dear you,
happy may! i hope spring is treating you kindly. i hope you are taking care of your heart, and i hope that those around you are holding you with tenderness and care.
“it’s spring again / the earth is like a child that knows poems by heart”
rainer maria rilke
i come alive in spring. i love the feeling of the warmth of the sun on your back after a long winter, and the way that the golden light makes you feel like you did that one afternoon when you were seven. i look around these days wondering when the fields got this green and the sky this blue.
i feel so much awe for the world these days. the way the brightest sunshine spills through the windows after the most relentless rain throughout the early hours of the morning. the way the clouds part in the late afternoon to make way for golden evenings. rainbows and crescent moons and warm light at dusk. seeing the season slowly change from winter to spring, from seeing the first crocuses to reading under the blossom trees. sitting amongst the tulips of every colour in the gardens, sipping matcha on the terrace of a cafe in the sun, watching old people paint by the river. everyday there has been something new that i have walked past that has been new and different.
“[t]he luminous and shocking beauty of the everyday is something i try to remain alert to, if only as an antidote to the chronic cynicism and disenchantment that seems to surround everything, these days. it tells me that, despite how debased or corrupt we are told humanity is and how degraded the world has become, it just keeps on being beautiful. it can’t help it”
nick cave, faith, hope and carnage
this year i’ve been taking my little film camera with me everywhere i go and taking photos of things i find beautiful when i remember to. i already do this all the time with my phone because it helps me to realise and appreciate the everyday, mundane beauty of the world around me, reminding me to stay curious about the world, but the added component of film and getting the film developed allows me to relive these moments later on as if they were a dream. there is so much magic in the world that can heal and save us if we know how to look.
i’ve been feeling a bit sad and overwhelmed lately but i’m letting myself feel it all and holding on to everything that makes me happy. it’s exhausting and upsetting to try and heal from something when you’re still in the situation, but it’s comforting to know that everyone experiences things at their own pace, and that it’s okay to be struggling and to not have everything figured out. i am so young and there is still so much time. trying to just be patient and present with my emotions. remembering that i can take up space and love myself despite all of these things.
“i wondered how anyone finds closeness when violence is so near it”
jeanette winterson, the agony of intimacy
i’ve been thinking about the way the love in my life makes me feel. the love around me is so healing and i am eternally grateful. it’s the little things within it that i can’t explain but as someone who has always felt alone and lonely, it can be so reassuring. i hope i never take these feelings for granted. good comes from keeping your heart open. it’s the only way we can really connect with each other.
“loving someone and being loved means so much to me. i always make fun of it and stuff but isn’t everything we’re doing in life a way to be loved a little more?”
before sunrise (1995) dir. richard linklater
i constantly alternate between feeling like i am unlovable, to wanting to be loved, to feeling that love is terrifying. recently i helped with a collaborative production for an international shakespeare festival, and we did a little activity about love in one of the rehearsals where we thought about things we loved, didn’t love, and something personal about love that we had never really shared before. i loved it a lot, it was so funny and vulnerable and melancholy and silly at the same time.
because truly, love contains multitudes and is painful and joyous and melancholy and wonderful all at the same time. maybe it is scary and opens you up to hurt and pain and can be consuming / fleeting. and yes it can be difficult to walk around with all of these big feelings in an oftentimes immature, unfeeling world. but it’s the only thing we have really. love for each other. friendship, family, community, connection. everything we do is for love.
it’s comforting to know that there are some joys that can only be felt due to hardship or loss. like a warm bath or hot shower, and the joy of experiencing that on a cold day or when you’re ill. or a good night’s rest, and the joy of that fulfilling sleep after a long and tiring day. or reuniting with a loved one, made possible only through a period of seperation. we create life and joy despite difficulty and that is so beautiful to me.
one of my lecturers recently said “you must have death before rebirth, you have to lose what you have to get what comes next” when we were looking at shelley’s ode to the west wind and i’ve been thinking about that a lot.
everytime i feel sad i can’t help but think about all of the times i’ve ever felt sad before. sometimes i feel what i used to feel a couple of years ago like a glimpse into an old self. but the sadness isn’t as crippling and devastating as it used to be. i cry and laugh and paint and dance. i see a pool of moonlight on my bedroom floor and i know that miracles exist. i am here and present and alive. i see love in everything. love sees everything in me too.
Been enjoying seeing the pictures from said film camera on tumblr. Thank you for sharing them with us and thank you for writing. It fills me with light and hope 🤍
What a breath of fresh air in these trying times… your positivity and honest introspection is a joy to read!