I remember

dispatch 48

Sep 06, 2023

Wow wow wow we’re back, kicking off September and I am…so damn tired? I am undergoing a lot of (positive!) shifts in the work area of my life, but that has meant a whole lot of extra work before things reach an equilibrium later this month. I’m not meaning to be so cryptic here, and will share more in next week’s reflection style post for paid subscribers.

I’m also just a few weeks out from turning 6 years sober and 35 years old. Fall is always a time of intense change in my life and this year is definitely in keeping with that. I am just buckled up, keeping my arms and legs inside the vehicle, and trying not to future trip (with mixed results). Whatever you’re navigating right now, I wish you moments of rest and as much time in the present moment as possible. Also, a virtual hug because sometimes things are very, very hard even if they’re for the best.

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A small black dog with pointy ears pictured from behind as he views two grey ponies and one palomino out the window. — Remy watching ponies from the cabin window

I remember

When we wake up at the ranch there are ponies eating grass outside of the window of the sawn oak cabin. I can hear them sneeze, the sound of large animals shifting the air and the earth around themselves. The air is misty and cool and you can just smell the newly blooming yarrow through the pine needles. It is peaceful here, where my phone doesn’t work, and having no electricity makes the precious hours in which my reading light remains charged feel like a novelty. We over-romanticize simplicity, but I think we do so honestly.

I spend most workdays at my computer, creating virtual documents and spreadsheets that nod at utility and purpose. When I am not too anxious or caffeinated to eat, I shove food items that are bar-shaped into my mouth with the camera off on my Zoom meeting, listening while I do four other things. To combat social anxiety and boredom, I cover my standing desk attachment with smooth rocks, kinetic sand, and paper to doodle on. I shift back and forth on the heels of my feet until a reasonable time of day, at which I roll up my headphones, close my laptop, and carry my four empty cups down the stairs from my office to the kitchen.

This is my Westworldian loop. The ways I perform each day, spinning in place to keep a small part of the machine moving. Most weekdays are like this, and I know that this is not unique to me. I know that there is a level of privilege to working from home and doing knowledge work. My parents always hoped that if I grew up and worked hard I would not have to sacrifice my body to labor in the ways they still do. I sacrifice my brain instead because we have been told that this is a “superior” form of labor (it’s not), and also because, in my case at least, it pays better. Stratifications among the working class only serve capitalists, but we are always striving towards the next way to work, sure that we will eventually get it right. In the end, we are all just giving what we have to an endlessly hungry machine. Like the legend of the Windigo, it is something whose hunger begets more hunger. We live and work within something that is not satisfiable.

But when I am here in the forest air, I breathe deeper. I move slower. I laugh at the ways my dog chases a cat that he will never catch. I crouch down low to see tiny strawberries, late this year after a surprise May frost. I see a slug move slowly across a mushroom that pops up in the rain overnight. I am satisfied. The brown pine needle carpet is layered a home to many bugs and tiny plants and things I do not understand. In the low drone of a mosquito flying near my ear, time ceases to matter and instead, I am guided by older things, like hunger and fatigue. Is this an escape when it is the realest thing that I know?

I am becoming increasingly aware of what does not matter. I am trying to focus that awareness on what does. And amidst it all I am trying not to create a new binary to replace an old one. Striving for things that are a “better fit” still means striving. How can I tend the garden of my life so that the things I love most can grow? What are the components of that kind of life?

We live in a world that we did not create but that we are shaping every day. I play a small part in sustaining systems and architectures by running each day in my loop and not deviating. The loops become so well worn, so seemingly simple, that we forget to notice how they keep us separate, quiet, and tired. It’s hard for me to pause, to pull out, and to see the bigger picture that scares me so much. A bigger picture that seems unsolvable, unbreakable, so much bigger than me. But it is all scale. I am small as that slow-moving snail is small. I am as big as those horses. I am a part of that same natural world, even if I have forgotten how to be. But when I wake up here, I remember.

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