digital sarah art joy

can this be my home now, thanks

~ 5 minutes to read

previous attempts at nesting online

Here's a few of the places I've tried to make my online home + the reasons I think they didn't work out:

Substack
I wrote a Substack newsletter from April - November of 2023. I think I fizzled out because I was starting to make it more complicated by adding more newsletters for the different things I was working on. There's also something very different about writing a newsletter from writing a personal blog. I think it felt too marketing-y and I wasn't up to embracing feeling uncomfortable in that way at the time.

Medium
In writing this post, I remembered that I also shared things on Medium a long long time ago. The first post was in 2015 and the last was in 2018. I wish I could tell you why I stopped; I wish I hadn't stopped; these stream of consciousness prose-y type of things were/are my favorite things to write.

Instagram
I still plan on using my Instagram, but I don't want to use it as my main online space. There's too much possibility honestly. To post on Instagram you have to decide what kind of post: a story, a reel, a carousel, a single photo with a long ass caption. Ultimately, that's not where I want to spend my creative energy. Plus, everything feels fleeting. I think I'm craving contributing to something that is evergreen.

GitHub
From 2017-2018, I did this weird thing that's a little bit like a now page where I updated different sections in a file: prose, miscellaneous, epiphanies, #hearteyes. I loved the visual of the diff between the new and the old. I don't remember why I stopped adding to it; I think I was using VS Code to write, and it was probably getting tiring to update it through there. I did just edit it through GitHub though and might continue doing that whenever I feel compelled to. It is a bit too unhinged for me to think of it as a central space for me though.

GitBook
I started using GitBook in September 2024 and was super excited by the idea of using it as a website. Sadly, the free version no longer supports custom domains (and the paid versions are more than I'm willing to pay) so that's how I ended up here with a BearBlog. But also, as excited as I was to scaffold out my GitBook, I never got around to filling it out with content. At the time I liked that it wasn't a blogging platform (I didn't think I wanted to add blogging as another thing on my to do list), but after falling into the rabbit hole of BearBlog's discover page and feeling so inspired by reading other people's blogs, I realized that now might be the time to blog.

Personal website
I have no idea how many iterations of my personal website I've been through. The current one is using AirTable as a CMS. Why haven't I updated it in who knows how long? That is a great question. One I don't think I have an answer to right now. Mayhaps that's for another post.

still grateful though

But listen, past self, I do appreciate all that you did to get us here. Especially the stream of consciousness posts you wrote. I like them a lot, can we do more?

the circle of life
is to work
then not work
and sometimes the work is the work
and sometimes the work is to ask people to see you
and sometimes the work is to connect with strangers
and sometimes the work is to connect with friends
and sometimes the work is to connect with yourself

to fill your life to fill your page to fill the air with sound waves to fill the air with color to fill your words with emotion to fill your days with work and play and preparation and presence to fill your hands with paper to fill your brain with leaves to fill your sky with sunshine to fill your presence with softness to fill your spaces with you to fill the past with laughter to fill the future with human-grade love to fill your bed with roses to fill your kitchen with blue to fill your fridge with rice to fill your nonsense with sense to fill your screens with static to fill your breath with sleep

— 13. not working/working, 2023


We’re basically whales trying to communicate through sad moans. Only not endangered. Not likely to become extinct. Oh, there’s no doubt you and I will die. But after us, there will be more sad, moaning humans to walk these streets ignorant of all the people who stepped on the same sidewalk before them. They’ll tell each other variations of the stories we told. Different faces, different tensions, different dreams, but still the street will be black as night with puddles of reflected light and their voices will get lost.

— A Story About Stories, 2015

just right

Here's why I think BearBlog could be my online home for a while:

the customization <3
Every now and then I think about starting to use Tumblr again because it was one of the few social media sites that allowed for customizing your page. BearBlog lets us customize the CSS and that makes me so dang happy. I think we can also add JS if we upgrade? Double dang happy.

the simplicity <3
Keeping things simple ---> getting things done. For what this is going to be (messy, revealing, my attempts to create clarity), it's got everything I could need. Writing in markdown is simple, but capable enough. Being able to add and edit basic CSS and JS is just restrictive enough to be freeing.

the community <3
From what I've seen so far, this place is like a breath of fresh air blowing through the wild dusty web. What people share here feels so vulnerably mundane and wonderfully intimate. Reading other people's blogs makes me feel truly connected to them, even if only for a moment. I hope my writing here can have the same effect for someone else; I think feeling connected is one of the most important things we can pursue.

the personal blogginess of it all <3
I hadn't thought of it before writing this post, but truly when I approach writing and sharing with ~* marketing *~ in mind, it's such a turn off. I have a feeling that embracing this space as a personal blog (even if I am talking about things I'm working on and technically that is marketing? but like in a show and tell way and not a buy my thing way?) is going to make keeping up with it way more fun than all the other attempts. It feels like this is for me, first and foremost. Oh! I have this quote written down somewhere: "Like yourself first, everyone else is extra." That's the vibe. That's the approach.

so, now what?

I'm taking my shoes off. I'm throwing my sweater on the back of the couch. I'm searching YouTube for the right LoFi video. I'm settling in with my laptop and a cup of tea. I'm aiming for one longer thoughtful post a week (I've got a few ideas lined up) + maybe I'll get back into writing stream of consciousness as occasional bonus posts.

There's also some things I'd love to add like a guestbook and interactive elements, so hopefully I'll get around to doing that, too!

Thanks for reading ✌🏽

#bearblog #most-liked #reflecting