my mental wellbeing.
Now that Tweetdeck is paid-only, I don’t see much value in the platform.
- I want to see posts in the order they’re posted.
- I don’t want to see random posts from accounts I don’t follow.
Those two simple requests alone leave much of Twitter useless to me now. And the lack of third-party clients, establishing some order and preferences, makes it worse.
For so long, I got Twitter. Unlike many of my IRL colleagues and friends, it seemed built for people like me. I built up a lot of good online relationships on Twitter. I shared my photos, got great ideas, and “met” tons of people with similar interests. I don’t know where those will go now, but maybe it’s back to following blogs and email newsletters exclusively. Another social media network isn’t what I need.
I need a good, reliable platform. Twitter’s not that. Not anymore.
See you somewhere else.
Salsa Night
For our anniversary, I reserved a Salsa Night out for my wife and me last weekend.
Since we didn’t know how to salsa dance, I tried to reserve pre-show lessons for us. However, the lessons were all sold out.
That meant we were going into an unfamiliar dance night as total rookies.
“We can do this,” I thought. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
The music was great, and the dancers who readily joined the dance floor were impressive to watch. What about us?
My first idea was to get the rhythm down and do anything I could to get comfortable with salsa.
The beat? Four-four. But the rhythm was one-two, one-two, so while I sat in my chair, I tapped out the steps with my feet, mimicking the dancers in front of me. Once I had that, I felt like I could improvise the rest.
And since we were on a rare date night, just my wife and me, away from the kids, there was a little pressure to have a bit of extra fun and make this evening memorable.
To calm our nerves, we got up to slow dance during one of the ballads. We had done this dozens of times before. But while we were slow dancing, the rhythm changed just a bit – more of a swing – so we added some swagger to our slow dancing to feel it out. This was a good warm-up.
When we sat back down, I went back to feet-tapping the rhythm, slowly pounding out some courage to go up and truly salsa dance on the floor. Then my wife and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised.
“Let’s salsa,” I said, shrugging, as I grabbed my wife’s hand and went out to boogie.
And you know what? We had a great time. First, no one noticed us. Everyone was either watching the band or the more proficient dancers all around us.
Second, we were having so much fun that we didn’t worry about what we looked like. Sure, we tripped up a few times, and I awkwardly tried to spin my wife around like I saw those other dancers do. But we never stopped smiling and we never slowed down – even during the line dance that I couldn’t quite get perfect.
Nerves turned into laughter, and self-consciousness turned into being in the moment. We giggled as we occasionally stumbled off the beat.
Sometimes, we don’t know all we need to know to succeed—or even to have fun. That’s fine because, with a little bit of self-made comfort and practice, you can easily make the most of a situation with low stakes and high enjoyment.
On this Salsa Night, joy trumped comfort. We were there to have fun together, and step by step, we earned it.
Breaking Habits
I’m not Catholic, but I do love the idea of giving stuff up for a limited time from now through Easter. I’m in the Ben Franklin school of self-experimentation, and I’ve been giving up things I love for years. Potatoes, coffee (ugh! that was a rough one), alcohol – limitations are good, and knowing you can survive without these things builds character.
This video by HealthyGamerGG kick-started my flirtations with Lent deprivation this year. I was initially attracted to the title (“Why Finding Purpose Is SO HARD Today”), but after watching, Dr. Alok Kanojia’s points made a lot of sense about life in general.
I do tend to stuff my brain with external stimuli. I don’t let myself get bored anymore. And while I’ve taken up meditation again this year, it is a bummer to read social media all the time and not have time to just sit and think.
So for Lent, I gave up Twitter.
Twitter is a trashbin on fire these days, with all the behind-the-scenes ownership and business fumbles it’s made. I choose not to follow that stuff closely, but I have noticed that Twitter mostly brings me negative news. It’s a bummer to scroll through tweets every day. Giving it up means not allowing that negativity into my brain. It also means more quiet time to do something else.
Like edit photos! Or take photos! Or anything else that actually brings me joy.
While this blog post will appear on Twitter, thanks to a WordPress plugin, I won’t see it or the reaction. Instead, I can devote more time to being bored, thinking about my purpose, and reducing my overall anxiety.
