On Returning
I'm New Here - Offering 13
Hello, and welcome back to the lucky thirteenth offering of “I’m New Here,” a newsletter about finding grounding and connection in changing times. I’m excited to be back after a long hiatus! Thank you as always for reading, and welcome to new subscribers! 📬
Over the weekend, I was speaking with someone about their childhood home, which was sold last year. Their son had recently been back to the old neighbourhood, and sent her a video of how much had already changed. Through the conversation, I found myself reflecting on my own approach to the apartments I’ve lived in as an adult - my impulse is often not to return to them, for fear of what they’ve become shifting my own memories of a place.
This hesitance to return isn’t just limited to past postcodes - I felt a similar apprehension returning to this offering after such an extended break. Perhaps you’ve felt this way about a return of your own - to a song that was once the soundtrack to your life, to a passion that used to define you, or to a friendship that has faded with time. In these moments of reticence, we are grappling with invitations - all these things can serve as portals into past versions of ourselves, enticing us with opportunity but also sparking emotions that can feel far easier to avoid.
Like a well-worn trail that has returned to its wild state, we are also not returning to how we left things - time shapes people, places and perceptions in such nuanced and differing ways. When we re-engage, we are re-engaging with something that has been transformed by the shifting seasons. It can be a disorienting feeling to come back to something that feels comforting, yet unfamiliar, all at once.
Despite both the strong emotions and these forces of distortion, a return can still feel alluring. It is why nostalgia has such a strong pull - while time inevitably shapes us and everything around us, so long as something stays as a memory in our minds, it remains pure, like an object carefully wrapped and tucked away for safekeeping. In this state, things can feel simpler, more straightforward, and less complicated than what is filling our days in the present.
Amidst all these competing contradictions, it feels as though we are in a season of returns - from the lighter (a return to analog and pop culture nostalgia) to the serious and significant (the rise of the far right). As we grapple with latter (perhaps in part through a retreat from today’s technology and back to 2016), it can feel overwhelming to consider how we chart a course out of the darkness. When I feel that way, I try to remind myself of something else about returns:
If we have been here before (wherever “here” may be), we come with memory and experience, which can shape how we re-engage or respond to things as they are presented to us again.
From the urgency of this current moment to the content that fill our feeds, this rings true. This is sadly far from the first time in history (even recent history) where we have had to confront the multitude of forces that seek to divide us. We can pick up “old” objects with a newfound appreciation of their screen-free existence, or re-examine pop culture of the past with a newly critical eye. How we engage now doesn’t need to be how we’ve engaged before.
In all forms of return, there exists an opportunity - not to return back to how we or the world around us were at a moment in time, but to come to it with the fullness of all we’ve experienced and all the changes that have come with time. If we’ve been here before, how can we channel change and growth into our response?
I’d love to hear your reflections on returning, and how you’ve approached a return of your own. And thank you as always for reading and staying subscribed during this pause.
Sparks 💥
To close out each newsletter, I offer a few things that have “sparked” something for me (joy, reflection, pause). For this offering, I have a trio of music recommendations:
Teeks: “My Boy” - A long-awaited return after one of my favourite albums of the past few years, this new single also came with this powerful post.
Saint Levant: “سمرة (Samra)” - I saw Saint Levant as a part of Naarm’s RISING Festival earlier this year, which remains one of the best shows I’ve had a chance to see.
Jordyn with a Why: “Man I Need” - This Te reo Māori cover is gorgeous, and I am fully invested in the campaign to see them open for Olivia Dean on the Aotearoa dates of her tour later this year!