5 Quick Things #330 🧑‍🌾

walking, backyard gardens, social media, & yep—that abysmal dystopian ad

May 10, 2024

Hey there,

Tate came home late last night, so all is right in the world! We picked her up fairly late from the airport and she’s been pulling some insanely late nights (early mornings?) this past week either studying for finals or packing up her dorm, so she’s still sound asleep as I’m typing this. I very well may not see her until this afternoon… But still, there’s something Right and Good knowing all three of my birds are in the nest for now. It’s a very good thing that she’s using her wings to go out there and test her adult muscles, but it’s also lovely when they come back, even temporarily, for a breather. I’m grateful this Mother’s Day weekend.

Speaking of — we’re going camping Sunday afternoon through early next week (my Mother’s Day choice, pinky-swear), and I completely forgot that I’m still teaching an online class on Mondays. …Oops. This means the students will get to see me in all my camping glory, probably at a nearby coffee shop that has decent wifi. C’est la vie! It’s an apropos way to wind down the school year and gear into summer, I say.

*At the Garden Bank* (1913), by H. A. Brendekilde #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. New episode of A Drink With a Friend! Yep, another one (in fact, we’ve got several weeks’ worth of episodes before the summer break, so gear up your headphones for several weeks in a row…) — I’m chatting with Faith Moore, novelist and (new) podcaster, and we’re continuing the conversation about making things. Yes, it’s good for us to work with our hands, and we all should in some capacity. But what about making things with our mind, and even via (gasp!) our screens, too? Yep, that can be done well. Faith unpacks what it was like to write her first novel from her home as a busy mom, as well as launching a very successful podcast in a crowded niche.
2. I absolutely love walking—it’s a daily lifeline of mine to walk at least 8,000 steps a day. I walk every morning, most afternoons when I need a mental break to slice my work day in half, and most evenings after dinner with the family. I also walk during any phone call, during most audiobook listens, and all throughout my day at home in various forms. L.M. Sacasas at
The Convivial Society
has compiled solid reflections as to why walking is so good for us: “To walk, then, is to inhabit a fitting scale and speed. It is the scale and speed at which our bodies are able to find their fit in the world, and the world rewards us by spurring our thinking and disclosing itself to us. Perhaps this is the deeper fitness we should actually be after.”
3. There was hundreds of good commentary after the abysmal self-own that was Apple’s new iPad ad that released this week, and I’m admittedly heartened about all the outcry that recognizes, down in our bones, that this is just wrong. I appreciated
Hadden Turner
’s reflections, as well as his simple solution: “There will always be an insurmountable limit that it will come up against, we will always need physical things, and the goodness and superiority of so-called“replaceable” physical things will eventually shine through. But in the meantime, let this advert remind us of the vital importance of real/physical things and under what immense pressure makers, creators, and artists are already suffering. Commit to buying physical books. Learn a physical instrument. Create art that can go into a gallery. Buy and make real things.”
4. Sure, this take is pessimistic and even grouchy, but I can’t argue that it’s wrong about pretty much all of social media.
Freya India
unpacks, more or less, the gut-level reason I personally left Instagram a few years ago: “Oh well! We’re having fun, right? We’re entertained! We’re all more connected, apparently. But who said I want to be connected to people like this? I don’t even feel connected to myself when I behave this way. …I hate how these platforms convince humble, modest people that they are lacking—they should be sharing more; building a personal brand; playing the game. Take more photos! Tell us more about you! It’s all free! Just pay with your humility. Trade with the time you could be spending thinking about anyone else but yourself.”
5. And finally, I absolutely love this woman’s urban backyard garden, as well as her attitude about the simple beauty of making the most of where you’re planted… So ridiculously inspiring.