If You Could Ask Yourself
A recent Roderick on the Line episode brought up a fun thought experiment:
If you went back and updated your 16-year-old self on where you are today, would your teenage self consider you a “success?”
To me, “success” is a multi-faceted metric. Success in your career? Or success in your goals? How about where you are, and who you’re with? Would your younger self even know what you’re talking about in terms of a job or hobbies (try explaining blogging in 1997)?
Overall, I think my teenage self would consider my adult self successful, based on a few measurements:
Career: I’ve always wanted to do something with writing. I left for college knowing I wanted to be a journalist. While that didn’t pan out, I did have a short career in journalism and used my writing skills to make stories in the corporate world. I also had a life goal to do something at the University of Michigan – either a degree or a career – and I accomplished that in my last job at the museum of art.
Hobbies: My younger self was involved in playing card games and video games, taking photos during social activities, and traveling. And what do you know, my adult self enjoys doing all of those things as well, to varying degrees. Photography, for instance, is now a core part of who I am. Traveling is something my family and I do constantly, and always will. I still read The Lord of the Rings trilogy every few years. I probably watch a little less professional wrestling than I did at 16, but some of my heroes have stuck with me.
Life in General: I’m happily married with three great kids, living in my sometimes-hometown, and comfortably middle class and socially active. I spend time with my family, I enjoy going out to eat, and I see my friends – not like I did at 16, but often enough. I’m not rich, but I never expected to be (I just knew I didn’t want to be poor again).
I score a 10/10 on almost all three of those metrics. Where would my teenage self be disappointed? Maybe in something like, I’m not a novel writer like I maybe thought I’d be. Or, I never moved far from my roots.
On the other hand, I didn’t have big goals or ambitions as a young person. I was happy to check the boxes, get my education, get a decent job, and hang out with my friends. If I’ve seen any success over the years, it has not been according to a Grand Plan. Up to now, I’ve been successful only because of luck – and maybe a bit of personal growth, continuing education, and building relationships.
Success is what you make it. My 16-year-old self would be satisfied with all of those things because that’s who I am, and who I’ve always been.
(Above: another photo from Hale, Michigan, shot on my iPhone 13 mini and edited in Darkroom)
Forty
It’s not so bad, turning 40.
Mostly, I still feel like I’m in my early to mid 30s. Thirty – now THAT birthday felt monumental: buying a new house, switching jobs. A lot changed that year.
This year? We’re still stuck in a pandemic. I’ve felt on hold for the last 12 months. Maybe I can just skip this birthday?
No, of course not. But mentally, I’m not 40. Perhaps it’s denial. Halfway through life, I feel like I’ve done a tremendous amount of things. Knowing me, I’ve got many more projects on the horizon.
Like my “Thirty Six” project. I just remembered I have that one still unfinished. Time to look through some film photos from four years ago…
Things I Miss
- Missed the county fair this year. That’s an annual tradition we look forward to every year.
- I miss not feeling anxious every time one of the kids gets a cough or the sniffles.
- I miss eating out at restaurants.
- I miss a time when medical advice wasn’t automatically political.
- I miss movie theaters.
- I miss the kids not knowing the name of a particular virus, and begging for it to be over.
- I miss a time when large wars killed this many people, not a pandemic, recklessness, and stupidity.
- I miss jumping on a plane and going somewhere.
- I miss not feeling anxious when I see people not wearing a mask in public places.
- I miss in-person work conferences and connecting with people in my industry.
- I miss concerts and live music.
- I miss a time when America was a leader in the world for something good.
So You’re Thinking About Protesting the Coronavirus
Friends, we as Americans have the right to protest and proclaim our rights. But if you’re thinking about protesting, I made this handy guide to thinking through your argument points…and make sure you’re REALLY prepared to protest!
MY RIGHTS ARE BEING TAKEN AWAY!
No, they are not. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theatre, and you can’t go boating right now. You can still buy seeds, plant your garden, buy food, get gas – you’re merely being inconvenienced for a short-term period.
If you’re such a big fat baby, maybe protesting isn’t for you?
IT’S MY RIGHT TO GET A HAIRCUT/GO BOATING/GO GOLFING!
Driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. You can get those privileges taken away if you’re a dumb shit. Same here: none of those activities are enshrined in either the federal or state constitution. You don’t have the right to go bowling.
Also, it’s spring. It snowed yesterday. Maybe build a snowman instead?
MICHIGAN’S GOVERNOR IS BEING DRACONIAN! SHE’S A NAZI!
Neat. The governor of Ohio – a male, white Republican – has perhaps more drastic measures in place. What is he?
The Nazis discriminated based on race and orientation, loaded people up in trains, and killed them en masse. They tried to take over the world. You can’t go *golfing.*
The last protest had a bunch of white dudes flying dipshit Confederate flags, holding guns, and wearing the same red Made-in-China hats. Who looks like a Nazi?
Maybe read a book instead of protesting?
THIS WHOLE THING IS AN OVERREACH BY OUR GOVERNMENT! IT’S GONE TOO FAR!
Okay. People were doing this during the 1918 Spanish flu. And the communities that isolated stayed alive.
Our government’s first job is to keep its citizens safe and healthy (and deliver the mail, but that’s another point). The evidence shows these measures work, and keep people safe and alive.
If your appendix is going to burst, do you want some politician, preacher, or news network talking head doing surgery on you? No. We listen to experts because they know what they’re talking about. They have experience. They can do the work.
Apart from government, businesses also see the need to close facilities and keep their employees safe. Are they wrong?
BUT THE ECONOMY!
Yep, it sucks. Makes you wonder why the federal government is giving loans to giant businesses who don’t need them instead of small businesses that do…
Maybe you should protest in Washington, DC instead!
THE CORONAVIRUS IS NO DIFFERENT THAN THE FLU! WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
Great! Let someone with COVID-19 sneeze in your face.
And isn’t it weird that a lot of those protestors were wearing masks. What’s the big deal?
LIBERATE VIRGINIA/MICHIGAN/MINNESOTA!
Go fuck yourself.
Hope this guide helps you block hospitals treating their patients with your “I NEED A HAIRCUT” sign and put more people in danger!
Contrary
I’m always rooting for the contrarian. If you have an idea or system that goes against the norm, I’m almost already on board.
That’s why Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson’s book, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy At Work, was an instant buy for me. The founders of Basecamp, Jason and David run a successful software company and keep sane about it. No “sprints,” no 60 hour work weeks, no demanding work from their employees on weekends. The key word is calm.
It flies in the face of most of what you hear about the tech world. Everyone from startups to video game companies are working their staff to literal death. But it’s not just tech – plenty of businesses demand too much time and attention from their team members. I see it all the time.
In my younger days, I could handle a 50 or 60 hour week, easily. In fact, when my first company held a lot of community events, I gladly signed up for the overtime, since all that money ended up in my pocket. Now, though, it’s different: I have a family, obligations, and a house to maintain. That’s not to mention hobbies, some leisure time, maintaining friendships, and making progress on projects around the house.
I’m protective of my time. That’s why the ideas behind It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy At Work were so appealing: making projects manageable, not constantly chasing after profit and growth, giving people time to consider big ideas and projects, valuing sleep and self care.
I lived one idea – four day work weeks during the summer – first hand at my first higher education job. There were two summers where we took Fridays off, and what a benefit. Time with my family, long weekends to take little vacations, opportunities to rest up before the craziness of the fall, when the students returned. Taking Fridays off didn’t bankrupt the business, or turn everyone into lazy slobs. It simply was, until August, and then it wasn’t. In most business environments, if you suggested taking Fridays off in the summer, you’d get laughed out of the office.
Like CJ Chilver’s A Lesser Photographer, the book offers some sanity in all the craziness. Where CJ’s book said don’t buy into the photography hype, Jason and David’s book says don’t buy into overworking. Buy, instead, into calm.
It’s contrarian, for good reason. It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy At Work says there’s another way, a different way, worth trying.
Journal, With A Bullet
I’ve dipped my toes into the Bullet Journal pool.
For two months now, I’ve been logging my daily activities, organizing my tasks, and laying out my appointments and meetings in this handy journal, using a no-frills approach to the Bullet Journal philosophy. Basically, I took what I was doing using Things and paper lists and combining that workflow into one canonical place: a notebook.
(And a cheap-o one at that. Nothing fancy.)
