revisiting life outside of this moment
A few weeks ago I came across some images of the artifacts that are emerging to the earth’s surface as permafrost melts away due to global warming. It’s happening all over the world, from Alaska, to Norway, to Italy, to Colorado, and climate change woes aside, I was struck by these images, devouring them like I had just stumbled upon a hidden treasure.
Over the last few years, researchers have uncovered an 18,000 (yes, 18,000!) year-old puppy found in Serbia, a 3,400 year-old Oxford-style shoe made of reindeer hide in Norway, a beautifully intricate 1,300 year-old arrow shaft also found in Norway, and other odds and ends like rope, fishing baskets, and stone carved figurines.
But the discovery that struck me the most was that of an Iceman named Ötzi, believed to have died in the Alps on the Italian and Austrian border 5,300 years ago. He’s described as such:
A short, comprehensively tattooed man in his mid-40s, Ötzi wore a bearskin cap, several layers of clothing made of goat and deer hides, and bearskin-soled shoes stuffed with grass to keep his feet warm. The Iceman’s survival gear included a longbow of yew, a quiver of arrows, a copper ax and a kind of crude first-aid kit full of plants with powerful pharmacological properties. A chest X-ray and a CT scan showed a flint arrowhead buried deep in Ötzi’s left shoulder, suggesting that he may have bled to death. His killing is humankind’s oldest unsolved cold case.
The dimension to which we can begin to try to understand him by just a few prominent details is a beautiful reminder of the complexity of people who existed before our present moment.
And that brings me to today.
I’ve found myself emerging out of the past year and a half (we all know what it was/still is, and I’ll refrain from using the C and P words) feeling unsure of my present day identity. Lately, I vacillate between being both super nostalgic for what was and impatient about what’s to come, and feeling unable to move through any of it.
What’s helped me, to a degree, is to revisit the past. To remember parts of myself that made me feel assured, connected, and somewhat whole. I’ve been cultivating reminders of who I am in little ways my whole life, tagging emails from friends and loved ones as “lovenotes” to reread when I want to remember the connections that are important (I have 528 of those messages, going back to 2006). I save bits and scraps of memories, be it a postcard from a special dinner, a hotel key card, a museum or concert ticket, blurry disposable and instant camera photos, all in an effort to remember moments of carefree and joyful reverie.
Examining these relics of my past and bringing them back up to the surface reminds me, just like the artifacts from thousands of years ago, that there was something vibrant, dynamic, complex and important in the past version of myself. I’m reminded that I can be inspired by parts of that person again in the present day.
This newsletter and you all are a big part of a past that made me feel centered and content, so I’m dusting off the keyboard and coming back to say hello again each week. I hope you’ll stick around; considering I started this newsletter five (!) years ago and it’s been at least a year since I’ve last said hello, it’s cool if you decide to move on, too.
For this week’s music offering, I’m sharing a playlist that I’ve been curating over the past year, aptly titled, “it’s all joy”. The songs range from light and easy to deep and dynamic, and I put it on when I need a little revving. I recently shared it on Instagram and got a ton of love for it in my DMs, so I hope that it resonates with you as well.
Get this week’s playlist here.
Thanks for reading, it’s a pleasure to be sharing this space again and I’m looking forward to seeing you again every Sunday.
Meghan