I never thought I’d get here but this is the first time in a long time where I’m living and enjoying the summer season. Maybe it’s because I have a 3 year old or maybe it’s because I’m finally entering into that stage of my career where my whole identity is not so attached to my work. I couldn’t find the will to write up a June newsletter and didn’t feel compelled to show my work. I love the work I’m able to do and the clients I get to work with, but I am building a life that isn’t centered on my work. I’m growing a self that isn’t dependent on work. My mood isn’t as impacted by how much I’m working or not.
This summer has been a slow one with my assignments for news publications and other clients. Financially I’m ok but it still feels a bit unnerving when the inbox doesn’t send me at least a few pings a week asking me if I’m available. But I’ve been moving through my day to day life that I keep forgetting that I’m not getting as many calls or emails.
Instead, I’m finally trying things I’ve been afraid to try. I used to hate cooking or trying new recipes. But right now I’m obsessed with making cold noodles. I’m growing perilla leaves in my garden and finding uses for them. We even came up with a great ice cream flavor mix with perilla leaves! I didn’t understand the appeal of being out in the hot sun and touching the dirt, but these days I’m spending hours digging, planting, watering, and observing. The monarchs have been coming by to our little meadow in the mornings. My son and I love sitting outside in the peak afternoon heat, eating our juicy red cherries. We are taking advantage of our public pools to get a swim in. We are giving our time to the right people and the right people are making time for us.
Nothing has been extravagant or extraordinary, but each day feels special. The time we make for our family and friends feels like we are building a foundation for a stronger and healthier community. I can feel the openness and honesty growing in my relationships, which allows me to overall feel secure as a person. This is a season of sowing into people because I know, in the end, they will be what matters to me.
For the longest time, I took a lot of pride in being the queen of productivity. I can be like the energizer bunny. I’ve been able to squeeze in four to five back to back events/hangouts/bookings and go to bed still feeling like I could keep going. Maybe that’s partially the ADHD but it’s also probably some immigrant version of the Protestant work ethic that was drilled into me as a kid. Work hard, don’t be lazy - that was our family motto.
Achievement and success were ways of me showing that I have value. I’ve been reading Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s book Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World and it’s been helping me to reframe how I’d like to move through my life. Instead of focusing on outcomes, she encourages us to use curiosity and experiments to see what we may discover about ourselves and the world around us. Instead of being set and thinking “I could never” or “I’m not interested in…” I’m just TRYING things and being ok with mistakes and failure.
“In this environment, it becomes tempting to attach our self-worth to how much we get done. Fundamentally, being productive is a way to say: “I am here, and it makes a difference.”
We spend time, invest time, save time, and budget our time. For an activity to be worth our time, it must lead to a tangible outcome. Within that quantitative frame, productivity is seen as a virtue and curiosity as a distraction.”
I loved the hustle life and being a go-getter. Tiredness was worn like a badge of honor. Because it meant I was valued and getting so much work. The grind, the hustle and trying so hard to achieve work goals only left me feeling burnt out and empty. I wouldn’t have quality time with family and friends. I put in way too much effort trying to please editors and other people in my industry while neglecting myself and other loved ones. I took my first assignment at 8 weeks postpartum in 2022 and thought that was a good thing. Now I won’t book assignments near my son’s birthday to keep that day sacred.
Enjoying my summer, my family, my friends and this strangely hot and muggy season almost feels like an act of resistance to capitalism’s grip on me. It almost feels impossible to escape the pressures of our capitalistic society, but I’m trying to find ways to resist.
As Tricia Hersey, a.k.a. the Nap Bishop says “Rest is resistance” and it is a way to go against all the powers that oppress us and the powers that make us sick and tired and burnt out. Without rest, we become numb and indifferent, making it hard for people to connect to us.
There is a performative nature to the work I do which makes it difficult to sever who I am from what I do. Most of my friends don’t think and talk about their work as much as I do. If I don’t show you what I’ve been hired for, then am I really working? I promise I’m working. I’m finding ways to provide for my family, find meaning in my work and grow in my craft. I just might not be showing it as much anymore. My doctor friends aren’t posting about the lives they’ve saved or the surgery they performed or the patient they helped. By nature, photography is something to be seen but I wonder how much I need to show now.
I think we’ve mistaken hustle for ambition. I know the ambition is there and I have stories I want to work on, projects I’d like to pursue, and many ideas brewing in my head, but I don’t feel the need to work myself to the ground.
In about a month, my son is entering into the public school system as a pre-K student and it feels like time is even more precious and something I want to protect. I’m unlearning the ways of a workaholic and finding I don’t need to prove myself to anyone.
I hope your summer has been a restful one and you’re finding ways to connect with what is important. I know it’s been a dark one and heavy one for many people, but I know finding ways to stay afloat allows us to show up when it matters.
Until next time ✨✨✨
Other links & updates
This was the last year for me to apply to the Eddie Adams Workshop so I just went for it and got in!
I’ll be in Toronto early August for a family trip.
Links, podcasts, books, blogs ✨✨✨
This Ologies episode on Ergopathology (BURNOUT) with Dr. Kandi Wiens is relevant.
The photos by Sakir Khader on Israel’s occupation in the West Bank in the New Yorker are photos to take time with.
The beautiful poet Andrea Gibson passed and their passing has been a way for me to deeply process grief and death.
This post about the quiet thrill of not being for everyone by Stepfanie Tyler came right when I was ruminating about certain editors probably hating me 😅
This piece in the Texas Monthly “The River House Broke. The River Rushed In” by Aaron Parsley is a must read with photos by Jordan Vonderhaar.
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"We are giving our time to the right people and the right people are making time for us." A sacred kind of symmetry. Glad to hear you're soaking up the summer, friend ❤️
I loved this newsletter, Hannah. I'm happy to be experiencing this summer with you. I see you doing these things - resisting the endless bottomless hunger that capitalism creates. I am lucky to spend time with you, and very grateful we met.