Life Lately | September 2024

Liatris acidota in the Hickory Creek Savannah Unit of the Big Thicket NP

Hello friends!

As you can tell, I have not written here much in the last few months. To be honest, I’m struggling with where to go with this blog. I’m not ready to close up shop or stop writing but I feel the need to be quiet. I’m also overwhelmed with writing trip reports and keeping on top of that because I just simply can’t keep up anymore. I’m finding more joy in editing the photos, uploading to Flickr, and just revisiting them as a digital photo album than I am in writing here. I am spending more time on the Substack writing targeted Texas nature essays, which is one reason why I don’t feel the need to write here. I’m less into random thoughts and dispersing them into the internet ether than I am in being intentional with some writing. I don’t know, it is a weird time. I also blame social media for how we put things on the internet and where. I keep trying to come back and figure that out but also, I like some social media. Those connections aren’t here so I have to go there, too. And that’s probably why it feels overwhelming, there are too many places to be.

Forest turned 10 last week and I increasingly just want to spend more time with him and hang out with him before he is all “Eww, mom, I’m an independent teenager,” and moves onto other priorities. It was one thing to feel and want the need for my sanity and alone time when he was a clingy toddler, but those years are gone and now we’re in a new phase. So I’m trying to connect with some of that while I can. 10 years went fast. Did I do some quiet crying about it last week? Yes. Will I do more and am I tearing up about it now? Also, yes. I think back to how much I wrote about those early years because I needed to. Now there are so many Reels and YT videos covering so many aspects of what I felt in those early years that didn’t exist back then. I wish I’d had them. I needed them. But then again, I’m also glad I didn’t have a phone to scroll while nursing him and had the chance to connect with him as a baby at that time.

So yeah, there are things I want to write about, just not on here. And I take too many photos now that blogging trips and hikes becomes too much. I contemplated with a photo blog of sorts but even that feels too cumbersome. Post a photo and a short caption? Maybe. And then there’s the part about too much content. I can’t even read all of the things I used to read on the internet, the blogs and now newsletters. So I feel guilty about not doing that, why would I want to put more content out there for others who also can’t keep up? Which comes back to, why do it in the first place?

Which I take that as my cue to just pause and let things be for a season or two. Will I possibly pop in here once a month for these continued updates? Yes. But give me some time and I am sure I’ll return in some capacity with longer writings again.

A few brief things:

Reading: A Natural History of Empty Lots by Christopher Brown and Craft & Current: A Manual for Magical Writing by Janisse Ray
Watching: Season 8 of Dexter and a week or so ago Kevin Can F Himself.
Listening: Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n Sweet album