onward + embracing what might be a futile effort.

I saw a post–an Instagram story–earlier today that sparked a feeling of unfamiliarity in myself as I was, of all things, brushing my teeth. It was a pair of people in a park working on zines together, and I found myself wondering where that part of me went over the past few years. I’ve tried repeatedly to put out a new zine, even getting so far as writing, printing, and pasting a few pages together, but I can never seem to follow through. As much as it feels like something is missing in not creating zines in any regular fashion anymore, I also can’t find a desire strong enough to do it.

I also realized over the past few months that I don’t write poetry anymore. It’s as if I forgot how to do it one day. I forgot how much I enjoyed it, the feeling of sitting outside with a blanket and notebook and water bottle just writing. Instead, my days became full of toddler time–a different kind of joy and commitment, as I’ve changed diapers and cooked meals and generally tried to keep him entertained. Through it all, I just–forgot. In the best weeks, I would work for a while on my young adult novel, but after almost two years, it doesn’t feel much further along than after I finished the first draft. (Someday…, she says with fingers crossed.)

As you might notice by looking at the date of this post and the one before it, I haven’t found it in myself to blog in over a year, either. I’m not sure why, because blogging feels at least somewhat less–futile?–than assembling an entire zine that only four or five people will read. It’s not that maintaining a blog is easier, but rather that it’s more immediate. I can write for an hour or ten minutes or five days, and I can hit publish as soon as I feel satisfied with what I’ve put down on the digital page. As long as I don’t look at my blog traffic, I have no idea if only five (or zero) people read my posts, compared to selling zines and knowing exactly how many copies I’ve sent out of any given issue. And to be honest, it’s pretty easy for me to ignore the traffic numbers these days. Consider it just one more IDGAF side effect of another year going by.

I suppose, after a year’s hiatus, an update of sorts is in order. Let’s do it in the form of a currently list, shall we?

Currently

Watching // lots of YouTube–scrapbooking and art journaling channels, plant person channels, and witchcraft channels mostly
Reading // She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
Listening // podcasts: Someplace Under Neith, Last Podcast on the Left, Faculty of Horror, Sounds Like a Cult, and Good Mourning Nancy; plus a lot of emo + riot grrl playlists on Spotify
Making // prep/foundation pages for my Week in the Life scrapbook for next week’s community documenting period
Feeling // sad, grieving over the loss of my sixteen-year-old cat Charlie last week; grateful for the kind of life I get to live each day with my family
Planning // trips and visits with friends, all the way through November!
Loving // oddly enough, summer days. I was never much of a summer person growing up, and it still isn’t my favorite season (autumn, of course), but I’ve found ways to enjoy it so much more over the years, and I’m finally appreciating days full of lemonade, playing in the yard with Finn, and forever attempting to maintain a vegetable garden. (Spoiler alert: This was not my year.)