The idea behind this place started simple: to keep things small. It came from my own experience of building other personal sites, each one growing bloated over time, which was fine. That was its own kind of exploration. But this time I wanted something small. I wanted a place that doesn’t try to be too many things at once. A place for one thing only: to hold memories.

On the technical side, that meant lightweight, easy to load, and no unnecessary dependencies. So I went back to basics, building a static site with only html, css, and some help from Hugo. No javascript. No images either. Images add weight, and weight has a cost. That’s why instead of regular photos, I made something called alt-text photos. Basically they’re descriptions of photos I’d love to share, written out as text instead.

When I want to share what I’m listening to, I’ll add a small music player to the post. Welp, a pseudo one, since it doesn’t actually play anything. All it does is open a DuckDuckGo search for the song in a new tab when clicked. The design is inspired by the iPod, mainly for nostalgic reasons. Clunky, but I like the way it feels.

The more I built, the more I wanted this place to feel a certain way. So I fixed the content column at 360px, narrow enough that the text stacks tall and the eye doesn’t have to travel far, like writing in a pocket notebook. No responsive breakpoints. It looks more or less the same on every screen.

This isn’t a space for conversation. It’s more like a personal corner I keep on the internet, for myself first. No comments, no analytics. No tracking. Nothing that would make it feel like it’s waiting for a response.

The rest is kept loose. The content is mostly text, written in lowercase. There’s no posting schedule, no particular format to follow. Things go up when they’re ready, or when I feel like it.

The only structure I impose is a system of tags called seeds. Though I use them lightly. Sometimes arbitrarily. The hope is that over time, unexpected connections will surface on their own. I’m curious to see what grows.

it’s somewhere out there on the internet.

i’m writing this at the end of the day, sitting by the window after the storm (with its rushing wind, torn-back roofs, fallen signs) has finally passed. the wind has quieted. just the smell of the night now: damp and faintly sharp. the sky has cleared, and sitting here i can see small lights blinking in the distance — headlights, i think, and the lit windows of houses i don’t know, amber and white against the dark.

i meant to write about the site. but it’s easy to drift, looking at lives.

anyway, the site is simple. a little bare, maybe. i built it by hand (just html, css and no javascript; nothing that needs more than a browser and an internet connection), spent more time on it than i planned and slept less than i probably should have. but it feels like enough to begin with.

i’ve done this before. built a place. left it. moved on. built another. on and on and what you end up with isn’t anywhere but a trail of unclosed doors.

now the sky has deepened. the small lights still blinking out there, in the distance. i don’t know what will come out of this. i hope it becomes somewhere i return to, every now and then. instead of wandering.