The basic idea is that you write your task list and appointments down on paper, month by month. Whatever you don’t get done each month transfers to the next month. Along the way, you make decisions about those tasks – like, should they even be in there?
From there, you use an index system at the front of the notebook to keep tabs on the various months, task lists, projects, and reference lists you keep in the journal. And then it’s up to you to add whatever system you want on top of that basic outline.
I’m still in the very early stages of using this system, but already I’ve noticed a few things:
- If I need to do or remember something, I have one place to put it now. Before, I was using paper, my phone, or nothing.
- If I have a task to do, having a reference to look at has been super helpful. “What can I do right now?” Check the journal, and it’s there. I am finding I’m actually getting more done.
- There’s a bit of personality involved – such as noting the first time we went to the ice cream shop, or writing down a memorable moment in the daily log. It’s a journal in the truest sense.
- You can get crazy with pictures and taxonomies and ink colors, but I’m keeping it simple, or putting in a splash of color when I feel like it. No pressure to do either, because it’s mine, and only I look at it.
- I’m logging my fitness goals in the journal, and boy – it’s a real sense of accomplishment to see my commitment on paper.
Other digital systems have never quite stuck with me, whether those systems involve an app (Things), a device (my iPhone), or notes (Apple Notes, Simplenote, etc.). Maybe all I needed was a notebook and a pen.
I’m still living the Getting Things Done® lifestyle, with projects and weekly reviews and all that. The journal keeps all that in one spot, and gives me direct, immediate feedback on how I’m doing. At the minimum, the system requires a monthly review.
The combo of iOS Reminders, my Apple Calendar (on Mac and iOS), and the Bullet Journal has been key with appointments, meetings, birthdays, etc. Writing down an event on paper is fine, but I still need my phone to buzz and remind me of upcoming dates.
Photography-related: I have a whole @Photos project in here with to-do items, lists of ideas, and potential blog posts. Again, it’s an on-paper reference – one canonical source for photography stuff.
Habits are hard to establish. I feel like GTD has been an easy at-work habit, but maybe not such an easy life habit. With this journal system, I may finally have the platform to get things done in all areas of my life.
Two Weeks Off
It’s a weird time right now. I have two weeks off in between the old job and new one. I’m car shopping, I’m playing stay at home dad. And I’m thinking about the future for the first time in a while.
There’s the portrait project that I need to restart and finish this summer. Should I get into the studio space again? Will my head be ready?
Summer is not far away. What’s our vacation going to look like this year? What will the new job entail? Where’s Madelyn going to go to school in the fall?
It’s probably too much, and I’m probably not ready. So I’m back living day to day, capturing the sunshine as it comes, and getting the house ready for the warmer weather. These two weeks, I’m taking it as it comes.
Season of Change
All the fun stuff happens in the spring.
Not only is spring my favorite season, but it’s when my life seems to change the most. Things that have happened to me in spring in the recent past:
- Left my job of eight years to go into higher ed
- Purchased my first home
- Got married
- Purchased another home
- Started another new job at the Museum of Art
- Had another baby
My first daughter was born in late summer. Otherwise, all the big stuff in my life takes place from March to April. A season of change.
And so it goes this year as well: I just accepted a new position as the internal communications manager at Dawn Foods, here in Jackson. It’s another career pivot. My previous roles have all involved external communications: social media, public relations, website work, advertising. Now, it’s all in house – a skill set I’ve developed over my entire career. I’ve always, since the very beginning, been the go-to person for internal communications. This month, I’ll make it a career.
Just as March is a messy, transitional month from season to season, life has been messy and in transition for about a year now. A few ups, quite a few downs, and lots of struggling with productivity, passion, and maybe even depression. My hope is that this new position will clear up, and clean up, a few of those messes.
An Easy Decision
My heart hurts. Another school shooting, another reason for our kids (and parents!) not to feel safe, and another bunch of nothing gets fixed.
Aiden has to do school drills to practice being safe if something terrible happened. In my day, drills were for tornadoes – natural occurrences that you can’t control. Our parents had bombing drills, and we all decided that hiding from nuclear weapons wasn’t a thing we wanted to do. Hence: arms control.
Today, drills are for something we can control, but fail to do anything about. It’s silly.
