The Symbols of Me

SymbolsI listened this morning to one of my favorite podcasts, Happier with Gretchen Rubin (author of such excellent books as The Happiness Project and Happier at Home) where she and her sister (and co-host of this podcast) discussed personal symbols. I love this idea and the graphic nerd in me immediately thought of a poster with my symbols (once I figured out what they’d be). So when I got to work, I spent the next 15 minutes coming up with this fun graphic. The meanings behind it below ….

  1. The camera is perhaps an obvious icon for me, but it’s meaning is more than my love of taking photos. It extends to my love of creating (with photos and other mediums) and also my love for the subjects of my photographs, mostly people and nature and also my love for making memories and travel.
  2. The wooden spoon represents my love of cooking. It is deliberately a wooden spoon because I adore more old fashioned cooking – baking bread, making oatmeal, cooking from scratch with real ingredients.
  3. The tablet is one that almost makes me ashamed, but I cannot ignore my love for tech and the fact that it is one of my biggest sources for entertainment and how I do 90% of my work, creative and otherwise and how I keep in touch with all my people.
  4. The mountains (with trees!) are the symbol of not just my love for nature, but specifically my love for Colorado, where I have lived most my life and never plan to leave, as well as many of my favorite sports – skiing, hiking, camping.
  5. The modern home is in the center for a reason. It represents many many things – at the most basic level, my love for my home and keeping it nice and decorating it and doing projects that involve it and that I am a home body. At a more abstract level, it symbolizes the things that I do there, mostly be with family and friends. And at a meta sort of level, the modern home symbolizes the life Matt and I have created for our modern family where we have values without religion and share the burdens of parenting and domestic work.
  6. The Converse sneaker too has multiple meanings. At the basic level it symbolizes my active side and love of workouts, running, cycling, etc. and my love for comfortable, more sporty clothing. But it is also an All Star for a reason and additionally symbolizes my pursuit of excellence.
  7. The stack of books is obvious – my love of the written word, both writing and reading and the stack is used to represent volume (perhaps it should be a pile?). This also a nod to my mom who passed on her love of reading to me by reading books to me and how I continue that tradition with my kids.
  8. The mug symbolizes both my favorite beverage (tea) and my love of all things cozy and comforting.
  9. The paper airplane is both the most esoteric and personal of all the symbols. It is a small nod to travel, but more importantly, it symbolizes my mom’s death, one of the most transformative events in my life. It is my version of the butterfly symbol people often associate with death where a soul doesn’t go away, it has just turned into something else. The graphic, clean lines of paper turning to plane suits my aesthetic more and it also matches the necklace my mom gave me for Christmas a few years back, a tiny silver paper airplane that I wear frequently.

There are more symbols I considered and maybe I will expand to 16 at some point in the future (I like the square and 4² would be symbolic for me as well as 2/4/8 are my numbers). This works for now.

What are your symbols?