Letter to October #12

Dear October,
       Today you were blustery and bright. I was restless and a little stressed. We keep our window open and the wind knocks the papers off my desk. It's a little strange, coming back to an empty room with papers flung about as if someone had tossed them into the air. My life feels a little like that right now. Scattered by unseen forces, and I'm scrambling to pick up the pieces. The strange thing is, there's beauty in the mess, and beauty in stooping over again and again to collect the parts of my life that matter to me. Every day I rearrange them on my desk, I stack them in piles, finish some things, throw other things away. I try to weigh them down with something, but then the wind comes back and they scatter again.
It smells like fall now, and I don't mean that it smells like the maple syrup from the Quaker Oats factory (though sometimes it smells like that, too). So October, you're magic, and I just have to remember to breathe it all in.

Laura

ps. I just watched Frances Ha on Netflix, and I recommend it to every twenty-something who's ever dreamed of becoming an artist, who's ever dealt with loneliness, who's ever felt like they were floating and couldn't find their bearings. Just the right amount of realism and whimsy.

Song of the Day: Two Birds by Rachel Sermanni

Letter to October #11

Dear October,
      Today, my mind is on other things. It's difficult to reflect every day, to try to cull what you've learned in the past 24 hours. Today my thoughts are filled with everything I have to do tomorrow and the day after that. I got to talk to my best friend today, which was lovely, of course. I went on a rushed, mad dash through an art museum because we got there right before closing time. I thought a lot about what I needed to get done, and didn't get very much of it actually finished. I have some good things on the horizon, October, it's just a matter of figuring how to get all this other stuff out of the way so I can enjoy it when it comes. I await the day when I can write one of these letters an proudly proclaim that I was productive, that I managed to get things done while still having time for fun things. Who knows, maybe that day will be tomorrow. But right now, I'm playing catch up for all the things I was blissfully unaware of yesterday. So it goes.

Laura

Song of the Day: Ballad of Oregon by River City Extension

Letter to October #10

Dear October,
       Sometimes I have these seemingly unremarkable days, where I learn a new song on my mandolin, or read a book for several hours, or just chill. Most of the time I regret this at the end of the day. I chastise myself for hardly leaving my dorm room, for not talking to more people, for not doing something "productive." But tonight this feeling of gratitude washed over me. For a few, fleeting moments, everything I experienced today felt like a miracle. I can type in the name of practically any song into Google and find the chords to it. If I don't remember how to play a chord on the mandolin I can find a diagram for it. There's a stack of books in my room that I can keep for up to six weeks, for free. When I get tired of reading, I go onto Youtube. I watch Jen Campbell, a writer and bookseller, talk about the project she's doing where she is writing 100 poems in 48 hours to raise money for a charity called The Book Bus. I am amazed at the scope of information that is available to us with just a single click, twenty-four hours a day. I am amazed that such a simple, quiet day can make me feel this way. Not every day has to be amazing. Not every day has to be exciting or new or even interesting. There's something to be said for stillness and quiet appreciation. It sounds cliche, and it's actually a lot harder than it sounds. To be grateful, you have to give up your preconceived notions, the complaints you cling to, fall back on. Being grateful is, like anything worthwhile, an act of courage.
So anyway, here I am. Computer on my lap, blankets around me, listening to my favorite evening playlist. There are a lot of directions this day could have gone. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Laura

Song of the Day: Early Morning Riser by The Weepies (This song just makes me happy)

Letter to October #9

Dear October,
       Some questions:

1. Why does watching five episodes of television in a row make me feel worn out? Isn't it supposed to *not* require thought and effort?
2. Why do we avoid the things we most want?
3. How did pumpkin spice take over the world?
4. How do YOU feel about pumpkin spice, October? It seems like you'd be the definitive authority on the matter.
5. What makes language demand to be read aloud? I'm reading How to be Both by Ali Smith, and I find myself mouthing the words under my breath. It's like a compulsion- her words just flow. 
6. If I spend all of my time and energy consuming other people's creative work, what time is left over for me to do my own?
7. Is there a threshold for consuming other people's work? Is there a point where we just raise our hands and call "Enough!"? Maybe there is merit in consuming less so that we can listen to our own voices for a little while.
8. Is the internet making us kinder?
9. Why are we obsessed with kid geniuses and child prodigies? Why does being talented faster have any more merit than achieving incredible things at 90 years old?
10. How the heck did it get to be midnight already?

Lots of things happening in my brain today.

Laura

Song of the day: Keep Your Head Up by Ben Howard

Bonus material!
Some of the things that lead me to these questions:
1. This fantastic interview with Fran Lebowitz on the Bullseye podcast
2. The most recent episode of Radiolab (not directly related to the above questions, but listen to it and it will make you question your reality. Also it's just a really good story)
3. This entire pumpkin spice tag on The Consumerist
4. The first 80 pages of How to be Both  by Ali Smith (That's how far I've gotten; can't comment on the rest of it yet :))

Letters to October #7 + 8

I'll stop taking cliche sky pictures when the sky stops being beautiful

Dear October,
      (This one is extra long and rambly because I missed yesterday!) When I was little I thought adulthood involved two things: routines and coffee shops. Now that I'm 20 years old (verging on 21 oh my god), let's take a closer look at these, shall we?

