December Notes
Cosplaying our basic needs met and embracing the winter garden
Happy Solstice, friends.
I’m trying to break out of a cycle where as more time accumulates between posts, I feel like I need to put even more work together to show for the time, and then overwhelm myself with a standard no one asked for. Does anyone else do this?
Ten years ago I’d dedicate an entire blog post to a weekend of not doing anything, so I’d like to channel a bit more of those early internet days where it wasn’t really about perfection, just practice. I’m not under any delusion that I’ll post 5x a week (can you imagine?!) but to honor my 20 year old self, here are some thoughts over the last few months:
Cosplaying our basic needs met
At the end of the summer, we took a long awaited trip to the UK and Italy during David’s sabbatical! I cannot believe that any millennial qualifies for a sabbatical, much less one I’m married to, but we saw it on the horizon last year and started dreaming of what that might look like.
We zipped around Scotland much faster than I would have liked, and even after our three weeks away, Theo asks about returning to “the farm” (hi Rebecca and Wayne!) even though we were there for less than 24 hours. Some folks travel and always want to go somewhere new, but I find myself returning to Scotland again and again.
Being back at Fruin Farm felt bittersweet. When I came via Workaway 10 years ago, my dad had just passed away and I was trying to keep my heart open to the world while in mourning over a complicated relationship. In hindsight, it was really healing to be somewhere foreign to me during that period. I could choose to share what I wanted (like on a fateful hill walk where I met Joyce and Gary who I now call my Scottish parents), or I could keep to myself and exist as a speck in the wide open world.
Anyway, I really recommend revisiting places that saw you through hard times. It’s beautiful to see how they change along with you.
Italy is another one of those places for me, and someday I’ll go into a lot more detail about our two weeks. For now I’ll share that the stars really aligned for us on this one, and we got to stay in Lucca for two weeks while I was an artist in residence at Esperimento Sul Respiro. My friend Nancy told me about the program last year while we were in residence at Sitka and how it was a family-friendly residency focused on rest.
I kept thinking of our stay as cosplaying our basic needs being met. In reality, we had a brief period where we weren’t overwhelmed by our jobs in conjunction with parenting, we could choose how we spent our days/time in a walkable city with affordable groceries and higher quality of life because people there aren’t fighting for their lives to have their basic needs covered. AKA we were under the spell of Americans in Europe.
Should I tell you about the focaccia? What about cooking from a Genoese cookbook we found at the residency apartment. My Italian trickled back, slowly but surely, and it reminded me of a long ago dream to live in Italy someday. We would spend long days walking everywhere, often David carrying Theo on his shoulders (bless him). Theo had mostly transitioned out of his (/my emotional support) nap, but we’d try to come back to the apartment in the afternoon to rest and make dinner (mostly David!) Most restaurants were closed from 2-7pm which wasn’t great for our American toddler dinner schedule, so we cooked and ate in a lot and loved it dearly. Afterwards, we’d walk around the city center more and eat gelato in a piazza or on some church steps and I hoped, desperately, that Theo might remember some of it.
When I talk about cosplaying our basic needs being met, it’s hard not to think of what our actual days look like at home where we’ve shifted our entire schedule to accommodate the best childcare option available to us (free, via a public school system, but only 8am-2pm (please don’t get me started on Preschool for All)). If I have a shoot or work meetings in the afternoons/evenings, that means David starts work at 6am, picks Theo up at 2pm, takes care of him while getting dinner sorted, then is with him until bedtime (6:30-7pm these days). So a 13 hour work day.
It’s not always like that, but it is more often than we’d like. Or my work day is short, interrupted by childcare, then started up again at 7 or 8pm. And this is just a drop in the ocean of what caregivers around the country experience. How are we supposed to be working full time with only part time childcare? When are we supposed to care for ourselves?
So yeah, I’m going to romanticize our gelato walks and all the nonnas that gave Theo a little slice of focaccia upon walking into a bakery because it turns out a better world is possible, and it shouldn’t depend on generational wealth or special access to resources. I want gelato walks for all of us, or at least a life balance where we aren’t in a state of constant exhaustion because the societal systems we pay taxes toward aren’t holding up their end of the bargain.
Speaking of Work
It feels wild to end that rant and jump right into “look at this work I did!!!” but I consider it an actual miracle to have made anything given the challenges of everyday American life. These last few years have been weird for me, and while the uncertainty of freelancing isn’t unusual, I’ve felt like I’ve been stuck in a prolonged winter garden state.
I was moving walnut leaves from the sidewalk to create lasagna layers in my tomato beds when I looked around at the winter garden and felt like it was me: overgrown, long spent, and waiting to lie fallow.
The truth is I’ve felt like a winter garden for the past few seasons, even in the middle of summer when I can’t keep up with the raspberries and the calendula and California poppies are taking over. Like I haven’t quite hit full bloom or the benefit of seasons to cycle through.
I know this to be the product of our generation and doubly as a freelancer, where rest comes last. We’re all tired and if you’re like me, maybe you’re looking for some stillness too. Whatever time you can take from your screen, touching dough or putting on a record or falling 12 books deep into a historical romance series (Elizabeth Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series, btw).
I looked around at the winter garden and only saw last season’s failures— the edamame that didn’t take, the squash that hardly produced, and the dried peas still on the trellis I told myself I let go to seed so I could harvest (I never harvested). I’m always so optimistic in February, when I think I have all the time ahead of me to really get it right this season and when winter comes around, I console myself with pep-talks about the full time jobs of life and working and parenthood. I barely let myself acknowledge that rest is also essential to the garden, and what might look like a failed season is a testimony to trying at all.
In no particular order, here are some stories and projects I was really excited to be part of:
I got to work on Jacobsen Salt Co’s summer campaign on location at their harvesting site on the Oregon Coast.
In October I was honored to work with Amy Qin at the New York Times on the heartbreaking story of recent burglaries targeting Asian Americans across the country. The Kims welcomed us into their home and shared so much of themselves during a devastating time. I’m inspired by Chong Man Kim and his wife Byung Sook who have worked in service of their family for the past fifty years, and their daughters Gloria and Heidi whose advocacy for their parents are a reflection of their parents love for more of the world to see. A community member started a GoFundMe to support their family here.
Earlier this month I got to join a panel called Machine Nightmares, inviting creatives across fields to share their experiences and thoughts of AI in regard to their careers. A lot about AI is disheartening but seeing all these folks show up to a bookshop to hear artists talk was delightful. A short quote from my reading made it into the Portland Mercury and I’ll be loling until the end of time over it. (Thank you to Lydia for inviting me!!)
Last but not least, your girl is a cover girl x2!!! I am pinching myself that two magazine covers from this year are of images that are so personal and so important to me. The Oregon Humanities cover is from a summer trip to Paris with my nieces and Theo when they all piled into a photobooth, and the Provecho cover is of a Pacific-Northwest inspired kamayan I had with some friends in our friend Kris’ backyard. My photo essay “Redefining the Flavors of Home” is also in that same Issue 03 and available to order on Provecho’s website.
I know I went on and on about the winter garden, and while my mind has felt frozen in that state, these projects coming out of this period feel like a reflection of beauty that can still arise when it feels like we’re stuck. I’m proud of making this work in the midst of heavy times for so many of us, and can only hope that this next year is full of work and collaborations that continue to bring us hope and help us feel inspired and energized.
Wishing you all both light and darkness in the new year, may each hold you just as you need.