I got rid of my smartphone a while back.

Not as some big statement. It just stopped feeling good, I felt too overstimulated  and I stopped wanting it around. So I switched and figured I’d listen to music on my laptop, hooked up to a little speaker.

It worked fine. But I hated the screen being open and available.

I think a lot of us do this without even realizing it. We put on music but we’re still looking at our phones. Scrolling through the playlist, skipping songs before they finish, and then getting distracted by something on the screen. We’re technically playing music but we’re not really listening to anything.

So last week I bought a small portable CD player.

I put it on my kitchen windowsill, went to the library, and checked out five CDs. Kacey Musgraves, Lainey Wilson, The Blues Brothers soundtrack, A lullaby album of Beatles songs for the girls and  The Lumineers.

I brought them home and put on Kacey Musgrave’s, Deeper Well album while I made dinner.

I don’t know how to fully explain what happened except to say that the evening felt completely different than it normally does.

The back door was open. I had some open ended toys out in the living room for the girls. I was just cooking, actually cooking, not half cooking while also checking something or turning the volume up on a show I wasn’t really watching. Just standing in the kitchen while Kacey Musgraves played and dinner came together slowly.

The girls played independently for almost the entire time.

I’ve thought about that a lot since. Because it doesn’t always go that way. Sometimes I put something on and I’m refereeing every five minutes and nobody is happy. But that evening something was different and I think it was me. The calmness I felt must have just radiated out somehow. When I’m not distracted, when I’m not half somewhere else in my head, the whole house feels it.

I also bought a little lamp for the counter that same day.

I know that sounds like nothing. But I turned it on in the evening after dinner and turned the overhead light off and I just stood there for a second. The kitchen looked warm and soft and good. I played music and finished tidying up the kitchen and I felt dreamy.

These are such small things. A CD player, a lamp and five library checkouts.

But something about them brought back a feeling I didn’t realize I was missing. Not nostalgia exactly. More like the absence of something that had been bothering me without me having a name for it.

The screen was gone. There was just music playing, one full album, start to finish. Getting to know an artist slowly the way you used to have to. Not skipping around. Not shuffling. Just listening to the whole thing the way it was meant to be heard.

I felt like myself.

Not the version of myself that’s managing everything and consuming content and trying to keep up. The version that just lives inside her day. Cooks dinner with the windows open. Lets the evening be slow. Doesn’t need to document it or share it or make it into anything more than what it is.

I think that’s what we’re all actually craving when we say we want to slow down.

Not less to do necessarily. Just less noise. Less screen. Less of that low-grade overstimulation that hums underneath everything and makes even the good moments feel slightly frantic.

A CD player won’t fix everything. Neither will a lamp.

But they reminded me that the feeling I’m chasing isn’t that far away. It’s available on a Tuesday evening in my own kitchen. I just have to set it up for myself instead of waiting for something to feel different on its own.

If this is resonating with you, I made something for this exact feeling.

The 90s Butter Mom Summer Guide is everything I’ve been gathering around this idea. Everything that make summer feel calm, slow and memorable. It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing less, better, with a little more intention and a lot less noise.