Routines
As a kid I was obsessed with routines. I made up elaborate daily schedules for my toys. I had a tiny plastic bear that I imagined practiced his electric guitar at 5am every morning, much to the consternation of his neighbors. I distinctly remember excitedly suggesting that my parents alternate the days on which they read me bedtime stories. My mom would read to me on one day, then the next day would be my dad's turn, etc. Upon hearing my innovative and time-saving idea, my parents smiled and said something like, "It's more interesting if we mix things up a bit." Part of my love of routines stemmed from the fact that I thought that's what adulthood was like. Adulthood meant structuring your day any way you liked, and that to me meant doing the same thing at the same time every day. It wasn't the monotony that attracted me (shocking, I know); it was the simplicity. I loved the idea of living a simple life, full of simple pleasures. Enjoying breakfast in a light-filled kitchen. Taking long walks with my dog through the forest that I imagined surrounding my little cottage. I would be a regular at a diner where I would eat pie every afternoon.
So. How does my strange little fantasy hold up? While I still value the idea of routines, and try, futilely, to cobble together some kind of relaxing morning routine, my picture of an ideal life has changed drastically. Now, I value change and movement just as much as I value time management. I want to travel. I want to experience new things, live in several different cities, and most of all, I no longer crave the so called "simplicity" of rigorously structured days. Maybe when I'm retired and living in the idyllic town of Cloudcroft, New Mexico, or some hamlet in the wild hills of Ireland, I will be ready to embrace my childlike longing for sameness. I must admit, eating pie every afternoon doesn't sound bad at all.

Coffee Shops
If there's one thing that came to my young mind when I pondered the mysteries of adulthood, it was coffee shops. Coffee shops, in no uncertain terms, symbolized freedom. I imagined my adult self meeting up with my adult best friend at a coffee shop in New York City (don't ask me how this relates to my vision of simplicity and the cottage in the woods), where we would have wild creative notions and sketch award-winning ideas onto napkins. I thought adults spent the majority of their time in coffee shops. I thought that this was how most people got work done. And all of this boundless creativity was fueled by a marvelous black drink that I hadn't quite developed a taste for yet. (Though I started drinking coffee much earlier than most kids).
Today, coffee shops still hold a special kind of magic. The most ordinary of days can be made interesting by a good conversation in a coffee shop. It seemed fitting that the first place I drove to without my mom in the passenger seat after I'd gotten my licensee was my local coffee shop. Even for a fleeting moment, my vision of adulthood was a little bit true. Now, I'm fascinated by the societal and creative context of coffee shops: how we use them, what role they play in society, and why they've inspired so many great minds. While I know that adulthood (and independence) doesn't consist solely of afternoons spent in coffee shops, I think my younger self would be happy to know that a visit the coffee shop across the street from campus weekly (lets be real: several times a week). It's nice to know I've lived up to my younger self's expectations, even in the tiniest way possible.

These are my jumbled thoughts on adulthood. In addition to pondering my past self and her unrealistic (and frankly bizarre) expectations, I finished reading the fabulous Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge and started reading How to Be Both by Ali Smith. It's giving me a lot to think about, and I absolutely adore being immersed in words. That's one thing that's never changed.

Laura

Song of the day: Clay and Cast Iron by Darlingside (from their new album!)

Letter to October #6

Dear October,
      I've been thinking a lot about the difference between the person we are when we're alone and the person we are when we are when we're around other people. If we're lucky, the difference isn't very noticeable, maybe only to ourselves. But more often then not, I find myself shifting ever so slightly to better fit the space that the person I'm with occupies. The essentials of my personality are always there, but the nuances are different. I do this without even thinking about it. I think we all do.
Lately I've been seeing the word "authentic" thrown around on social media and in real life. It's one of those words that is practically meaningless when it's used alone. You can only be authentic in relation to something that's fake. There's no one true way to be authentic, because authenticity is something that, by definition, just exists, free from all outside influence. To be honest, I'm not sure true authenticity exists, at least not in people. People can be genuine. They can have good intentions, and a strong moral compass, and a unique personality. But true authenticity? What does that even mean? How do we dig into the core of our being to find it? And if we stuck to it, how many people would we alienate in the process?
To me, being genuine is the act of reaching for authenticity. It's a word that, while still context specific, is much easier for me to wrap my head around. To be genuine is to know yourself and present as much of yourself to the world as you can. Genuineness allows for mistakes and variation, while, authenticity feels fixed, as if your personality were a gemstone that could be examined under a magnifying glass.
At this point I could probably wax poetic about the impossibility of two very similar words having completely different connotations in my head. I find it amazing that I can even articulate the differences, however clumsily. But it's getting late, October, so I'll leave you with a question instead. I wonder how you act around the other months- if you ever put flowers in your hair to impress May, or paint the leaves with frost to get on December's good side. I wonder if you are jealous of July's swagger, or March's temper, or September's mildness. I wonder if you ever lie on your back in the grass and stare up at the sky and search for your authentic self. I wonder, for the millionth time, if you can see your own beauty.

Laura

Song of the Day: Featherstone by The Paper Kites

Letter to October #5

Dear October,

       Here are some thoughts I've had today:

1. Red velvet cake and cream cheese icing is always a good idea

2. How come I always have more homework than I think I do? Is there a psychological reason for that?

3. Some songs make me feel full to bursting and some make me feel this strange, hollow ache for faraway places. I think there's value in both feelings.

4. Does every plant have a specific smell, or just things like grass and pine trees?

That's all I've got for you today, October. (No photo because I forgot! Sorry!)

Laura 

Song of the day: Honey Jars by Bryan John Appleby