aesthetics are nice but they're not essential

let's be normal about routines

Hmm. It sure does feel like we (global) are in a bit of a crisis. This past week has found me in LA, where, despite the June of it all, the temperature has not risen above a chilly 70 degrees and the sun has remained solidly hidden behind a thick, grey layer of clouds. It is not, if you must know, what I packed for.

Meanwhile, in my absence (sorry, yes, I am making air pollution about me), New York has been engulfed in a vague orange haze that, were it not for the toxicity of it all, would be (again, I'm sorry) aesthetically quite pretty. 

Somehow, we have been in a state of emergency since at least 2020. At least. And we've just had to keep eating, and sleeping, and working, and trying to be good and interesting people, and developing healthy and meaningful relationships. All while keeping a semblance of a hold on our physical and mental well-being. 

Sure, I say. Sure! Why not! 

It definitely seems normal and fine and good, and not something that should concern me, that my flight back home this weekend, three-plus years after the start of a[n ongoing] global pandemic, might boast fewer mask-wearers than the streets of New York. Very normal and fine and good (Catherine de Bourgh voice) indeed. 

One of the things that have most helped me maintain my sanity In These Trying Times is a little routine. I've written about it before, but I love a routine. A little predictability to ward off the lunacy. Even if it is mutable, even if it is fickle, the idea that a lot of my days tend to follow a certain rhythm has been a gorgeous little respite from the precarious nature of modern life. Like, yes, maybe I can't take in a full breath when I step outside because of Canadian wildfires, but you know what? At least I journaled while drinking my little coffee in the morning. At least I listened to my little classical playlist and pretended, for a solid half hour, that Things are Fine. 

Even if ephemeral, I love the veneer of stability. It soothes me. I love the process of becoming intimately familiar with my own life and my own needs and expectations, changing as they might be. Because that, to me, is what the platonic ideal of a routine is — to repeatedly examine where you are and to figure out what things, what activities, what people, bring you the most joy, the most pleasure, the most comfort. And then finding and making the time in your everyday life for those things, activities, people. 

I find routines such personal little arrangements, though, so dependent on personality and circumstances — I'm always wary of people sharing theirs beyond their first or second tier friendships. There's intimacy in mundanity, in the little things that make us feel safe. But the concept of an inner life continues to erode, so every time we go online, we get to see the intimate little details that make up someone's routine.