A Life in Bookmarks
Recently, with some downtime, I organized my Bookmarks in Google Chrome. A practical reason drove this project--a folder of bookmarks I actually need for my job was lost at the bottom of a long, long list of other bookmarks, requiring a lot of scrolling to access. I’m sure there’s a way to pin this folder of bookmarks, or something, but I don’t know how to do that, so eliminating all the items that come before it seemed the way to go. And yes, this is a wrapping-coins sort of organizational project: ultimately pointless, but satisfying nonetheless.
I began deleting with abandon, rolling my eyes a little at the absurdity and/or uselessness of the websites I’d bookmarked, until I realized that what I was actually seeing as I went down the list of bookmarks was a record of several years of my life. Here were the craft ideas I collected at the start of every summer, anticipating long days at home with two little children. Ten outdoor crafts for kids; 25 outdoor activities; 50 amazing activities for kids; 100 kids activities to keep you from losing your mind. Acorn people, peg dolls, glitter jars, a hundred recipes for playdough. Clothespin dolls, glowing jars, slime, STEM. Lunch ideas. Adorable bento boxes. (My reaction in revisiting that one: please just kill me now.)
I could track my own dabbling journey through various craft and sewing projects: color-blocked tote bags; easy zippered pouches; plastic canvas; crochet; amigurumi; the absolute beginner’s guide to the crocheted magic circle. Circular weavings. A million Christmas crafts. Tarot spreads and meanings.
There were nods at past trips: Paris with kids; NYC with kids; secrets of Disney dining; two days at Disney; children’s books set in England; books set in Japan. There were lists of gift ideas for eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds, tweens. Teens. Best drugstore makeup. Lists of all the Babysitters Club books that ever existed.
I remembered the discomfort of my severe lower back pain from 2012 (5 Yoga Poses for Lower Back Pain), and the optimism that must have led me to bookmark Donate Your Hillary Vote (whatever that means). Suburban summers past: the pool hours in Maplewood, kids’ classes in South Orange. Dates and locations for all the rummage sales in New Jersey and all the book sales in Pennsylvania.
And--at the end--the macabre recent history of 2020 till now. Doomsday prep. Homeschooling curriculums. YouTube tutorials for How to Sew a Face Mask. Vaccine sites in Pennsylvania; appointment schedulers for pharmacies across the state. FDA certified at-home covid tests. FDA certified masks.
Throughout it all--peppered in among the stay-sane-with-two-small-kids-for-five-hundred-hours activity lists and the school PTA websites and the links to multiplication tables--are endless recipes, bits of research for my books, articles I meant to read and never did.
The collection of bookmarks is as messy and colorful and chaotic as our everyday lives; this is the information that has underpinned and inspired my days. I don’t know what bookmarks will replace the ones I’ve deleted. I search and save differently now: fewer websites, more Pinterest. And my days of panicky fulltime-parenting preparation--for snow days and long summers--went by the wayside in March 2020. There was no possible way to fill all those pandemic days and weeks and months with magical activities and fun, while also procuring groceries and, you know, keeping us all alive. Besides: no website in the world could have contained the information that got us through that time. Even the most useful website might as well have said only, Yeah, good luck.
The kids are no longer little. We still undertake a wild selection of crafts but I no longer have to scramble for activities to organize for them. Maybe I’ll finally cook some of the recipes I saved; maybe I’ll read the articles after all. And maybe, soon, I’ll be planning a next trip, a next adventure. I hope so.
I began deleting with abandon, rolling my eyes a little at the absurdity and/or uselessness of the websites I’d bookmarked, until I realized that what I was actually seeing as I went down the list of bookmarks was a record of several years of my life. Here were the craft ideas I collected at the start of every summer, anticipating long days at home with two little children. Ten outdoor crafts for kids; 25 outdoor activities; 50 amazing activities for kids; 100 kids activities to keep you from losing your mind. Acorn people, peg dolls, glitter jars, a hundred recipes for playdough. Clothespin dolls, glowing jars, slime, STEM. Lunch ideas. Adorable bento boxes. (My reaction in revisiting that one: please just kill me now.)
I could track my own dabbling journey through various craft and sewing projects: color-blocked tote bags; easy zippered pouches; plastic canvas; crochet; amigurumi; the absolute beginner’s guide to the crocheted magic circle. Circular weavings. A million Christmas crafts. Tarot spreads and meanings.
There were nods at past trips: Paris with kids; NYC with kids; secrets of Disney dining; two days at Disney; children’s books set in England; books set in Japan. There were lists of gift ideas for eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds, tweens. Teens. Best drugstore makeup. Lists of all the Babysitters Club books that ever existed.
I remembered the discomfort of my severe lower back pain from 2012 (5 Yoga Poses for Lower Back Pain), and the optimism that must have led me to bookmark Donate Your Hillary Vote (whatever that means). Suburban summers past: the pool hours in Maplewood, kids’ classes in South Orange. Dates and locations for all the rummage sales in New Jersey and all the book sales in Pennsylvania.
And--at the end--the macabre recent history of 2020 till now. Doomsday prep. Homeschooling curriculums. YouTube tutorials for How to Sew a Face Mask. Vaccine sites in Pennsylvania; appointment schedulers for pharmacies across the state. FDA certified at-home covid tests. FDA certified masks.
Throughout it all--peppered in among the stay-sane-with-two-small-kids-for-five-hundred-hours activity lists and the school PTA websites and the links to multiplication tables--are endless recipes, bits of research for my books, articles I meant to read and never did.
The collection of bookmarks is as messy and colorful and chaotic as our everyday lives; this is the information that has underpinned and inspired my days. I don’t know what bookmarks will replace the ones I’ve deleted. I search and save differently now: fewer websites, more Pinterest. And my days of panicky fulltime-parenting preparation--for snow days and long summers--went by the wayside in March 2020. There was no possible way to fill all those pandemic days and weeks and months with magical activities and fun, while also procuring groceries and, you know, keeping us all alive. Besides: no website in the world could have contained the information that got us through that time. Even the most useful website might as well have said only, Yeah, good luck.
The kids are no longer little. We still undertake a wild selection of crafts but I no longer have to scramble for activities to organize for them. Maybe I’ll finally cook some of the recipes I saved; maybe I’ll read the articles after all. And maybe, soon, I’ll be planning a next trip, a next adventure. I hope so.
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