SMFSLPP pt.3
(so many feelings, such less processing power) (this is a real thing) (pt.3)
this week’s Thought (singular)
i wish more people would understand the joy of a good rusk with tea. the crumbs are a part of the experience.
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 discover a really really good song. thank you for joining us. may you be obsessed at first listen and have it on repeat for days and tell everybody you know about it.
a very warm welcome to old readers as well. may good sense continue to prevail.
Before We Begin
thodi turns 4 years old this june! 🥳🥳
this newsletter has taken on so many forms over the last three years, and been all the different things i’ve needed it to be (email blast, mundane update rundown, diary entry, community space, journal ramble, to-do list, etc etc), and i’m so excited to see what it’s going to become in the future. thank you for being a part of it! some very big and very old trees in celebration -
first thodi ever here!! she has aged spectacularly and i agree with everything
hi
i’m shocked that it’s been nearly 18 months since the last SMFSLPP (so many feelings, such less processing power) thodi (read pt.1 here // pt.2 here), but fear not. i am back to plague you with another edition of Big Questions.
what do you do when you miss something so much it feels like a physical pain in your body? how do i get rid of the constant, nagging itch to keep turning back and thinking about how long ago that period was, or that place was, or that person was? how do i get over it? how do i get over being nostalgic for a past that will never come back? is nostalgia really any good for anything, or is it just a constant pining to go back. if nostalgia is like watching somebody from afar that will never turn to see me, how do i stop staring?
is there some cosmic grievance redressal mechanism for when things that are out of my control go wrong? how do i stop caring about things that are out of my control? how do i convince my mind to consider the demarcation between what i can control and what i can’t when it’s deciding what to worry about?
how do i go with the flow when i don’t know where the flow is going? what does it feel like to start something new without a gnawing uncertainty-slash-foreboding combination of cautious pessimism? does the flow know where it’s going? does it have a contingency plan in case it can’t go where it plans to go?
does the feeling of being seventeen-years-old and clueless ever dissipate? will i ever reach a point where i don’t feel like everybody around me has an instruction manual and i don’t? if there’s no manual, how is everybody around me so much better at faking it than i am? how do i get better at faking it?
do the ‘transition periods’ ever end? is life really just one long string of moments of change, and learning to live in the liminality between something ending and something else beginning? is anything ever not beginning or ending? as i get older, will i be able to do one thing without thinking about the thing i just did and the thing i’ll be doing next?
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A Picture!
English Recitation Competition
Epistle, Ellen Hinsey (read the full poem here)
In those hours, my brothers, my sisters, I know you have grown weary— I know that even ancient words do not provide solace for your rocky path, But take heart in the pale light that flashes over the dark mountains, Steady your hearing to an inner music: wait with impatience—— wait with mercy.
Lullaby for the Grieving, Ashley M. Jones
make small steps. in this wild place there are signs of life everywhere. sharp spaces, too: the slip of a rain-glazed rock against my searching feet. small steps, like prayers— each one a hope exhaled into the trees. please, let me enter. please, let me leave whole. there are, too, the tiny sounds of faraway birds. the safety in their promise of song. the puddle forming, finally, after summer rain. the golden butterfly against the cave-dark. maybe there are angels here, too— what else can i call the crown of light atop the leaves? what else can i call my footsteps forward, small, small, sure?
Parable, Nickole Brown (read the full poem here)
If this is a parable you don’t understand, then, dear human, stop listening for words. Listen instead for mane, wind, wings, wind, mane, wings, wings, wings. The lesson here is of the mare and of the insects, even of the rooster puffed and strutting past. Because now, now there is only one thing worth hearing, and it is the plea of every living being in that field we call ours, is the two-word commandment trilling from the trees: let live, let live, let live. Can you hear it? Please, they say. Please. Let us live.
The Good Side of the Internet
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this week’s Song
Burn It to the Ground by Shreea Kaul
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3