Salem Twiggs: A Reflection on Time
Salem Twiggs
The following is a reflection written by Salem Twiggs, OSGF’s summer 2023 Communications Intern. Salem has been responsible for pitching, writing, and photographing content for many of OSGF’s summer social media posts. To wrap up her internship, we asked Salem to write a blog on a topic that caught her interest during her summer with us, see below to read her insights.
At a time when technology and media are changing at a more rapid rate than ever, spending time in a place devoted to preserving history and nature feels intensely cathartic. While nature seems to change in a consistent and comforting way, technology changes in a way that rings dystopian and foreign. A way that’s fast and brutal and permanent and alarming. Working on social media and being attuned to the inevitable whims of internet culture during my internship has added an interesting contrast to my time here at Oak Spring: Seeing the value of things that move slowly in a faced paced world. Seeds take time to grow, books take time to archive, and community takes time to be made.
Living at Oak Spring this summer, I’ve grown accustomed to the incredible privilege of being allowed (and encouraged) to slow down and commune with nature. We are nature, we forget that. We’re animals. Self aware animals with blogs and Amazon Prime, but animals nonetheless. With the whirrs and beeps necessary to stay connected to the world today, it is an astonishingly privileged position to be able to be genuinely present in nature on a daily basis. This is not a request for everyone to take a getaway to the countryside, Which for many in today’s world is not practical or attainable. Instead, speaking as a humble intern, I do believe we forget to be present in our surroundings as technology becomes more ingrained in our daily lives. We tend to use the internet as a buffer, a way to condense our feelings into bitesized clickables made to be digestible on a mass scale. Instead of allowing ourselves to be present in moments, we often think about how each moment can be recapped and presented to an audience or the isolated audience of our future selves. We aren’t feeling all we can feel, good or bad.
“I want to tell you to live in the messy world, throw yourself into the convulsion of the world. I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment.”
This passage speaks to me because of Didion’s ability to take the scary, fast moving aspects of the future and turn them into an excuse to feel the full spectrum of human emotion and use it to drive us forward. I often find myself thinking that moving forward (in terms of technological advancement) isn’t the most organic state for humans to reside in. However, if the world continues to change this rapidly (and it will), we might as well feel all of it. Embrace it in a way that allows us to still keep our balance.
I have found it tricky to balance my appreciation for the current moment with the melancholy of knowing the moment is passing. Even within the context of this internship, I often find myself worrying about the future.. Am I doing a good job, are my ideas original, will I keep in touch with all these wonderful people once I leave? However, the short term nature of this internship has forced me to stop dreading the end of my time here and start taking advantage of every moment in this place.
One project I took up at Oak Spring was filming and editing timelapse videos, and I think the end result can be a powerful reminder of the transient nature of time. To make these videos, I would go out, find a place to level the camera, and sit and wait. It was equally satisfying and bittersweet seeing a meticulously planned video clip get shrunken down to 20 seconds long, capturing the change in light and the sky that we are often moving too quickly to notice. To me, the beautiful and fleeting moments captured in these clips are a reminder that change is an inevitable part of life. Of course, change can be scary when it isn’t as slow, deliberate, or steady as we expect, and we should all be gentle with each other as we adapt and move forward the best we can. Amidst the change there are constants we can hold onto. We have always needed plants and we will always need community, both of which take time to develop.
Time is something I have had a tumultuous relationship with since I was little. Beyond the traditional, anti-aging bone broth way women are expected to, I have never felt natural in the process of aging. As we grow older, people fall into and out of our lives, and I find myself unwilling to give up the luxury of having a community to fall back on. I’ve embraced time here, because as time goes on I feel more integrated in the community. The time I’ve had with this community as well as the hope I have for finding more in the future has put me at ease.
“We cannot think about the future, of course, for the future does not exist: the existence of the future is an article of faith. We can be assured only that, if there is to be a future, the good of it is already implicit in the good things of the present. We do not need to plan or devise a “world of the future”; if we take care of the world of the present, the future will have received full justice from us. A good future is implicit in the soils, forests, grasslands, marshes, deserts, mountains, rivers, lakes, and oceans that we have now, and in the good things of human culture that we have now; the only valid “futurology” available to us is to take care of those things.”
Wendell Berry’s work has always resonated with me, partially because he is one of my dad’s favorite authors and I believe somehow taste can be genetic. This particular excerpt that “the future does not exist” is simultaneously so comforting and intensely terrifying. It makes me deeply think about now, and the good things of the present, which for me are the kind and interesting people I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by in this junction of my life. Taking care of our planet as well as our community is something that Oak Spring marries so beautifully, and I think that is reflected in how social media is used here.
A Selection of Salem’s Favorite Photos She Took During Her Internship
Social media creates a culture dependent on constant and permeating distraction. Being a card carrying member of Gen Z, I’ve often found myself heavily wrapped up in the numbers game of online niches and mindless posting. However, it is wrong (and hypocritical, since I have never lived without it) for me to sit typing on my laptop and disparage the internet (the basis of my job). To really grasp the full picture of how we use the internet, it is important to focus on the community aspect. Oak Spring uses online media in such a deliberate way that it feels like a departure from the fast paced, quantity over quality nature of the online world. Firstly, as mentioned, we use social media to encourage and develop a community of locals, employees and strangers passionate about plants or history. The internet is complicated. It brings us together and pushes us apart. It allows us to talk to people in opposite corners of the world from the isolation of our bedrooms, faces lit up by a screen, triggering a period of scrolling induced torpor. But, during times of necessary isolation, it did provide community. My time at Oak Spring has led me to value community almost above all else. Since the internet can be used as a catalyst for community, it shouldn’t be reduced to the black mirror-esque Orwellian looming threat it’s easy to view it as. Community, in all forms, has potential to be something beautiful and lasting.
I wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you for making my internship experience so wonderful. From the moment I arrived, I felt welcomed and valued, and I knew that I was part of a team that truly cared about the Oak Spring mission. I have learned so much from all of you. Your friendship, support, and encouragement have been invaluable, and I am so grateful for the opportunities that you have given me to learn and grow. Thank you to the interns for the game nights on the porch. Thank you Jules for giving me the opportunity to learn from our amazing residents, and for being a light and comforting presence. Thank you Kim and Nancy for all your help and kindness. And thank you Max and Rachel for encouraging me to pursue things I’m passionate about, and teaching me so much.