Inside Out
Catching up on what's going on
February 9, 2025
I’m trying something different today. More of a letter than an essay. As someone who loves to write letters and has a long history of doing so, I thought, why not here. I relish when these pop into my inbox. It’s even better when they arrive in my mailbox. There are few things aside from a handwritten letter that captures such a slow and precious art of savoring. It lends itself to another form of digestion.
photo© Erin Johnson a center piece
My first serious boyfriend, whose name will remain anonymous, was one of the most wildly creative folks (bass player, student of ancient latin and greek, nomad) I’ve known. He and I, though we did briefly live together one glorious summer, would write letters to one another when apart. Using a plan paper envelope was the last option. We’d encase our words in ziplock bags, taped shut, a collage of magazine clippings and art lining the inside. Other times it would be a plastic cassette tape case, a small cookie or cracker box broken down, sides taped, or fabric carefully sewn. A clear address and stamp were the only recognizable and required touches.
I’m afraid I’ve become quite sterile as I’ve aged. What will I do today that is unexpected, off-routine? Still thinking about it…what’s coming to mind is dragging all the furniture out of my living room because I’m yearning for a blank slate. Something fresh. A new perspective. A change in flow. The plan is that I will shop from my house, reintroducing and reorienting the objects one by one. I don’t think I need to buy any new furniture, just shift how it all interacts.
How about you?
I thought I’d focus on the inside seeing how my outside passion project, the garden, is still quiet. It’s dry and the nights are cold. I miss spending a few hours each day in the garden. I haven't been doing much of that as you may have noticed. We’re having a mid-winter heat wave. But it’s a tease. The earliest pruning and clean up is at least a few weeks out. The flowers, the water, and the arrangement making will come soon enough. I have a garden consultation next week. (Yes, I’m both a writer/editor and gardener.)
Instead I’ve been reading more and learning new words like obfuscate (render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible) and quiescent (in a state or period of inactivity or dormancy). I recently picked up a couple apartamento magazines. This one line has stayed with me. “While your skin, the largest single organ of your body, covers an area of about two square metres, your gastrointestinal tract is about the size of a tennis court (some 200–300 square metres). Counterintuitively, your inside is the biggest threshold to the world around you”. Wild, right? I knew this, but it never ceases to amaze.
I think about this a lot. Maybe too much as I consider everything I consume, even the media, has the potential to leave a residue. I can’t separate my nerve impulses from my blood. Therefore the inner circuitry of my senses are constantly digesting, transmuting, or refining information, out of which my experience of life unfolds. I can either seek distraction from or fully, yet effortlessly present.
I keep coming back to a line in The Creative Act: a Way of Being by Rick Rubin, “The more we identify with our self as it exists through the eyes of others, the more disconnected we become and the less energy we have to draw from”.
So here I am, looking at what’s happening inside.
I know two women—Jessica Murnane and Amelia Hruby. Jessica I know personally, Amelia I came across via her podcast, Off the Grid. They’ve made a calculated decision to remain off social media. They have an online presence, naturally, but don’t subscribe to the craven or insipid nature of the social beast. There are others. Many of them. And with each new discover I’m reminded of all the ways, very real, tangible ways to connect. It’s heart warming. As a GenX whose formative years did not have a phone I can easily remember a non-digital landscape. They inspire me. I am strategizing how to do this. How it will work as it aligns with my north star. Needless to say I’m glad that you are here with me. That you read my letters and essays and find them meaningful.
I’m off to my Sit Spot with a cup of tea. I’ve fallen in love with this massive white barked cottonwood. It’s on the next street over but it’s so tall I can easily see most of it from my backyard. Its leafless branches are a poem against the blinding blue sky.
Yours, Erin