Glad to see the Florida students shame our politicians, and (hopefully) many Americans who feel our kids aren’t worth protecting.
I’m pro hunting, pro owning a shotgun or a handgun – but also pro safety and controlling these killing machines from the crazies. We can have both.
Most of all, I’m in favor of kids over guns. It should be an easy decision, America.
On Habits
This time of year is tough: resolutions, winter time blues, Fat Tuesday.
Apart from resolutions, I think about habits – either starting new ones or trying to get back into old ones I’ve let slip.
Take meditation. I had a decent mindfulness practice for almost 10 years. But with kids and moving and new jobs, I let that habit slip. Or fitness: my workout regiment has come and gone for years. After the glut of the holidays, I always have to kick-start that habit after the new year.
Even my photography habit goes into hibernation this time of year. I always have to give myself a project to wake it back up again.
The trick is to not feel bad about letting habits lapse. They come and go, and that’s natural. I could feel guilty about not working out, or taking more photos – or I could just get moving and start forming those habits again.
Every year this cycle starts again. And every year I have to remind myself: it’s okay.
Courtyard’s Courtyard
![The Complete Lack Of [Explored]](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/4460/23738471938_047070f555_c.jpg?resize=800%2C533&ssl=1)
It’s amazing: if you build a community place, a community will form, even if it’s a transient one.
Over the summer, we stayed at a Courtyard hotel – nice place, pool, convenient location, etc. And, as the name says, it had a courtyard in the middle of the hotel with picnic tables and trees and little walkways. Our hotel room had a porch that looked out on the courtyard.
The whole thing caught me off guard. Hotels, as I had experience them, were private places, where noise was kept down and you rarely saw the people in other rooms. But a courtyard? Where you could see people? Whoa.
And what do you know, people gathered there. A family brought a six pack of beer outside and sat on the picnic table to chat. People strolled by on their way to the pool. Kids ran around and played kickball. It was like being back in college, only with a more diverse crowd. It was great. We sat on the porch and watched the whole evening take shape.
If you build it, they will come, the saying goes. In this case, it was true. The evidence was gathering in front of us.
That made me think of the “courtyards” I’ve encountered in my online life: Twitter, my old Apple Newton blog, photography groups.I would still rather chat with someone in person about their (or my own) weird hobby. The nice thing about the Web is, you can have both in-person courtyards and online meeting places to talk about what interests you.
Make a gathering place, and like-minded people make a community. If you’re generous and open, those communities become stronger and closer.
Especially if you bring a six pack.
Lunacy
We all knew, years in advance, that this day was coming. Our attention spans are short, so we only really started preparing – with the glasses and the filters and our lunch plans – earlier this summer.
So we took the kids, the grandparents, our fellow students, our co-workers, and we all went outside for a bit this afternoon. Novelty glasses in hand, we looked up, and we saw our sky change.
We watched young and old, rich and poor, conservative and liberal, natural born and immigrant go out into the fading sunlight and watch and wonder. See how the light changes? See how the shadows shift their shape? See that funny cardboard contraption the astronomy students are wearing on their heads?
See how everyone, regardless of background, came outside and shared an experience?
Astronomers have our solar system down pat. They know where the sun and moon and Earth will be in relation to each other from now until Rapture. Barring an unexpected astroid, the future is predictable, thanks to models and observation.
We Americans think we know better. Sure, we show up at an appointed time expecting a celestial show. But when it does happen, we don’t think that makes the scientific method any more reliable. We question and we “fake news” everything, still, even when the heavens dance around us, as predicted.
It’s lunacy.
We rarely get the larger message – in plain view there in the sky, in front of our own filtered eyes – just as we rarely think about eclipses a decade down the road.
We don’t have to “believe” in the eclipse; it happens with or without us. We don’t get that message, either.
Room For Time
“What’s clear is that it’s healthiest if we make a daily appointment to disconnect from the world so that we can connect with ourselves.”
Austin Kleon, “The Bliss Station“
For me, a simple daily practice is stepping away from my office computer. Take a walk, step away, eat lunch outside – whatever it takes.
Go Outside and Play
Last summer, at our former house, we noticed something more and more: of all our neighbors, we were the only ones who spent any measurable amount of time outside.
