'How much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate?'
Reading corner
Questionnaire
by Wendell Berry
How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.
Healing notes
I sent a message to my sister today: I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. It is true. I am. These past few weeks have had a flare up that came after months of stability or stabilising of the pain which frankly was a pleasure, a pleasure to have a pain level I could manage without being in the emotional dumps. Each flare up goes through an adjustment period of a week or so and sometimes much more depending on how much pain I am in. It goes through the time frame of me adjusting, moving past and eventually accepting. But of course each flare up is accompanied by a low mood. I understand now, when my doctors say they understand the mood swings are part of the pain.
It is of course frustrating to have such little control over my body-mind but mostly I forget the emotional toll of waking up and feeling the rush of some new symptoms or that sink in my stomach cause the previous night's pain got worse.
I try so hard to be positive and think of all the lovely things I do have. But my friend R reminds me of how hard we have to balance to see this silver lining and give ourselves this hope. I do want the hope. But I am also tired of hoping. Somedays I just want to wake up not feeling like a mountain of bricks fell on me. Or even better, just feeling light and happy. (I sound majorly bummed out and the truth is I am sick and tired.)
I have stopped (mostly) hoping for things to change, knowing this up and down is part of the process. But some days I catch myself hoping for less chaos and distress. Hoping for a break from all of this.
I don't have much to say to myself except reminding myself that there will be days like these and days like these will pass. As someone from the illness community said to me yesterday, just take it slowly. Focus on the now. The frustration will pass. It has to.
"May we let ourselves soften with the pleasure of something small. May we find a granule of joy. Or, better yet, may we grow into our best selves, & love, & be loved. Eyes up. New day. Let's go." Words Esme Weijun Wang used in her morning Twitter post. Feels right to say this to myself and to you, today.
Food experiments
Egg Fried Rice
I have been eating eggs a lot these past few weeks. Exhaustion and pain mean its hard to cook and easy fixes are the best part!
This recipe is of course super basic. I boiled three eggs in a bowl of water. Let the eggs become hard boiled.
Then peel the shell and cut up the boiled eggs into small pieces. In a vessel, melt some butter and add corn to it. Fry the corn for 5-10 minutes. Then add the cut up pieces of eggs into the bowl. Mix for a while. Add salt, pepper and any other spices you want.
Finally add the cooked rice to it and mix. Sprinkle some salt on top for the rice. You can add oregano if you want some extra flavour kicks!
Dear you,
What songs do you listen to at the end of a bad day?
Share your music with me!
Love, kindness and warmth,
Nidsitis
'I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?' - Rainer Maria Rilke