Small, Soft Ways I’m Celebrating Earth Day This Year

This Earth Day feels a little different for me.

I’m not in a season of grand gestures or big, sweeping lifestyle changes. I’m rebuilding: my work, my routines, my sense of home. I’m raising a tiny human, figuring out what comes next, and trying to create something meaningful out of a really hard chapter.

So this year, I’m thinking about the Earth in smaller, softer ways.

The kind that actually fit into a life like mine.

As a painter, I’ve always felt most connected to the world when I’m paying attention to it. The way the light hits a gas station at sunset on a road trip. The colors of a sky that doesn’t look real. The quiet, overlooked corners that end up becoming my favorite paintings later.

That kind of noticing feels like a form of care.

Noticing makes you protect things.

And right now, protection for me looks like this:

• Packing snacks and drinks in reusable containers before we hit the road or head to daycare

• Choosing secondhand frames and materials when I can

• Letting my daughter explore outside, even when it’s messy or inconvenient

• Slowing down enough to actually see where I am

• Biking to work for the chance to notice the world around me

It’s not perfect. It’s not aesthetic. It’s not always consistent.

But it’s real.

There’s a version of sustainability online that can feel all-or-nothing, like if you’re not doing everything, you’re doing nothing. That mindset doesn’t leave a lot of room for people who are surviving, rebuilding, caregiving, or just… tired.

I don’t think the Earth needs perfection from us.

I think it needs a relationship.

For me, that relationship is built through painting places I’ve been, remembering them, and honoring them in my own way. It’s teaching my daughter that the world is something to love, not just move through quickly. It’s choosing a little less convenience when I have the capacity and giving myself grace when I don’t.

This year, Earth Day isn’t about doing more.

It’s about paying attention.

And maybe that’s enough to start.

— Britt