#26
on living in the grey
dear you,
i’m currently observing the month of ramadhan & it’s been a reflective time spent with loved ones. i love the way communities come together at this time, sharing food and a helping hand. the weather has been so beautiful lately and it’s so lovely to see nature blossoming.
i hope that wherever you are, you are feeling restful and at peace.
it’s finally spring.
“it is late afternoon and i have just returned from / the longer version of my walk nobody knows / about. for the first time in nearly a month, and / everything changed”
franz wright, ‘one heart’ from martha’s vineyard
the days are longer and the air feels warmer. i love spring, and i love witnessing the change of the season. the new smells and sounds, the new shapes and colours.
i know i’m a huge Romantic but sitting in front of an open window listening to the birds + wind chimes and feeling the natural breeze is just so wonderful.
spring is like the world telling you to breathe again.
i specifically love the feeling when the warm sun hits your skin and everything feels still and soft and comforting. i’ve been spending a lot of time in nature and by the water recently and it has been so healing. in particular, i’ve been frequenting the gardens a lot, and it’s been so lovely to see the gradual growth of flowers like daffodils, hyacinths, iris, bluebells, and of course, tulips. going for a drive and seeing colour in the trees again is so wonderful after a long winter. the days feel so full of colour and blooming in spring, and life and love feel endless.
“how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. what we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing”
annie dillard, the writing life
i read something recently that said that things don’t end they just transform which sometimes looks like an ending but it isn’t. there is always hope and if not there is always change.
i think that human connection is such a blessing despite how temporary it can be. whatever happened or will happen to us is a fact of our existence, i am just grateful to have crossed paths with you and to have meant something to you somewhere somehow.
“the world i believe in is wider than that. and anyway,
what’s wrong with maybe?”mary oliver, the world i live in
this month i have been reading ross gay’s ‘the book of delights’, and i love how he talks about delight. as something in its own entirety. writing the book of essays, he felt his life “to be more full of delight”, not at a loss of sorrow or fear or pain or loss but simply just full of more delight. that really resonates, the idea that pain or loss are facts of life and make us human but there is always more we can be grateful for and can find delight in despite. it’s such a hopeful sentiment. he also talks about how this delight grows, much like love and joy, when shared.
as humans, we are obsessed with the idea of happiness. this idea that if we are not happy all the time, there is something wrong. but really, we aren’t meant to be happy all the time. we are meant to go through periods of feeling wounded or lonely or heartbroken because that is what it is to be human. to feel. and this obsession with happiness often gives us grief because we feel like we’re failing somehow.
it’s easy to look at others and think they are all doing so much better, and we are grasping onto fleeting moments that we hold on to until we are happy again. but we have to let those moments go and let them exist where they exist in our lives. we have to let ourselves experience all emotions and acknowledge all parts of ourselves. like rilke said, no feeling is final. happiness will come back to us, even when we least expect it to, even when it feels impossible.
love works similarly. part of accepting love requires accepting the fact of grief. but this does not mean love is vain. let yourself be alive in the now. you don’t need to think so far ahead all the time. the potential exists now.
people are never this neat idea you have of them wrapped nicely in a bow. everyone is going through something all the time. everyone is human and wounded. it is vital to approach people in good faith and care. and you must build a home inside of yourself to recognise the home in others that is the most familiar to you.
“just lying on the couch and being happy. only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head. trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has so much to do in the world.
people who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget. when dawn flows over the hedge you can get up and act busy.
little corners like this, pieces of heaven left lying around, can be picked up and saved. people won't even see that you have them, they are so light and easy to hide.
later in the day you can act like the others. you can shake your head. you can frown.
william stafford, any morning
there’s been a lot of conversations about ‘therapy speak’ lately which has been so important to consider. in particular, i detest this individualist idea that we ‘don’t owe anyone anything’. we do owe everything to everyone. we owe people the common decency to communicate and be kind. that is part of being alive and experiencing life. to consciously and purposefully be an ally to fellow humans.
“i want to tell you something. this morning
is bright after all the steady rain, and every iris,
peony, rose, opens its mouth, rejoicing. i want to say,
wake up, open your eyes, there’s a snow-covered road
ahead, a field of blankness, a sheet of paper, an empty screen.
even the smallest insects are singing, vibrating their entire bodies,
tiny violins of longing and desire. we were made for song.
i can’t tell you what prayer is, but i can take the breath
of the meadow into my mouth, and i can release it for the leaves’
green need. i want to tell you your life is a blue coal, a slice
of orange in the mouth, cut hay in the nostrils. the cardinals’
red song dances in your blood. look, every month the moon
blossoms into a peony, then shrinks to a sliver of garlic.
and then it blooms again.barbara crooker, listen
we were put on this earth to care about each other. to love and be loved.
“i’m not afraid of love / or it’s consequence of light”
joy harjo, the creation story
“i’m not telling you to make the world better, i’m just telling you to live in it. not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. to look at it. to take chances. to make your own work and take pride in it”
joan didion
everyone is always in such a rush all the time. slow down. enjoy your meal. savour your cup of tea. enjoy the moment because it is fleeting. do what makes you happy. life is too short to try to live without embarrassment. you have to let yourself be humiliated and learn to live with the shame of being alive.
“lately, something has taken hold of me— not hunger, not shame. it is like a flower blooming in the injury”
richie hoffman, blue anther
i love you. thank you for reading this, i hope your life is always full of music and warm bread ♡
read this over my breakfast and now i feel unbearably tender. thank u so much
reading this felt like a warm hug