Whether for grilling, or for playing on the swing set, or going for a simple walk around the block, our family was largely alone. We didn’t see some neighbors for weeks. Others only went outside to mow the lawn, or get in their car and leave. My wife and I would sit in the backyard, after putting the kids to bed, just to read and drink and watch the birds. Again: all alone, all by ourselves.
Granted, we lived in a rural neighborhood, and most country folks stick to themselves. But we couldn’t shake a thought: how weird that other people in our neighborhood weren’t enjoying the lovely Michigan summer. So far, it’s been the same story at our new house.
Maybe a lot has changed since I was a kid (“Go outside and play!” my mother would shout, and we did – all day long). There are a lot of new time suck options, from Netflix to Facebook, even in rural areas. Given that more people (especially children) are spending less time outside, my values probably differ from my nation’s.
On the other hand, it’s easy to fall into nature worship, and praise fresh air so much that you become annoying. I’ll admit that not everyone craves Thoreau’s “tonic of wilderness” like I do. We sent our son to a nature center for preschool, and he spent most of his school day outdoors in the woods. That’s not for everyone.
But, I do think that if you have a yard, you should spend time in it. If you live on a road, you should walk up and down it from time to time.
And if you’re a photographer, getting outside should be a part of your practice. Take your camera, grab your kids or pet, and go outside to see what the season has accomplished.
(Coincidentally, a recent Roderick On the Line podcast episode had a discussion about this subject, specifically about people playing sports outside. Good listen.)
Lack Of Agency
Seth Godin’s recent post hit a nerve:
There are institutions, professionals and organizations that would like you to believe that you don’t have much choice in the matter.
They want to take away your agency, because it makes their job easier or their profits higher.
But you have more choice than you know.
In our recent move, I’ve twice dealt with corporations and utilities that have made me feel like I have no agency. Most recently, Apple Support left me hanging on an Apple ID and iTunes issue. Apple! A company I’ve supported each of my adult years!
Call support centers are a form of capitalist nihilism. There’s no reason for any of the decisions made except to make the company’s situation better, and to help you feel powerless. It’s rare that a support interaction has a positive outcome – so rare, that we marvel at Creation when it happens.
My Apple interaction was especially galling. From 2005-2008, I purchased a bunch of music under an old Apple ID. From 2008 on, I’ve been purchasing music from a different Apple ID, unaware of the consequences, so now I have a bunch of music in limbo. The support center’s solution? “Switch Apple IDs each time you want to listen to that music.” Helpful! And silly. What they don’t tell you is that each time you switch Apple IDs in iTunes, it locks the previous Apple ID for 90 days.
Three months! Unacceptable. And completely arbitrary.
So now I’ll be sticking to downloading my music from companies with fewer arbitrary restrictions (as Godin writes, keeping the “ability to shop around”). It’s one of the reasons I don’t rely on subscription-based music services. There is, by definition, no agency involved in that transaction. If you unsubscribe, all the music goes away.
The larger point can be applied to creativity and photography, of course. There’s creative agency – that sense of not being held hostage by expectations and self-imposed pressure. On the technology side, by submitting our work to Instagram and Tumblr, you’re giving up a bit of agency. And if something goes wrong, your only recourse is a faceless call center, if that.
My one weak spot: Flickr. I rely on Ol’ Reliable for so much of what I do, including image hosting for this very blog. And I have a lot of time and infrastructure wrapped up in that website. If something goes wrong, I’ll be in a bit of trouble. It won’t be catastrophic, but it certainly won’t be fun.
When we keep our agency, in the form of hosted, backed-up websites and blogs, we have a bit more say in the matter. We can always pack up and put up our tent somewhere else.
Going Home Again
After six months of house hunting, we picked our winner and are in the midst of closing the deal.
For those that have never purchased a home, house hunting can be a long, grueling process – especially if you’re selling a home at the same time as trying to buy one. Lots of waiting, making pro and con lists, weekends spent wading through strangers’ lives, cleaning up the house to show it. It’s stressful.
And the idea of packing up and moving is never my idea of fun. I moved a lot (no really – a ton) as a kid, so I equate moving with hardship. Staying in one place helps me feel secure.
