An Update on Seeing. & an Alpine Dispatch

Hi there!

It’s a very Monday Tuesday and I’m coming to you with a dispatch from the lush mountains of Bavaria and some ideas for what I want to do with Seeing.

I’ve never written a newsletter before that wasn’t for commercial purposes; I’ve always felt it was a bit ridiculous to expound the minutiae of one’s life online. At the same time, it can be such a beautiful way to connect with other people. Truthfully, I think I may have been hiding behind the brands I was building, as well.

This time around, I want to give things a different spin.

But First, a Dispatch From the Alpine Jungles

I don’t know if you know this - I currently live in the German alps. On a sunny day, the place I’m at looks like a technicolor postcard. It’s so pretty, it’s unreal.

Unfortunately, it’s not been technicolor weather. It’s been raining for days now. Where I’m at, it’s very common for a downpour to get stuck. We’re on the very northern edge of the Alps and sometimes the clouds just get caught here. They hook onto the spiky edges of the peaks like hair to velcro. The only way out for them, it seems, is to let go of all their rain slowly, steadily – like rain-spaghetti falling from the sky. On the upside, all this rain has turned meadows and forests into the lushest shade of green imaginable. It’s downright jungle-y.

For me, those days are a bit tough in the department of mental sparkles and glitter. A constant cloud cover in a bowl-shaped valley can quickly feel like you’re living under the lid of a salad bowl. Even in good weather, you can’t see the horizon for mountains. When the view of the sky becomes obstructed, it can get a bit claustrophobic.

I think a geography like this can only inspire two reactions. It’s very binary! You either love it, because it feels safe and secluded from the world. Or, it drives you to leave, because you wonder what the world is like beyond the walls of rock and ice.

Either way, a place like this is great for holidays, but not for being an active participant in the world. When I lived in big places like London or Mexico City, it was like there was a magnetic draw to leave the house, even to just go for a walk. While occasionally intense, there is something about being in a city of that size that encourages activity and exploration. There’s so much to see all the time with all the newness around you. Whereas in the mountains, it’s an ever-evolving experience of re-seeing, having to work your environment for inspiration, and the need to really, really cultivate an attentive perception for your surroundings and the small details in them.

Seeing your environment and interacting with it is very different in these places. A city can get overwhelming, of course. Recently, I’ve been feeling a yearning for that sensory stimulation, though - as much as I love nature.

So all this is to say that I’m excited to leave the mountain retreat I’ve been spending the past four years at. I am ready to be seeing *cough* new things and share them with you.

Seeing.

Now, onto Seeing. I know that you’re reading this, because you had signed up for one of my old newsletters (plus some people who have found me since, hi!).

I stopped writing those info newsletters, because I missed being creative and didn’t like pretending to be a knowledge creator. I don’t enjoy being an internet stranger doling out semi-solicited advice to humanity.

While I wasn’t fully aware of it, when I pulled the plug on my newsletters, I wanted to go back to making things and being in the world. My time in the mountains plus making content screaming into the online void felt too removed from the action of life. While it’s exhausting at times, I love toiling in the mundane, being out and about, and bumping into people. Or rather, I think people would say they bump into me.

Where’s All This Creativity Coming From, Suddenly?

To give you some context, as I invite you to continue on the journey with me: My love for creativity isn’t a new turn of events. It’s a long-buried passion.

About a decade ago, I very seriously contemplated a career as a documentary photographer. I studied photography, worked in news, interned with somebody who knew their stuff, and did some foreign reporting. It turned out to not be the career for me, though. After some forays into the art world and hating absolutely everything I was making (imposter syndrome much?!), I abandoned any creative work altogether.

I felt like business would be a better outlet for my creativity. While that was fun, it didn’t light up my soul. You can do that for a while, engage in work that feels okay enough. Long-term, it’s not a sustainable approach - at least not for me.

Life’s too short to have a beige, non-sparkly soul. You want to aim for a Plan A life.

Seeing. and some of the other ideas I’m brooding on at the moment are a joyful, if only slightly hair-raising (for me) return to all things creativity.

Seeing. explores both - the inner and the outer vision, beautiful things and introspection.

What I Want to Do Now…

1. is to send you an email once a week with a picture of the week

2. and an occasional dispatch on things I saw (inside and out)

I’ll write all this, when I feel I have something to say. Otherwise, it feels forced. Both, your and my time, is too valuable for uninspired content on the clock.

AI can do that now for us - churn out writing without inspiration. I don’t want that.

Seeing. is motivation to keep leaving the house again and maybe share some of the cool things I got to see on my travels and during life abroad.

I’m looking forward to it - and to be out and about in the world again.

Have a lovely day,

Johanna