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Dearests,
This newsletter has been long over due. But I have been thinking a bit about why I am struggling to write. I have been working hard in therapy on reprocessing a lot of memories. All the learnings and healing I am having is far too raw to share yet. But it has forced me to go looking for other writing on healing. I thought I would rework this space a bit and put together what I am reading on healing with some of my thoughts in the opening. A lot of people have written to me on my social media asking for reading recommendations and this seemed like the best way to direct and focus all the many ways I have been exploring healing - apart from my own experiences. You can of course unsubscribe if you feel like you came to this place wanting something else and I have now changed it.
Speaking of change, 2020 has been a pro at testing me about change, uncertainity, lack of structure etc. I have been struggling to hold the pieces of my life that are "okay" to stay "okay". It's been hard. Work has been pretty damn great and that's always a relief even in these times. But It is also exhausting to have to intimately navigate the way the world is failing so many people and the specific, tangible ways in which the world affects me - a singular human.
What has coping looked like for you in these times? I have been wondering about this. For the longest time - especially since I moved into a house with just me and cats, home was a safe place. But with almost never leaving it now, I am curious to establish ways of connection with others - that are not forced and that are still kind.
Coping in covid times
Gardens were my favourite escape in pre-covid times. Right now, I have been baking but since my appetite ain't great, many people are dealing with my baked goods. haha! Delivered to their house in sanitised and socially distant ways. The pain has made it hard to crochet so that's been set aside. Reading is slow, steady and difficult. But I try to try reading every day. Hoping something will inspire me. There will be days like this, I have known. How long will they last, is something I have not asked.
Long story short, I am going to redo this newsletter to have this opening note and many recommendations of things that are helping me. Hope you will enjoy them and share back with me things you are reading, loving and reflecting on.
Love, warmth and kindness,
Nidsitis
P.s if nothing else, I will share one darling cat photo with every newsletter so you have something hopeful to see at the end. So scroll away :)
Poems I loved
Words when we need them
By Naomi Shihab Nye
Before this early moment,
another, ripe with rain,
the scent of its own full shape.
Each day the rooster
we have never seen
raises the first greeting
and darkness which holds us
in its loose pocket all night
sets us down.
Now we walk,
waking up rooms,
switching on lights.
Into the breath,
wordless but ripe
with all possible words,
messages not yet gathered
or sent.
Morning looms,
more friend than
the best friend.
We could still say.
---
An ‘Unfolding Poem’ for the Moment We’re In
By John Paul Lederach
Healing recommendations
Sam Dylan Finch is one of my favourite writers and instagram handles. Read this beauty on mental illness and over identifying - something people tell me I do a lot, too. Link.
Healing resistance is a lovely book that definitely needs us to sit with our discomfort and process. Link. Another book that I loved was Turn The World Inside Out which is spoken about on the Irresistible Podcast. Link.
Understanding our shame: A large part of this year in therapy has been an attempt to not shame self. I am not yet ready to write about the depth of its presence in my life but one thing that resonated with me was how Hannah Gadsby refers to shame in her netflix special, Nanette. She talks about it with Monica Lewinsky where I loved their reflections of private and public. What form does shame take in your life? Link. To combine this reflection with these ideas by therapists on trying to reign in the self-shaming. Link.
You can read/listen/absorb this book Taking Time by Jo Loring Fisher which was recommended to me by the lovely S. Link.
Readings/audio/video I enjoyed
Bookworm Goa has a lovely youtube channel where they have episodes live from the lockdown. Do head over and listen! Link
Friend and super smart feminist activist, writer wrote this lovely piece on webinars and feminist ways of knowing. Link.
This from Kohl Journal on tensions as a way of being! Link.
'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