Love this Alix. I love analog activities like sitting on a deck with a friend, looking for beach glass, making sun tea or sun bath oil with herbs/rose petals from my garden, making pesto and pickles, paint and pour outside that becomes tiny art for cabochen jewelry and face to face visits with family and friends and of course picking strawberries or cutting up a huge watermelon to share. Happy Summer Solstice to all.
I like to think of this brutal time as also the storm before the calm, the last gasps of the most dirty and awful tendencies which will be overpowered by LOVE which is all (now confirmed in the Telepathy Tapes and Talk Tapes podcasts!)
HOWEVER, in the meantime, I'm calling this era FFAFO: Fascists Fuck Around & Find Out (inspired by my best pals I've never met at Crooked Media's Hysteria)
Just last week I deleted all of my social media apps from my phone, which means if I truly need to be one the socials (and does one ever truly?), I need to start up my computer and go through the whole ordeal.. I already feel lighter, but I also now recognize how often I (still) grab my phone to go to those socials (no longer there) to accidentally fall into a doomscroll and lose hours instead of ‘being’ in this world.. whatever did we do before phones became a thing?!
I’m building in more and more moments without my phone, or any other way to find/ contact me/ be online; gardening (where there is a crappy signal) started me on this journey and I have now added the following:
- just sitting in a comfy chair or hammock to just listen to a whole entire album.
- cooking the gazillion recipes I’ve hoarded but never made..just one or two a week, when time allows.
- reading in the hammock was fortunately already a thing!
- doodling.
- have more bonfires.
On top of that I will definitely add some of your (Brittany’s) ideas to our list for this summer!
Adore this so much, as a 1983 baby I have so many similar pangs to you for the old days but also my whole business is built online and I wouldn’t be able to do my heart work without technology. The paradox always! X
Beautiful, Alix! I still have some cassette tapes I can't let go of. I want to buy myself one of those consoles that look like an old-fashioned radio, with a turntable, CD player and cassette player. I've been making sun tea in mason jars by leaving them outside my door, then garnishing them with mint, lemon slices, a squirt of honey and a cinnamon stick. Here's my list:
* Sit under an old oak tree, sipping iced sun tea
* Drive to a nearby park on a breezy day with the windows all the way down
* Sit on a picnic table and draw, paint, and/or write
* Grow a patch of Sunflowers
* Grow a patch of mint and add it to everything ;0)
* Make fun pictures with colorful chalk on the walkway
* Stay up to 2am watching the Perseid metor showers
* Get dressed up to do nothing but read and sip lemony water
* Have a dance party around a bonfire, with drumming and toasting marshmallows
I still write by hand every day, Alix. And I love tending herbs and receiving their gifts. You're inspiring me to work on a collage again. Thank you for this refreshing post.
Alix I love this!!! We should make an Analog Summer bingo card!! 🥰📸
Oooh yessss
SO enjoyed this post!! Analog is calling to me (on a land line 😉)
haha, yay! Thanks so much ☎️
Driving to get ice cream cones, then eating them at a scenic overlook spot while talking about anything and everything.
Yes please! You drive, I’ll manage the playlist!
Perfect!
Some of my analog likes:
Get a turntable and some vinyl, listen to music with intention and not an algorithm
Get a fountain pen and start sampling inks, write letters to your friends
Take a walk, explore your neighborhood(s)
Visit museums, find a work you like and just sit and absorb it
Make a zine - I haven’t really done this one, but I think this post just pushed me into joining chapbook Summer.
Love this Alix. I love analog activities like sitting on a deck with a friend, looking for beach glass, making sun tea or sun bath oil with herbs/rose petals from my garden, making pesto and pickles, paint and pour outside that becomes tiny art for cabochen jewelry and face to face visits with family and friends and of course picking strawberries or cutting up a huge watermelon to share. Happy Summer Solstice to all.
I would love to sit on your deck with you ❤️❤️
yes 🙂
One of my favorite summer activities as a kid was catching and releasing fireflies 💫
Mine too! There’s not that many out here
I love this! It spoke to my Xennial soul. Thank you. ✨🌙✨
I love our little micro-generation. I really do
I like to think of this brutal time as also the storm before the calm, the last gasps of the most dirty and awful tendencies which will be overpowered by LOVE which is all (now confirmed in the Telepathy Tapes and Talk Tapes podcasts!)
HOWEVER, in the meantime, I'm calling this era FFAFO: Fascists Fuck Around & Find Out (inspired by my best pals I've never met at Crooked Media's Hysteria)
Love it.
Feeling the longing for presence as well. That‘s what summer is to me, in a nutshell. An endless supply of moments spent still and present
This is so heart-pulling. That dissonance - between the grief and the birdsong, the heaviness and the light - feels achingly familiar.
I’m starting on my own list of analogues today, because you’re right… naming helps. Claiming a season, even a strange one, gives it shape.
And for us, this isn’t just a summer - it’s a new life.
“When I look out my solstice window, I see nothing but bright summer light and dark summer greens.”
That line stopped me. That’s the ache and the beauty.
Let’s keep trying to name the seasons - even the weird ones. Maybe especially those.
Thank you! Naming does help ❤️❤️
I love and resonate with this post!
Just last week I deleted all of my social media apps from my phone, which means if I truly need to be one the socials (and does one ever truly?), I need to start up my computer and go through the whole ordeal.. I already feel lighter, but I also now recognize how often I (still) grab my phone to go to those socials (no longer there) to accidentally fall into a doomscroll and lose hours instead of ‘being’ in this world.. whatever did we do before phones became a thing?!
I’m building in more and more moments without my phone, or any other way to find/ contact me/ be online; gardening (where there is a crappy signal) started me on this journey and I have now added the following:
- just sitting in a comfy chair or hammock to just listen to a whole entire album.
- cooking the gazillion recipes I’ve hoarded but never made..just one or two a week, when time allows.
- reading in the hammock was fortunately already a thing!
- doodling.
- have more bonfires.
On top of that I will definitely add some of your (Brittany’s) ideas to our list for this summer!
Go analog!! :]
Adore this so much, as a 1983 baby I have so many similar pangs to you for the old days but also my whole business is built online and I wouldn’t be able to do my heart work without technology. The paradox always! X
Always the in between and back and forth
Beautiful, Alix! I still have some cassette tapes I can't let go of. I want to buy myself one of those consoles that look like an old-fashioned radio, with a turntable, CD player and cassette player. I've been making sun tea in mason jars by leaving them outside my door, then garnishing them with mint, lemon slices, a squirt of honey and a cinnamon stick. Here's my list:
* Sit under an old oak tree, sipping iced sun tea
* Drive to a nearby park on a breezy day with the windows all the way down
* Sit on a picnic table and draw, paint, and/or write
* Grow a patch of Sunflowers
* Grow a patch of mint and add it to everything ;0)
* Make fun pictures with colorful chalk on the walkway
* Stay up to 2am watching the Perseid metor showers
* Get dressed up to do nothing but read and sip lemony water
* Have a dance party around a bonfire, with drumming and toasting marshmallows
I would call the current period "the present" because every day is a gift (even if sometimes it feels like coal instead of sunshine).
Thank you, Alix
Love all the ideas. Analog - all day long! Well most of the day ;)
I still write by hand every day, Alix. And I love tending herbs and receiving their gifts. You're inspiring me to work on a collage again. Thank you for this refreshing post.
Thanks Robin! I’d love to see your collage when it’s done!!