this place could be beautiful, right?
you could make this place beautiful
this week’s Thought (singular)
buttermilk, coconut water, mixed fruit juice. the holy trifecta.
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 make peace with their past academic performances. thank you for joining us. may your attitude towards your scores improve and your standards of perfection lower.
hi
this issue has been inspired by the following verse from Good Bones by Maggie Smith.
Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
i think i’ve made it fairly obvious that i’m obsessed with the idea of home, of the concept of comfort and warmth that can manifest itself in so many different ways (documented here, here, and here). but i haven’t really paid much attention to the creation of that comfort and warmth. or, to put it differently, i’ve failed to consider the effort that goes into cultivating a home.
i love the entreaty of the lines above. the pleading that - this might look terrible, everything here seems awful, but you can make it work right? you can do what you have to to make it worthy of loving and living? you can do this for yourself? i also adore the suggestion that the underlying structure - the bones - is good! the world is fundamentally good, and with a little digging and excavation, you can find something that will make you enjoy your stay.
zooming into the context of a house, here a physical space, imagine you’re standing in a newly-built, unpainted, unfurnished area, with no furniture. it takes effort to bring in the couches and beds. it takes work to get the gas working, to fit in the geyser. it takes tender care and time to fill the bookshelf, to hang up the paintings, to place the smiling photo frames, to grow that balcony garden. to decide which sofa is the best for a nap and which is the most comfortable to read in, to understand which chair at the dining table your friend favours when they come over, to get used to the sound of your own doorbell. the effort that goes into cultivating a home. it might be empty, white, dank now, but it could be beautiful, right? you could make this place beautiful.
i wish i had more to say about this, but really, it’s just lovely is all. of course i’m going to feel odd in a place if i don’t take the time to make it my own, the effort to make my mark in it, and the care to leave enough of myself there to make it feel familiar. the comfort and the warmth of a home comes from the solace and the reassurance that it is yours, and that there is enough of your time, effort, care, and self put into it.
English Recitation Competition
Harlem, Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?Abundance, Amy Schmidt (in memory of Mary Oliver)
It’s impossible to be lonely when you’re zesting an orange. Scrape the soft rind once and the whole room fills with fruit. Look around: you have more than enough. Always have. You just didn’t notice until now.
How We Take Our Grief, Kimberly Grey
We hold our grief out in front of us. We think this is private. We take our grief and pour it in a glass. We think we have mouths we think we have arms to hold it.
A Picture!
The Good Side of the Internet
(subscribe to my standalone publication The Good Side of the Internet for consolidated and extra links at the end of each month!)
How Airports Liberate—and Constrain—Those Who Pass Through Them
In the airport, we are all divorced from whoever we were previously.
Crow, Donkey, Poet: Sumana Roy on the Useless in the Poetic
Through difference and repetition, the useless is smuggling in poetry and the poetic in language.
Social contagions can cause genuine illness, and TikTok may be a superspreader (video)
The phenomenon known as ‘mass psychogenic illness’ (MPI) – in which a group of people starts feeling sick with similar symptoms in the absence of a clear physical reason – is nothing new. Indeed, the historical record dates back to medieval Europe – including one notorious case in which nuns were reported to be meowing in unison like cats. In Believing Is Seeing, Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist at the University of Auckland, argues that our exceedingly interconnected world of social media is just as conducive for social panics as secluded medieval convents once were. Focusing on a trend in which tic disorders seem to spread via TikTok videos, Bartholomew breaks down why this ‘placebo effect in reverse’ can still cause genuine illness, as well as why he believes that social media should come with more guardrails.
Is There Something Wrong with Me?
Distress may be baffling if we can’t relate it to what we care about.
Middle School Book Review
your regularly scheduled book recommendation has been temporarily halted. watch this space over the coming weeks so you don’t miss the next one!
find all shared books here.
this week’s Song
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3
yes? no? maybe? let me know!