Ways I'm Keeping Warm

One Year on Substack <3

Winter is always deceptively long; emphasized by false springs that pepper the season.

I’ll stubbornly wear sleeveless sweaters in March, willing the weather to change. February will be bitter but my birth month; January is pregnant with expectation.

Last January —one year ago today— I started this newsletter. Self described (mostly because I didn’t know what the *fuck* I wanted to write) as cataloging:

The books I’m reading, things I’m thinking, and ways I’m keeping warm, so to speak. Think: food hyperfixations, existential questions, unsolicited commentary on the daily lesson, etc.

Today, I might describe it as excruciatingly diaristic and a bit all over the place, but my first stab wasn’t so off base.

I’ve been really compelled since, though, by the idea: Ways I’m Keeping Warm. It’s been a companion this year, long after the tip of my nose thawed and I tucked my puffer jacket under the bed.

The Ways I’m Keeping Warm started to mean something universal, year-round. Akin to self care, but not in the self optimizing, consumeristic sense; no TikTok Shop double cleanser to “change your life.” In fact, they’re quite the opposite —the means by which I have snuggled into the recesses of my existing life:

The Ways I’m Keeping Warm are my loving habits, my engrossing hobbies. They’re where I’ve found —curated— morsels of comfort in my long, sometimes cold, days.

Winter has a lonely quality, and it carries. Here are some of the Ways I’m Keeping Warm:

1. Analog Media (n.)

   Definition: Art, not involving or relating to the use of computer technology

   Ex: vinyl records, film cameras, books

   I’ve always been a physical copy supremacist; it’s not an especially unique position to occupy. Holding a book’s weight in my hands —thumbing a page’s corner, rubbing it under my fingernail, folding a dog-ear when I find something particularly moving— will always be more rewarding to me.

   It’s increasingly rare and precious that no code stands between us and artwork —us and anything. Analog media requires no computer translation; it’s not digitized, it doesn’t buffer or glitch. It is temporal and fragile and affirming of our human condition. If you look close enough, you can almost see the fingerprints.

   Consuming analog media over digital allows me to see the texture of what I’m consuming; to feel the threads.

   Ex, as they pertain to my personal experience:

   1. Borrowing from The Library

      1. There is nothing more human or sustainable or perfectly slow than putting your name in the queue for a book and waiting your turn, picking up the weathered copy and finding the previous borrower’s receipt

   2. Shooting on film

      1. Everyone looks better on film*

         *My current medium is a disposable camera which is categorically not sustainable so if you have affordable film cam recs hit my line

   3. Subscribing to this monthly creative writing project by Patricia Durell

      1. Sending and receiving snail mail is so important!!!!!!!

Digital evidence of some of my analog endeavors in 2024 — ironically, from my camera *roll*

2. Going to a Show

   Here again, I take liberties with the literal. “Show” can mean many things, including but not limited to:

   1. Broadway

      1. This year I saw SUFFS twice and it’s not dramatic for me to say it fundamentally changed me as a person. They are closing on Sunday and I am mourning in a very serious way

   2. The Movie Theater

      1. I’m an AMC A-Lister and I love it, sue me

   3. A museum

      1. When I first moved to New York, I had a funny belief that I should save the museums for when it was too cold to spend time outside. Last week I finally made it to The Met and realized I could go back 100 times and find something new each one. Silly me

3. Being alone in public

   This one was big for me in the early months of 2024, but I’ve gotten out of the habit. Coincidentally, I also now have a lot more friends. All the same, I’d like to bring it back

   1. Preferably with a beverage and book, or my laptop and AirPods at those blessed few NYC cafes which permit it

4. Making an Every-Day-of-the-Year Playlist

   Recent addition inspired by my dear friend Lilly Ulrich. Pretty self explanatory: you add a song of the day everyday until it makes up a year. It’s only been four days, but I’m really enjoying the exercise

5. Moving my body

   Yes, this too. But not in the optimization or aesthetics way; in, like, the I’m strong and value the wiry carcass that houses my brain and heart way —I’m investing in its health and longevity. And I’m becoming really mentally tough and more confident in my capability as a result. I’m pretty sure I already explained all this.

The list goes on, I am very lucky to say.

Really, it comprises anything that gets me out there; connects me to the world around me —strangers I can sit next to, art I can see myself in.

Winter is long, and the days short (literally, the sun sets at 4:30pm), but there is warmth to be found —to be made.

I find so much of it here, on this digital platform. One whole year of Scribbled Milk and so many of you —strangers and friends alike— smiling back at me with my bleeding heart, my gummy milk mustache, gah.

Thanks for being here, for following the threads with me.

Sending so much warmth from my screen to yours, xoxo

—Madilyn

Happy Birthday Scribbled Milk!