My favorite photo album is random candid shots of my living space. I take them when I move, reorganize, or otherwise feel like it's been a while. I always wish I had more of them, a little more detail to reference during a gap. There's nothing quite so evocative of the way I was living my life at that time.
Of course, it's fun to see the big changes. Different room layouts, different technology, different lifestyle. There's years I've spent living in a way I never will again because the constraints of life shifted around me.
But, it's the little changes which make it special. Even in the same place over the course of a month or two, things move around. You forget so quickly that something existed once it's gone, and new things feel like they've always been there. I thought the habits I had set around the things I use were at least a year old, but I look again and it can't have been more than few months.
And that's just the items. Layout, organization or lack thereof, grouping, that's where the fun is. Even if I feel like nothings changed, that it's hardly been a month of living in the same routine, something always has. I get in the habit of putting things in different places, of cleaning up at different times to match my schedule.
Today, I noticed I subconsciously space my hangers differently than a month ago because I've adopted different wardrobe habits. Items sprawl across the bathroom counter more as I've settled in. You can't get that level of visceral detail of how your life is different from a highlight reel or staged photo no matter how good the occasion, not really.
I look at photos from two years ago and I see someone who owned mostly the same items, lived mostly the same life, and had mostly the same goals, but organized them entirely differently to support different habits and ways of thinking about living.
What was I thinking, putting the calculator next to the tape?
I had a logic then, and I remember it, but I could never follow it now. I couldn't live in that space anymore, I'd be itching to fix it.
I forgot, how many little improvements I made, and how much different of a person I became along the way. It's nice to remember, to see my world changing.
- Rew
Nightly Notes
I must admit this probably works better for me because I happen to be in circumstances where my living space and routine change particularly frequently, and already spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the way I live. Unprompted late night room rearrangement is neat the top of the list of ways I know a night has been well spent. It never fails me.
Whether this applies to other people who don't obsessively tinker with backpack arrangements, I do wonder.
Surely there's some universality in looking at many pictures of the same thing and seeing the changes.
I wonder what I'll make of this blog next year. I already look at old posts and feel the divergence in writing.
- Rew