Emily Articulated: Cottage Core and home

By Emily Erickson
Reader Columnist

Arriving in Sandpoint after a month away is like returning to the baseline of a familiar song — settling into the steady rhythm of my life after a long and discordant time outside it. I’m savoring the slowness of my morning coffee routine and meandering midday walks with the sole purpose of stretching my (and my dog’s) legs. 

I’m nestling back into the feel of my kitchen — with my food and utensils organized for the exact way I like to move through preparing a meal. And I’m reveling in the predictability of logging on to work and signing off of my responsibilities for the day with the satisfying snap of a closing laptop.

This transition has felt like an abrupt shift into slowness, like dropping into the middle of what would otherwise be the slow creep from summer to fall, making me acutely aware of how different — how good — simplicity feels. I can respond to, and often thrive in, chaos and stimulation, but a deeper-seated, older part of myself remembers I grew up on paperback books and creating entertainment from a few sticks and string in my backyard. 

Emily Erickson.

This part of me is at once nostalgic and yearning for a time (real or imagined) when the pace of life was measured in naps and picnics and card games and crocheted hats. 

And this yearning, I think, is having a cultural moment just as much as I’m experiencing it. For evidence, see the phenomenon of cottagecore. 

Cottagecore, or the internet aesthetic that romanticizes a rural (and often European) lifestyle, centers on traditional design, clothing and skills, like baking bread, gardening and handcrafted goods. Pinterest mood boards feature images of homemade sourdough on a well-worn butcher block, berry-died linen cloth hanging on a line in the breeze and DIY chicken coops bursting with multicolored eggs, waiting to be collected in wicker baskets.

First gaining traction among Millennials during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the pursuit of hobbies became a near survival skill, cottagecore remains a cultural fantasy — swapping the expectation and busyness of unsatisfying jobs, side hustles and the stress of living in “unprecedented times,” for Instagram accounts about modern homesteading and life in the perpetual golden hour of the English countryside.

Nothing epitomizes cottagecore more than the “Frog and Toad” book series, written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel throughout the 1970s. Originally chronicling the bucolic exploits of the anthropomorphic and eponymous Frog and Toad, the short stories and softly illustrated pages depicting the slow, charmed and often comical life of its main characters, have now firmly reemerged as Millennial “Goals” in near-ubiquitous internet memes.

“Hot girl summer is ending, Toad-in-bed winter approaches,” is captioned above a Frog and Toad screen-grabbed page on the “Thirty AF” Instagram account. 

The post features the classically muted grays and greens of “Frog and Toad” illustrations, with a bundled Toad trudging through the snow. The page reads, “‘I can go home,’ said Toad. ‘Winter may be beautiful, but bed is much better.’”

Another well-circulated meme features an illustrated scene of Frog and Toad in overstuffed armchairs, quietly cheers-ing in front of a cozy hearth fire. Its caption reads: “Stop glamorizing ‘The Grind’ and start glamorizing whatever this is.”

And finally, with no further caption needed to make it meme-worthy, a page painted with the scene of Frog and Toad sitting together on a rock, overlooking the stillness of the mist-shrouded rolling grassy hills of their background reads: “Toad sat and did nothing. Frog sat with him.”

Having spent a decade or more pulled by the force of constant stimulation, turning hobbies into income, working full-time jobs in the hope of one day retiring and perhaps — if we just keep at it long enough — having a home in our name, it’s not surprising that Millennials are embracing the pendulum swing away from busyness and chaos and toward a quieter, simpler, way of living.

Luckily, for me, the Frog and Toad aesthetic doesn’t have to just be a Pinterest page or followed Instagram account. Living in North Idaho, with ample opportunity to sit on a rock and gaze into the misty morning abyss, my life resembles cottagecore more than most.

 I can find stillness and quiet by walking out my door; can find starry night skies and friends to share a silent fire with; and can bake bread, play music and read books from the coziness of my quaint, countryside home  — if only I remember how much I love to do so. 

Now, I’m literally “here for it,” and so grateful to be home. 

Emily Erickson is a writer and business owner with an affinity for black coffee and playing in the mountains. Connect with her online at www.bigbluehat.studio.