'If you’ve managed to do one good thing, the ocean doesn’t care.'
Reading corner
The world has need of you
by Ellen Bass
everything here seems to need us…
—Rilke
I can hardly imagine it
as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient
prayer of my arms swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little. Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs? The gulls?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple as well.
Healing notes
My feet and me have a strange-ish relationship. For the longest time everyone told me it was big and flappy. I am still learning to witness its uniqueness. Witnessing the spiky pokes each time I place my foot down. The aches that surged through my body during the first step in the morning. Sitting on the yoga mat and staring at the curves. Giving it a massage. Soaking it in bath salts and easing the tightness. All feel like gratitude. Gratitude I didn't always show them. This photo is from 5 years ago. I of course have no memory of taking this photo. I found it as I was looking through my back up for something else altogether. It felt like the apt photo as an ode to my feet.
Sharon Olds has written several odes to everyday things. While I was thinking of this ode, I remembered my favourite ode of hers, to dirt: Listen
Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you,
I thought that you were only the background
for the leading characters—the plants
and animals and human animals.
It’s as if I had loved only the stars
and not the sky which gave them space
in which to shine. Subtle, various,
sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain,
you’re our democracy. When I understood
I had never honored you as a living
equal, I was ashamed of myself,
as if I had not recognized
a character who looked so different from me,
but now I can see us all, made of the
same basic materials—
cousins of that first exploding from nothing—
in our intricate equation together. O dirt,
help us find ways to serve your life,
you who have brought us forth, and fed us,
and who at the end will take us in
and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.
I had never really honoured them before - like when I took this photograph, I was probably marvelling at my slippers. Now when I see those slippers I feel a pang of emotion - for not knowing then how grateful I was for my feet, feet that didn't ache each day. I am not sure what to do with this rush of emotion but that's a beast in and of itself. As I spend more and more attentive time with my feet, breathing into the aches and pain and breathing out gratitude. This is of course not possible everyday. All of last week, I have had to force myself to sleep with the help of meditative music. The pain in the feet has been too overwhelming. So how can I feel gratitude when the pain just overwhelms every other emotion within me?
So for me to nurture gratitude for my feet has been terribly hard. But I wanted to try every chance I could to honour them. The feet that have helped me take risks. The feet that carry me onwards. The slightly misshapen but still lovely feet of mine. Feet, that hold me everyday.
Is there a part of your body you can witness today? Share which part of you is speaking to you and what you want to say back to it. <3
Creative experiments
½ cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
In a large saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, and baking powder. Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes! Apply Nutella on top and eattt!
Dear you,
This lockdown is hard on all of us. But I hope you are doing okay,
eating, resting and keeping on <3
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