current to-do list #2
really
this week’s Thought (singular)
the weather…she’s turning…i can feel it…
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that they eat six (6) almonds today. thank you for joining us. may you Remember.
a very warm welcome to old readers as well. may good sense continue to prevail.
Before We Begin
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hi
find the previous to-do list from last january here -
stop feeling weird about not feeling weird. this is how you keep getting yourself into Situations.
laundry
find the in-betweens. everything has an in-between. find the balance between sleeping too much/eating too much/reading too much v/s not sleeping enough/not eating enough/not reading enough. again.
return to your roots. watch less and read more. go back to long novels that you could disappear into for days at a stretch and emerge from a changed person. it’s only been a few months. this version of recreation is still within reach.
buy milk
meditate more. don’t lie on the phone and say you did when you just slept. (sorry).
become normal about definite things ending and indefinite things beginning and the liminality of this time. countdowns are neither good nor bad. savour the time that is passing anyway.
reply to messages from your friends. again. this doesn’t have to be a task.
start selling the things in your room. stop saying you’ll begin after your birthday gets over. that’s just an excuse to not do it now. stop thinking of arbitrary timelines to support your procrastinatory tendencies.
there are things you enjoy doing. nothing is stopping you from doing them. get out of your own way. sing in your room more. keep learning. listen to the new music you’ve accumulated in your to-listen playlist from recommendations and tv shows soundtracks. update your poetry notebook.
use practicality as a base, but keep whimsy as the thing that keeps you moving. the work of silliness is serious and intentional.
don’t get too excited about your birthday, but don’t be un-excited either. be cool. no, not like that. keep trying. by the time you figure it out, your birthday would have gotten over and this point won’t be relevant anymore. phew.
stop being suspicious about whether your medicines have made you less funny. just ask your friends. they’ll either be nice, or they’ll be truthful.
have medicines
become normal about other things like not having to write another exam soon (good?), not having to attend another class soon (bad?), moving back home soon (easier?), losing the freedom of a college campus soon (sad.), and other miscellaneous changes that are about to happen. it hasn’t felt like a transition period for a while, but you can bet that something is transitioning.
stop giving up on things that you aren’t perfect at the first time you try them. you’ve never been scared of hard work, don’t start now. find joy in the practice. give yourself time. give yourself grace.
dishes
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A Picture!
English Recitation Competition
Boléro, Keith Leonard
From the kitchen, I catch the neighbor cross the street to switch off my car’s interior lights. He returns to his house without announcing the favor. For the last three years, a friend has woken early and walked the beach, combing for bottle caps and frayed fishing line. She mentions this only casually at lunch, after I’ve asked what she did that morning. Care has a quiet soundtrack: the sycamore’s rustling leaves, your nails tracing my shoulder blades. A melody that repeats—a bit like Ravel’s Boléro. When it was first performed, a woman shouted, Rubbish! from the balcony. She called Ravel a madman. I think I understand. I wish I didn’t. I’ve been taught that art must have conflict, that reason must meet resistance.
In the Beginning, There Was the Light, Felix Cortes (full poem here)
Memory’s daylight is especially brilliant, tinged in affection, stories, and warmth. Its glow from the past yet reaches us, covering us in our first innocence, our earliest sense of wonder when everything was new. Dawn of my infancy, engulf me, for a suspended moment, in the memory of first light, newborn wonderment, bright emerging life. Oh, pulsing, dazzling radiance!
Emily Dickinson at the Poetry Slam, Dan Vera (full poem here)
When they read her name aloud she made her way to the stage straightened the papers in her hands — pages and envelopes, the backs of grocery bills, she closed her eyes for a minute, took a breath, and began. From her mouth perfect words exploded, intact formulas of light and darkness. She dared to rhyme with words like cochineal and described the skies like diadem. Obscurely worded incantations filled the room with an alchemy that made the very molecules quake. The solitary words she handled in her upstairs room with keen precision came rumbling out to make the electric lights flicker.
The Good Side of the Internet
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this week’s Song
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next time <3