a summer sanctuary

I was inspired when The Design Trust sent out an email some weeks back asking their members if they had ever taken an at home creative retreat. I hadn’t, but I liked the idea. How nice it would be to take time out of the usual day to day to explore a creative idea, to fill up on inspiration, to reflect or just rest. I’m lucky that I can take time out from time to time and still keep the studio open and running as I have Domenique and Hannah to look after things in my absence.

I’d already signed up to my friend Beth Kempton’s seven day online Summer Writing Sanctuary so I decided to take this as my week. In the mornings I wrote, inspired by her lovely sparks of inspiration and her creative ways of looking at the writing life. In the afternoons I walked, read, listened to things and just went wherever life took me. 

I wanted to take some time to reflect on Instagram as I’ve been a bit consumed by it lately and it’s been getting me down. What used to be a quiet, inspiring place to connect with like minded folks and see their lovely photos is now something quite different. There’s a background pressure to ‘keep up,’ to make shiny reels, to add music, and a belief that ‘you HAVE to be there these days if you have a business as that is where EVERYONE is’. It’s a trap and we are all in it. Well not ALL of us. I have friends who aren’t on it and have never been on it and I envy their freedom, but for us who are there, it’s a constant struggle to not let it take over our lives right? It steals our attention, every second and third post is an ad or a suggested post rather than something I have chosen to see and it’s just all so LOUD!

I chose Oliver Burkemans Four Thousand Weeks as my reading for my week off as it had been recommended. Its tagline is ‘time management for mortals’ but it is about so much more than ‘time management’ which to me just sounds like figuring out how to be as productive as you can in the working day. But the book was about life and how we use it, what to do with this precious gift we’ve been given and how to do it when we are human beings complete with bad habits and mortal fears! There is SO much wisdom in its pages. Not surprisingly there is a chapter all about social media and some lines really spoke to me:

‘What you pay attention to will define for you what reality really is’.

‘Attention is life, your experience of being alive consists of no other than the sum of everything to which you pay attention’.

I want to use my creative energy on my actual work, not on making reels about my work just to please the Instagram algorithm. I want to read books which I only do consistently when I take Instagram off my phone. I want to spend more time outside in the trees and less time online and I want my online life to be inspiring, informative and meaningful, not fraught with noise and pressure. I don’t think I’ll get to the end of my life and wish I’d spent more time on Instagram!

I know it's not all bad. I acknowledge the beautiful connections created, the sense of community, the keeping in touch, the inspiration, the support, the friendships made. I wouldn’t have met so many good folks from all around the world. I also acknowledge that the approach IS working for some people and they are doing very well there and doing it very nicely. I just wish we had the power to choose what we see on the platform and not be bombarded.

I listened to a podcast with Sara Tasker and Jen Carrington put together for anyone who may be wondering, “Do I even want to use Instagram anymore?” Towards the end, I got inspired when Sara said (and I’m paraphrasing) that there are still quiet corners of Instagram where people are gently and authentically doing their thing and not trying to ‘keep up’ by doing all that expected stuff. I want to find those corners, and more importantly I want to remember that I am one! 

Anyway, the pondering and exploring took the pressure off and helped me loosen my grip. Instagram isn’t what it used to be five years ago and we have to accept it and remember that it is not the be all and end all of everything. There are other ways and other places to share your work and engage with people. After all, this is why I have been trying to encourage people to join my mailing list instead. That’s where you’ll find the best of me.

I've found a new place for Instagram in my head. It’s no longer the twenty four hour singing and dancing cabaret in the middle of my living room taking all of my attention and not letting me see the view out of my window, but rather it’s a glowing lamp in the corner of the room that I can switch on whenever I like and then switch OFF again. (long may this last. Wish me luck!)

Beth’s writing course had a community group that was based on Substack and I joined so I could share some stuff and read pieces by other students, and what I found there felt more like the old quiet instagram or even good old blogger which died out years ago when Instagram came along! By the end of the week I had made my own substack page. I thought about moving my newsletter there, as many people seem to be doing, but my Mailchimp account is intrinsically linked to my online shop and it’s complicated. HOWEVER I am going to put my blog posts there. It seems like the right place to plant my precious words and pictures. Who knows how they might grow. Right now, on the platform I'm a tiny seedling in a big forest, which is just what my first post was about. Perhaps if you use substack you could come and say hello.

Overall, I am very refreshed by my week. It has helped me to process a few things and I feel lighter and inspired by what might come. You can still find me on Instagram, in my quiet corner. I'm just taking it more lightly.

I'll leave you with this one piece I wrote in the summer writing sanctuary. As the nights draw in, it's nice to think about bottling up a bit of the summer...

If I could bottle the scent of summer I’d keep it in the bathroom cabinet I think, with the essential oils and other scented things. I imagine, that when I shut the mirrored door, the bottle would glow from within, lighting up the paracetamol and sticking plasters and sun cream.

And in the darkest depths of winter when we feel mired in the long, grey, wet, relentless days. When, in the morning your coat is still wet from yesterday's rain and you shudder when you put your arm in it, I would say, “wait” and run upstairs to get it. Making sure your eyes were closed I’d take the stopper off and hold the bottle under your nose.

And you’d be back, with bare, warm, freckled arms standing on the patio in the mid summer evening air, looking out at the trees and saying, “love, come and get a nose full of this.” Together we’d breathe in the damp earth, moss and tree sap. We would become the honeysuckle, rose and hydrangea again. The scent of life at its fullest expression.

Thanks so much for reading my thoughts. Do leave a comment is any of this resonates with you.

Hannah x