Digital garden

You and your mind garden // Anne-Laure Le Cunff

115 // Digital Spring Cleaning

Hard start to the morning, but no one expects any easier on a Monday morning. I managed to will myself out of bed with my alarm, so I’m off to a good start, but poor quality sleep, general aches and pains, and a growing sense of overwhelm have depleted me before I could begin.

Today I am grateful for the mental and physical stimulation found in a big cup of strong cold brew coffee.

I have a few projects in the process for the morning, meetings through midday, and an afternoon I’m hoping to keep to myself. The schedule is light this week, but with us entering the last stretch of the school year, I have serious doubts it will stay that way.

I’m getting better at making use of the moments in between tasks and time spent waiting for the next event to begin. This is time to jot a few notes, write a paragraph, read a page or two, or even step outside for a short walk, though we aren’t having the best weather for it today. Still, the rest of the week is looking warmer and there’s no doubt my sour mood will sweeten in the sun.

Over the weekend, I accidentally broke my blog trying out a new theme. At first, I panicked. I cannot count the hours I put into making this place just right, but after poking around and trying to put things back the way they were, I realized this may have been the reset I needed and the perfect start to my digital spring cleaning.

When I reactivated the old theme, all the widgets in the sidebar were gone along with the custom CSS settings. I tried to rebuild them but with WordPress’s move to block editing, many of my old widgets and settings are no longer available in the form I added them in so many years ago. But, you know what? I never really needed all that, anyway. From now on, I’m going to keep it simple on the homepage but refine and expand my use of pages, tags, and categories.

My dream is to create a place in constant flux, a place with surprises, but I fear this theme, and perhaps even this platform is not conducive to that sort of digital growth. I can’t say what that means, but only ask that you bear with me through changes great and small.

108 // Mind and Pen in Hand

It was a slow start to the morning, but the day is picking up speed fast. I feel good, in general, but there is the threat of falling into a funk. What I mean is that the details of the day aren’t so bothersome, but the overarching essence is dull and irritating.

There’s very little work to do and sometimes that’s nice, but sometimes it can be worse than a full schedule. There’s less reason to feel motivated, and the empty hours tend to drag. There are two things I can do now. I can fill the empty hours with tasks and to-dos, or I can enjoy the privilege of long and languid time. Not everyone has hours they can relax in, hours they get to feel.

I think I’ll try a bit of both. The Pomodoro timer has gotten me through the morning, but I think this afternoon I’d like to cultivate and savor as much silence as I can, while I can. Instead of doing, I’m simply being. Instead of social media scrolling, I’m letting my mind and pen wander together hand in hand.

I’ve been rethinking the way I write here. I’ve been reevaluating my reasons why. I love my little blog, but lately, it has felt too static, too directionless, too impersonal when it was meant to be the very opposite. It was meant to be more.

I’d like to share more of my personality. I want this to be a place I run to again, a place that is mine. Recently, I stumbled across the concept of a “digital garden” and the ways one may differ from a personal website or blog. I’m interested but intimidated. I’d like to have something similar, but simpler. An intermediary between this and something that could grow.

Of course, I have other wide and varied interests. My ego is but one, and that’s what this place is for, but I often think of bigger things too—of humanity, of philosophy and physics. I want to have a place to run to for those thoughts, too. That’s a post for another day though…

On the surface, this is only a repackaging of old ideas and pursuits of mine that I’ve become disillusioned with or distracted from, but not quite. An incremental change, a small shift in perspective, can mean everything, I hope.

I thought my little dream was too small, but now I think small is exactly what I need. That small thing means everything. Now I think that growth is only the process, one that has no end or is an end in itself. An end to which the self is only the beginning, the rest is all exploration of life, day after day, minute by minute, with mind and pen in hand.