There is always a first post...

Who am I and why am I here?

Ah, the first post. Always awkward yet forever necessary.

So let’s get to it. I recently decided to create some distance from social media. Without getting deep into the whys of it all, the separation immediately felt right. My instinct to click the app every time I unlocked my phone—and the subsequent mindless scrolling that ensued—was gone, and I felt almost no urge to return.

And yet, I’ve always enjoyed and respected the craft of sharing stories. I recalled lock-and-key journals that morphed into the electronic (and oh so pink) Dear Diary, that later turned into online blogs.

If you were also a teen in the early 2000s, you remember the salad days of digital connection, where the universe was somehow small and uncomplicated. Everybody had their own planet and the orbits of others were not on display. My small space on the internet was first a Myspace, then a Xanga, and later, good ole’ Blogger.

As humans, we need space to discover ourselves. To stumble over the questions “who am I?” and “what am I doing here?” over and over, knowing (if we are honest with ourselves) that we may forever ask them. Today’s social media attempts to serve as a place to do such ponderings, yet fills every corner with hits of dopamine creatively disguised as targeted advertising, influencing, upvoting, or trolling.

So here I am, on Substack, which looks like a modern-day blog but will actually feel more like a newsletter.

I follow writers on Substack—the kinds with book deals and New York Times columns. While I do spend my nine-to-five writing, I’m not that kind of writer. Placing that aside, I hope to use this space for sharing stories or insights that are of interest to me and (who knows!) may be of interest to you, too.

Enough about why I’m here. A little about who I am…

Just like you, I’m still figuring it out. I live on a farm in New York with my husband who uses regenerative practices to grow produce. This means focusing on soil health to yield nutritious food and mitigate climate change (much more about this in later posts…promise). My contributions include weeding, wood chopping, and integrating what I know of ecological stewardship, which is admittedly more poetic than practical. Together, along with two cats and a dog, we live in a 550 sq. ft. dwelling that is nested inside a 1,500 sq. ft. barn that sits on 10 acres of land (that we recently subdivided from my in-laws’ larger acreage). My professional life consists of writing about environmental problems and policy-based solutions at a large nonprofit.

I get lots of head-scratches and questions about the way we live and why. And I attempt to address them, but I’m just one of those people who’s better at getting words out with their hands than their voice. I like to take pause for the best possible adjective. I am an Oxford comma devotee. And I love a good list.

So here I am. Now, maybe when I’m asked something, I will say, “It’s on my blog.”

Here I am, enjoying some sun tea, wearing one of my many large hats, and slacking on some farm chores.

I wanted to keep this awkward introduction short and recognize I may already have failed at that. Either way, welcome to whatever this becomes. I’m so glad you’re here.