A Yearning for What's Real....

It’s a fast-paced, busy, overly stimulating world, aglow with headlines, constant distractions, and carefully curated lives on a screen.

So many of us sit in little cubicles under fake LED or fluorescent lights, staring at a screen… carrying another small screen in our pockets for our breaks from the big screen. We connect with friends over written messages and emojis void of real face to face connection, intonation and gestures. We eat “food” from packages with various ingredients that are not biologically compatible. There’s usually another larger living room screen filled with more fakeness that we passively sit and absorb.

Much of childhood now takes place away from the real world too, inside four walls, in man-made same-aged groups, under artificial lighting, unnaturally seated at desks most of the day.

No wonder we are unhappy and unwell as a society.

I want real.

My nervous system, my body, my soul NEED real.
I think yours might too.

Real is found outside, under the light of the sun and the moon.
Real is found in the dirt.
Real is found in the kitchen filled with nature’s food.
Real is found in face to face connection, in communities.
Real is found in books you can hold (and smell...if you’re an odd duck like me).

Real is hard.

It would be far easier to reach for a ready-made meal at the store than to cook from scratch with real ingredients. I can easily spend three hours in the kitchen each day.

It would be easier to rely solely on a grocery store. But tending my seedlings, having my hands in the dirt, and watching food grow brings me a joy that many other things don’t compare to. I love the hard physical labour of being outdoors, breathing the air, feeling the earth and humming in tune with the bees. (Talk to me again at the height of growing season…and yes, I do curse the tremendous amount of work growing food takes as well some days…I can curse it and love it at the same time).

It would be easier to put a show on for the kids than to sit with their boredom or emotions. But this is where I see real learning happen.

It would be easier to turn a dial and have perfectly regulated heat than to spend the fall cutting, hauling, and stacking wood for winter and loading the wood furnace late in the night and the wee hours of the morning. But I love the labour that goes into creating heat. It makes us value it.

I felt a strange sense of dread when I heard we can now have almost anything delivered to our home within a day or two. The instant gratification of having a thought, pressing a button, and receiving it at lightning speed unsettles me.

There is something about waiting that makes you appreciate what you truly need.

I wanted to step away from instant gratification and live more slowly and that includes the hard of waiting.

Real is hard.

But I think there is a much bigger price to pay for convenience and speed. Maybe not immediately, but over time.

So for now, we continue building a life rooted in our yearning for realness. It is tough…a lot of sacrifices are made in the process.

And yet…it’s worth it. I seek slow gratification. The labour that goes into grinding my own flour, kneading my sourdough with my hands and baking a loaf of bread 24 hours later just doesn’t compare to reaching for one off the shelf.

Sometimes I feel that the world thinks we are so lucky to have the luxury of homeschooling our kids, spending 3 hours in the kitchen, having time to grow food…etc. The reality is…we don’t have that luxury. We create it through sacrifice. I still work outside the home part-time because we still need money to survive. We struggle to make a small business worthwhile in a small town. We live in an unfinished old double wide trailer we are slowly (oh so slowly) renovating ourselves so we don’t need to be slaves to our mortgage. We intentionally craft time for homeschooling and involve the children in real life learning. This life has taken tremendous sacrifices….

A quick note: I don’t hate technology. I value it immensely. It allows me to write and connect here. But my time online is minimal. I don’t feel I have much time for screens, TV, or social media. I’ve never even had an Instagram account and I don’t want to.

Living a real life in the real world leaves little room for the alternate reality that lives on screens or the internet…And yet, I value it here, in moderation and balance. I can particularly get onboard with Substack because….well…it’s real. When someone takes the time to write long-form (often hours), in their own words, about their journey, the good and the bad, it adds value. I’m here for it.

This is my real…my chosen hard…my slow gratification with the deepest of rewards.