welcome!bienvenu!benvenuto!

Teenage girls asking boys for cigarettes, hand-holding on french battlegrounds, and stumbling upon kangaroos and the smell of butter from pâtisseries on my morning runs…the first three months of 2022 made me slow my roll and appreciate the little things. I had just begun living my Canadian life remotely in Paris at the height of omicron, completely “alone” and without social media. When I left my hometown of Vancouver, the world had started to speed up after two years of adapting to regular isolating, and my extroversion had disappeared. I liked the safe shell I had built around my newly acquired introversion, and I wasn’t ready to enter into the world’s return of the hustle and bustling culture. I appreciated the French and their fondness of long lunches and weekends, immediately feeling a sigh of relief living there.

The lack of “live fast, die young” practices of my 2020 routines extended into my social media presence, which explains my absence! (Hi, nice to talk to you again!) Honestly, it’s taken three tries of returning to Instagram to finally feel like I’ve achieved a healthy routine of its platform. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Our phones have become glued to our hands, so as stupid as it sounds, it would be ignorant to not have SOME sort of self-awareness of the effects it’s had on our individual well-being over the years. I personally (and thankfully) don’t have an issue with FOMO or seeing people prettier than me on social media living their best lives. It actually inspires me to go out and live my own best life! No, the problem with social media I’ve always had is responding to the constant influx of comments and DMs, thinking someone will hate me if I forget to reply to their message that day. This, with the way apps are built to keep your attention stimulated to keep you online, stressed me out and reduced my ability to focus, particularly with memorizing lines and finishing books. I also think about death constantly and measure that with how I’m spending my time. For example, on my deathbed, will I ever think, “Man, I wish I had spent more time on social media!”?

In the height of the pandemic in 2020, I drifted into “Mabel” life (origin story tbc); a life of another era where I had time to bake and cook for neighbours, lived without my phone for hours, ran half marathons twice a week, spent hours curled up reading, and took up embroidery for the nights spent leisurely watching films. I’ll be the first to admit the EXTREME privilege of having a safe place to live during a time of medical, political, racial, and mental unrest. In fact, it made me feel incredibly guilty to find such unexpected happiness during such a horrible time in history.

After this short time where I was given a taste of the life I used to live as a kid before being consumed by computers, I resolved to take as much of this renaissance into my life’s next chapter. Obviously, in this day and age, I can’t live without computers if I don’t want to starve to death in the wilderness somewhere. Of course, computers also have an extensive pro column! I’m not completely succumb to carrier pigeons! However, I think it would be such a waste to ignore all the things we’ve learned since our lives turned upside down. I’m looking at you, man who was coughing in my face on public transit during a PANDEMIC, and woman I saw the other day who didn’t wash her hands after using the toilet! 

I can honestly say taking the little things, the slow living, the “living life romantically” (again, origin story tbc), into my new normal has given me the most happiness. But sometimes I fall back into old patterns. And then I wonder why I’m stressed and anxious and I wonder if anyone else is feeling the same way. This blog may morph into something else one day, but for now it’s to bring myself back into the present and remember it’s the little things, not the big things, that we’ll miss in our last days. This reminder keeps me a more grateful and joyful and kind individual, because it helps me linger in the small moments that are easy to glaze over as we complain about our first-world problems. There’s room for both, I just want more of the former please!

You may have noticed my Instagram (that I have recently returned to) has changed a little. I’m not following anyone, and I don’t encourage likes or comments or reactions to anything I post. Of course I’ve always loved and appreciated that attention (who wouldn’t?) and loved seeing what my friends and family are up to, but this helps me stay off my phone. If this bothers someone, I’d like to ask that person to consider why that might be. Why are we doing anything? I reluctantly returned to the platform and started this blog to talk to “my people” because I trust the right people who are searching to live the same way I do will find it. You don’t have to follow me either! I have a public profile so people can drop by as they please, even if they choose to go off social media too. In fact, I HIGHLY encourage it. (Update since this post was written: I go on and off IG for long periods of time, so I may or may not be on it at the time you are reading this.)

As for this blog, I want to share my explorations and failures as I come across them, because I don’t think I’m alone in my desire to enjoy life in-between the “big milestones”! We humans decided birthdays and graduations and anniversaries and weddings are the big milestones; can’t we decide a trip to the grocery store holds the same weight? This sounds very dramatic (nice to meet you, I’m an actor), but when I discover something that could bring happiness to someone else’s day, I believe it’s my moral duty to share it. This is why I’ve finally come out of my cocoon. I would share these things with my closest friends, but I think more people in this overwhelming world could use some joy! “My people” are looking to be surprised and delighted by the mundane, because let’s be honest, most of our life is built of what we’ve labeled as “boring” moments.

My informal little blog’s purpose is to help us little beings on our little planet learn to find just a little bit of heart and happiness during a little moment of our day. Reframing my opinion of big and small moments on days I’m depressed has been my biggest challenge, but I think that through this blog we can maybe help each other in doing so. If that sappy hopefulness sounds like something you don’t totally cringe at, please follow along; I’m so excited and terrified to explore this with you!

This selection of film photos was taken in Paris, Jan-March 2022.