Burrowing into the covers with a good book, assembling ingredients for your favourite recipes, lingering in a kiss with your lover…as this often overwhelming season fills our calendars, I dare you to schedule in some slow moments doing some dreamy digital-free activities.
This year I’m lucky to have the opportunity to go on a phone-free holiday as a present to myself♥️. I often have Oprah’s voice in my head “the most valuable gift you can give yourself is time” and remind myself that time is our most desired currency. It’s something even the richest of people can’t make more of, and I’ve been steadily scared of how fast the seconds slip by since I was a child. Because of this, I’m all for tricks to lengthen the good moments in life- isn’t everyone? I’m pretty sure this is one of the reasons we are drawn to the arts. Think of how powerful your favourite song is; how you can put it on repeat and soak in its feeling for hours. Maybe Matt Haig put it best:
As I continue to wax poetically about my relationship to the digital world on this digital platform, I’m excited to go deeper offline to see what feelings and discoveries the detox has in store for me. I’ll be with my partner and I can’t wait to spend all of my minutes with my eyes on him and the world around us - bathing in gratefulness that we have each other, good food, and no wars in our city. It’ll be our own special “il dolce far niente”- which if you’re new, you can read about on my post here.
I was going to give myself this gift without telling anyone, but I realized I haven’t written here in a little while, and was curious if it might spark inspiration in anyone else to join me. If not for the full holiday season, perhaps just a cozy evening or two you can tuck your screens to sleep and fall in love with grooming your pets, studying your friends and families’ eye colours, or spend undivided attention admiring your body for all the hard work it’s done for you this year. Consciously using all my five senses helps ground me, alleviate anxiety, and connect to the earth and its animals (us included).
I’m also hoping I will have the luxury to get “bored” - an uncomfortable feeling that we’ve been groomed to reach to our phones to “fix”. Being bored gives our minds a moment to rest in order to uncover the creativity sparkling beneath it✨! This is often observed in children inventing healthy coping mechanisms for boredom by letting their imaginations run wild during playtime - that curious child is still in you and dying to come out! It’s important to find time to laugh- especially during difficult times.
Will you join me? What would be the best gift of time to yourself? Baking? Board games with your family? Christmas crafts? Analog photography? A long walk? A swim? Please feel free to leave your digital-free daydreams in the comments below to inspire others♥️!
So beautiful! Having a phone-free holiday will be difficult for me, at least the latter part of the holiday since we will be in South America--which means maps and sometimes translations when I've forgotten that one word in Portuguese I never use. Maybe Colin and I can plan a phone-less day for our anniversary...what happens when you need the GPS!? I always adore your photos so much - I got so much new film for my medium format camera that I haven't used up because I've been too sad how broke I am that I can't develop the film haha BUT I'll be bringing it with me on my travels and attempt to shoot out an entire roll (12) this weekend before we head away. Thanks for always reminding me to slow down
So exciting to see your name in my inbox. thank you for taking the time
To write to us and invite us to slow down and get rid of the phone. I’m so much more addicted than I’d like to admit. I was hoping to do a phone free holiday and that didn’t last very long. I will
Try again, thanks to you! Much love💗