Peace/ Queietness.
Dear readers,
I am going to keep this version a bit short.
Last week was my birthday week and I am almost beginning to use anti-wrinkle creams. I did not do anything too ‘fancy’ I spent my day with family, with some good food, music and that was all. Fewer people always is the best idea that works for me. The rest of the days I spent doing zentangle art, which is acting as therapy, and also spending time doing nothing.
What’s new???
Another philosophy you need to know about is the Danish Hygge. It’s pronounced as hoo-ga and is translated as coziness. Scandinavian countries have their way of enjoying life, they always score the highest in the happiness ranks and people there seem to be genuinely chill. Hygge is a core element of Danish culture.
What Happened last week?
I have a poem in The Sunflower Collective
Hear this podcast where I got an opportunity to recite my poems along with these amazing artists.
Birthday Lights - Calef Brown
Light bulbs on a birthday cake.
What a difference that would make!
Plug it in and make a wish,
then relax and flip a switch!
No more smoke
or waxy mess
to bother any birthday guests.
But Grampa says, “it’s not the same!
Where’s the magic
Where’s the flame?
To get your wish without a doubt,
You need to blow some candles out!”
artwork- Sevastianov
Love- Tina Chang
I am haunted by how much our mothers do not know.
How a republic falls because of its backhanded deals,
stairwell secrets. My mother does not know I am lying
with a man who is darker than me, that we do not
have names for how we truly treat our bodies.
What we do with them. The other possesses me.
Without him the perception of me fails to exist.
My mother now is taking her sheers and cutting
through live shrimp. When I was a child she peeled
each flushed grape until only the pale fleshy bead
remained. She placed them onto a plate in one shining
mound, deseeded, in front of me. How I sucked and bled
the fruit of all their juice, hypnotized in front of the buzz
of television in each version of my childhood. I am
her daughter. This is certain. I am lying down with a man
who is darker than me and maybe this poem is my
real republic, my face is my face, or is it stolen from
my mother and hung over mine? If I were a dream
you could say my countenance was a string of flickering lights
made of teeth or an expression unraveling like a carpet
into a narrow river of another life. Does truth matter
when it's floating face up or face down?
The answer to this makes all the difference.
Tina Chang, "Love" from Of Gods & Strangers.
Links I enjoyed-
A newsletter worth reading out- Kindness Magnet
A journey through the mind of an artist
Things to do when bored at home
Are you overthinking everything? Here’s how you can stop!
Hope you have a great rest of the week.
Sending Love and hugs