09/28/2021
A Humble Suggestion for: Mountain Core
Are you familiar with the aesthetic Cottage Core? If you have spent any time on any of the socials in the last two years of the pandemic you have probably seen Cottage Core. The aesthetic has seen a significant rise in popularity, in part due to the effects of quarantine. During the time when most people were stuck in their homes, they could use the internet to escape to a world of calm comfort in idealized rural settings. Through commonly themed movies, books, anime, and social media feeds, people could escape to a place where a relaxed calm and cozy vibe dominates. Common themes involve drinking tea, baking, going on picnics, walking in fields of flowers and wearing clothing that is inspired from a more romantic time period. English cottage style is a heavy influence in the aesthetic, which got me thinking. Maybe there is room for another version of Cottage Core, but something that is based more of the Southern Highlands of the American South. So, this is my suggestion for another aesthetic I call “Mountain Core”.
Having grown up in the Southern Highlands of the Appalachian Mountains most of my life, I love a lot of the aspects of Cottage Core, but at times it feels like it doesn’t quite capture the places and people that I call home. In the Southern Appalachian Mountains instead of beautiful fields of flowers we have thick forest with emerald green moss cover streams. Instead of baking bread, we often bake cornbread or biscuits. Instead of wandering in lovely gardens, we can hike pine needle covered paths that lead to some of the most unbelievable views of the valleys below.
While I love Cottage Core, I think my life experiences lean more toward the beautiful, yet more rugged reality of Mountain Core. The vegetable garden is more practical than the flower garden. Reusing what you have is more of a necessity than statement. Canning serves a greater purpose that just a new hobby. The truth is whither you idealize living in the English countryside or an isolated mountain cabin, both in reality have a great deal of hard work involved. However, in this time of great uncertainty if a little escapism romanticizing life in a thatch roof cottage covered in ivy or a moss-covered mountain side cabin gives you a little peace and hope, then I say go for it.
Here at Sweet Tea Bohemian HQ our ideal of the simple life smells a little more like fire smoke than flowers and taste a little more like fresh ground coffee from an old enamelware mug, than chamomile tea from a porcelain cup. Whichever style you identify with the most, we wish you a happy and healthy Fall with the hope that you find whatever it is that keeps the fires burning in your heart in this upcoming cooler season of the year.
