April Updates: Migrating From Dopamine Apps
Monthly curiosities include dill pickle chips and sesame tea cookies, a slow fashion podcast, and three outfits from this past month
Hi friends.
If you’re new here, welcome. And if you’ve been here for a while, thanks for sticking with me. Last Thursday, after watching the sunset in the park with a group of new friends, I lay on the couch scrolling through Instagram. I don’t keep the app on my phone during the weekdays, but I impulsively downloaded it that night. I scrolled and scrolled and looking for connection and instead feeling an overwhelming sense of disconnection. I missed my friends from far away; I longed for closeness with the people nearby.
Recognizing this feeling almost immediately, I held my finger over the app until it wiggled, and then I pressed the X in the corner to delete it from my phone.
“I think I’m really lonely,” I said to Steve. Then I started crying.
Nothing fully prepares you for moving somewhere new and making new friends. It hasn’t been hard to meet new people here in this big city, but what I forget is that deep relationships take time. That feeling of familiarity and comfort with people forms over many months and years of shared moments. Patience is required.
More and more, I’m longing for a slower and longer approach to sharing my life. This desire is congruent with my approach to journalism and storytelling, too. It’s impossible to keep up with Instagram and Twitter, which means that little moments of beauty (flower petals on the sidewalk or a colorful homemade salad) get usurped by targeted ads. It’s upsetting, even if it’s expected. There’s absolutely no room for contemplation or connections on those platforms anymore. I love that I don’t have a word limit here. I love that I can make this space into whatever I want. If I want to write about fashion one week, I can. If I want to share an essay excerpt about figs or capture a weekday walk through video, I can do that too.
Now onto April: Everyone told me that winter would be the hardest in Portland, but I found the damp and chilly spring to be even more of a slog. This sad girl was eager to trade goosebumps for sweat, and my prayers were answered the last week of April when the mercury spiked to 80 degrees. THANK THE HEAVENS.
Some highlights from April included roaming the fern forest of L.L. Stub Stewart State Park in search of morels, but only finding what we think were false morels and other questionable fungi. We also took the van to Cape Perpetua on the Oregon coast for a two-night camping trip to see the waves perform an orchestra on the volcanic rocks. I got my little hairs cut, bought my first film camera (a Minolta SRT 101), and started running again after a painful knee injury. And lastly, Steve’s dad stopped by for a simple and sweet weekend of pastry sampling, bookstore wandering, and neighborhood gawking. Now my busy social season begins. In the next few months, I have travel plans for a bachelorette party in Florida, weddings in Rhode Island and KCMO, and a week-long trip to London.
Coming up this month, I’m publishing a guide to Portland and a travelogue of London. Subscribers will get another round of journal prompts and a recorded chat between me and
. And as always, you can reach out to me directly.See you soon!
With love,
Latest Stories
A little spotlight on Ramble Campgrounds, a new kind of campground opening near Great Sand Dunes National Park this May (GearJunkie)
12 Spots to Hike Without the Crowds (Via Magazine)
Editing and copywriting has been taking up most of my time, but I still have a few stories in the cooker. One is for Trails Magazine, the new indie outdoors publication for folks who sleep in the dirt. My piece is about Booz Allen Hamilton, the government and military contractor behind Recreation.gov. Stories don’t appear online, so you’ll have to subscribe to read it in print.
Monthly Curiosities
Reading: Cold Enough For Snow by Jessica Au was a delightful 93-page read about a mother-daughter trip to Tokyo. Nothing really happens in the story, but small exchanges and memories seem to hold a lot of weight. I felt like something bad was going to happen the whole time, but maybe that’s a sign of my pessimism. Overall, I loved the simplicity of the story.
Acid for the Children by Flea (the bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) is an unexpected choice for me, but I was drawn to the outrageous cover and title. This has been a surprisingly fun reentry into memoir, which I don’t read very often.
Listening: I discovered the Conscious Chatter podcast, which is about where and how our clothes are made. I really loved this episode with Amy Powney of Mother of Pearl. She talks about the new documentary “Fashion Reimagined” and reconnecting with the people, land, and process behind our clothing.
Eating: Up in the Alberta Arts district of Portland, two recent recommendations are Kulfi, a South Asian popsicle place, and Pasture for the best sandwich of my entire life. (I probably already shared this with you, but I went again and it’s so good that it deserves double the recognition. I ordered The OG cold sandwich.)
Snacking: Trader Joe’s dill pickle chips are my new favorite snack
Baking: These triple-sesame tea cakes from NYT Cooking were a huge hit
Wearing: These three outfits kept me comfy. From left to right, I’m wearing a plush Muji fleece vest, a thrifted leather jacket, and handmade linen pants.
Making: I finally finished the perfect pair of elasticated linen pants (third photo above). They’re slouchy and breezy, and I imagine I’ll be wearing them all summer. Here’s the pattern from Anna Allen.
TJs makes Dill Pickle Chips?!
Someone was just talking about the Fashion Reimagined documentary yesterday so I am excited to listen to your podcast recommendation! And yes to slower, more intentional connections ❤️