Relocating does have benefits. We’re moving closer to town, and closer to family. Our work commutes will be shorter. Trips to the grocery store won’t take as long. Living back in the city means we can be more involved in local culture and politics.
As you can see, the new place has great natural light coming in. The yard is nice, and there’s a bit more room. It’s a good house in a good neighborhood, with lots of opportunity to make it our own. And it’s a quick walk to the local park system, ice cream parlor included. As I said: benefits!
The Lawrences are coming back to Jackson.
Make Time For Beauty
Good advice in general, but maybe especially these days, from Jon Ward:
A healthy perspective on politics, and life in general, requires time away from politics…
Creating is a big part of making room for beauty. But so is making time for enjoying and appreciating beauty, through art, nature, music, etc.
Losing yourself in something other than politics is good medicine.
Schlenker’s Sandwich Shop
If you’re a Jackson native, and you haven’t been to Schlenker’s for a hamburger, shame on you.
While I’m partial to the burgers at West Point Lounge, on the West side of town, a stop into Schlenker’s is never wasted.
Good, old-fashioned hamburgers and fries.
Holiday Break
I’m lucky to work in higher education, where the week between Christmas and the new year are seen as an automatic holiday. This year, I took a few extra days before Christmas off, meaning a lot of time at home with the family.
What did we do? Not much. A bit of repair work on my car, some house showings, a couple of sick kids to contend with, and the busy back-and-forth of family holiday time. I was able to dig into a few photo books – Alex Webb’s The Suffering of Light was a nice Christmas gift – and think about my creative work for 2017.
But mostly, it was just what I had hoped for: quiet time, doing quiet things.
Happy New Year.
Holiday Habits
I have two habits around the holidays.
One: I take the last day I’m at work and clean my office. Dust, vacuum, straighten up – I’m going to be gone for a few days, so it’s good to get it tidy. This is a great thing to do right before a vacation, too. That way, when you get back, everything’s in ship shape.
Two: I take a break from social media. This year, it will be an even bigger break than I’ve been playing with the past few months.
The holidays, and this first part of winter, are a quiet time. I like quiet music, quiet weather (snow!), quiet nights at home watching movies and basking in the warm glow of Christmas lights. Peace and quiet.
Twitter and Instagram and everything else are noise, so they’re not allowed. Not for a week or two. Instead, I spend time with family and make things and share in the season with friends and family.
This is a good practice during vacations, too. Save all your photo sharing until you’re back home, and have had time to process your time away.
Soon, I bet you’ll look forward to these habits. Time away does us all some good.
Work With Your Hands
In middle school, my shop teacher was a grizzled old guy. Suspenders, beard, calloused hands – a stereotype if there ever was one. He told us to “make sure you keep things steady” while his hands shook. Neat guy.
One day he told us a story about taking a factory job as a younger man. Our teacher, the new employee, had to work 30 days in the plant without taking a day off. If he worked those 30 consecutive days, he got hired on as a full-time employee. If he missed even one day, he would be let go.
Well, he missed a day because he was violently ill. And of course he got let go from his new job. His lesson, if I remember it right, was that the real world was a tough place, and you had to work hard and pay your dues to make it.
I probably knew it earlier than seventh grade, but after hearing my shop teacher’s story, I figured out that maybe I didn’t want a blue collar job. I wanted to make things, yes, always. But not work in manufacturing – as my father had. It’s not that blue collar work was “below me.” I wasn’t “too good” for a factory job. It’s just that shop class never clicked, and hearing my teacher’s story made me worry about the prospects of working at a place like that. My future was going to be spent doing creative things with my mind.
Luckily, today we can “work with our hands” in other ways: digital projects, hobbies, crafting, writing, etc. It doesn’t have to be a full time job. The stakes are much lower.
At my previous job, there were a few college professors that spent their entire days in the abstract, teaching and reading and lecturing. When they got back home, they got their hands busy doing things like woodworking and car repair. I understood that need. It’s why I enjoy fixing things around the house when I can.
As humans, our best tools are our hands, and maybe tinkering tickles some ancient need we have as toolmakers.
It’s one of the reasons why I love making and pouring over physical things like photo books. Holding something physical, making artistic decisions about materials – I create things with my mind, and then get to hold them in my hands.