Seeking Out An Anchor

After I wrote my last post I actually made a few changes as I had been noticing a few things in recent weeks. When I was in New Hampshire, I had a day to just lounge around while the more fit and adventurous part of my family went on a 10 hour hike up and down a mountain. I was going from article to reel to comments to posts all on social media platforms and I could feel my mind and body just getting more and more agitated. I decided to put the phone away and create collages with materials I had stuffed in an envelope before our trip. I think I made three in a row. And with each swipe of the gluestick and snip of my scissors I felt the anxiety and agitation ease. Creating with my hands has always been a way for me to calm my nervous system since I was young.

I have also been noticing how terrible interactions are getting online as well. I’ve been online for 20 some years now and I am serious in saying, this is bad. Yes, I know I shouldn’t read the comments…I am often left feeling absolutely aghast at the cruelty and inhumanity of the words people type and then publish. Some of them are definitely bots or paid trolls to foment distrust and rage, but I do believe that a lot of them are real people. It’s upsetting. So I start to think, why am I reading these things that make me so upset and some of them aren’t even real? Its a a pretty toxic set up. And one that I keep choosing to visit over and over again.

Then I noticed how ads were really being targeted more and more specifically on real life conversations or in messages being sent on my phone. It’s getting a little too close for comfort.

So what have I done? I moved my phone out of my bedroom and into the bathroom. So if there is an emergency, I am a mother of two teenagers and want/need to be able to be in touch, I will be able to hear it. But I won’t be scrolling and losing sleep on my phone. Nor will I wake up and immediately step into the onslaught of heavy and terrible news. I also removed some of the social media apps from my phone so it is not as easily accessible at all moments of the day.

I remember the days before everyone had a cell phone and when an application was a paper form you filled out for a job or a program. I feel bad for my children for not living in that world. How do we navigate a world where our cell phones give us a freedom of being able to access anything and anyone at any time around the world, and yet we are also trapped by them? How do we find stability when we are an audience to bots and paid trolls and rage baiting?

I started thinking about a tree we used to live by. I loved that tree so much. It was actually in my neighbor’s backyard, but I saw it everyday. And I loved it so. When I feel a bit untethered, I think about that tree. I picture it in my mind’s eye, and it steadies and anchors me. That is real. That tree, those branches reaching up to the sky, the strong and sturdy trunk coming out of the earth, all those are real. Not random 0s and 1s on tiny screen. Or the fact that we are told constantly that what is false is real and what has happened is false. It’s all really maddening.

I literally want to run into the hills sometime. But that is not an option right now. So instead I do what I always do, and turn to the creating of images and things that help me feel better or help me make sense of the world. The act of creating has always been an anchor for me. Grateful for that. Oh and also I am putting my phone away from my side more and more. I can read the news and be informed, but I don’t have to be inundated 24/7. We weren’t meant for this onslaught of violent reels next to a funny animal meme, then someone’s fancy vacation pictures, then news about rights being taken away. This is a new phenomenon that we are having to deal with as a species. I wonder how we will fare.

The top of the tree that is in this painting is from that beloved tree whose image has always been a steady anchor for me.

Whew, long post that I didn’t even know I was going to write about. I guess I just had to get it out. Hoping I can write more uplifting things soon… or maybe just the art. It is so hard for me to separate life and art. For me, it’s all the same.