'There is a you telling you a story of you. Listen to her.'
Reading corner
How to be alone
by Padraig o' Tuama
It all begins with knowing
nothing lasts forever.
So you might as well start packing now.
But, in the meantime,
practice being alive.
There will be a party
where you’ll feel like
'nobody’s paying you attention.
And there will be a party
where attention’s all you’ll get.
What you need to do
is know how to talk to
yourself
between these parties.
And,
again,
there will be a day,
— a decade —
where you won’t
fit in with your body
even though you’re in
the only body you’re in.
You need to control
your habit of forgetting
to breathe.
Remember when you were younger
and you practiced kissing on your arm?
You were on to something then.
Sometimes harm knows its own healing
comfort its own intelligence.
Kindness too.
It needs no reason.
There is a you
telling you a story of you.
Listen to her.
Where do you feel
anxiety in your body?
The chest? The fist? The dream before waking?
The head that feels like it’s at the top of the swing
or the clutch of gut like falling
& falling & falling and falling
It knows something: you’re dying.
Try to stay alive.
For now, touch yourself.
I’m serious.
Touch your
self.
Take your hand
and place your hand
some place
upon your body.
And listen
to the community of madness
that
you are.
You are
such an
interesting conversation.
You belong
here.
Healing notes
I never really remember how sick I can feel or be till I travel. Each time I have to get on a flight and go anywhere my body either goes into shock or I am exhausted. Recently, I discovered during some really difficult body-mind weeks that I was having entire conversations in my sleep. Really clear ones and not at all useful ones. My dreams were full of memories I didn't remember and I was reliving a lot of my past few years. Anxiety had returned to my bones. It felt especially ironic to be having such a difficult time, when much of social media was full of people talking about how amazing the past decade had been for them. The only factoid I remember about my life this past decade is that I have been in therapy since the early part of 2010. It always remains hard to admit that the past 10 years have been both rewarding and intensely difficult. As much as I enjoy going to therapy (I use the word enjoy loosely here), it is intense work. Most of the time I am left drained. Sometimes I cannot cope with everything I discover in therapy. Yet, some battles feel life long and essential. What my sister calls, the fight of our lives :)
I don't think I ever thought I would learn this much about myself in these years in therapy. Most of which has been spent unlearning every thing I have been forced to conform to. Yet, it is often seen as a luxury and a privilege. How can it not be though? A good therapist - good being relative to the person seeking therapy - is expensive at the least and triggering and horrible at the other end of the spectrum. Even for me, I have somehow managed to return to therapy through large and small breaks between bad therapeutic relationships or toxic ones that caused a lot of harm. I never really understood my urge to return. Maybe it was a want to feel better; a lack of faith in myself to mend things or a desperation to stay afloat. Whichever it is, I feel grateful for that part of me. The part of me that wanted me to be better, do better, to build a stronger relationship with the self. (Not to say this is the only way, but it was a way I kept trying.)
So today, I wanted to write this note in gratitude for that part of me. The part that has stayed hopeful. The part that has helped me work through any difficulties. I don't want to congratulate myself but I just want to remember that this work, this reflective, interrogative work that we (I?) engage in with ourselves (myself) isn't always rewarding but bit by bit, it has its ways of building a life worth living.
If we both have written maps to the stars
where our spirit flies out
and then written our return:
rewrite my body with me
— ’bodymap’ (excerpt) from Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Bodymap
Rewriting this body, this mind, these memories, these experiences with resilience and kindness is all I would ask as we begin 2020.
If you had to be grateful to some part of your 2019 self, or self up until 2019, what would you be grateful for? What would you carry into 2020 willingly? Share with me and I can send some love and healing to your many selves, too <3
Food experiments
1 cup flour
1/4 cup castor sugar
113 gms salted butter 1/2 cup almonds chopped
First cream together butter and sugar. Then add flour. Then nuts.
After then shape them into logs and place in the fridge for a minimum of 3 hours. We left them overnight. After this, take them out in the morning. Make small slices of the cookies and bake at 170 for 12-15 mins. Then eat many like I did.
This recipe is courtesy my sister who made these batch of cookies for my grandma and I proceeded to eat the cookies and stalk her as she baked. haha!
Dear you,
I ended my year with rest, hope and songs of resistance. I began my year the same way.
What has your year looked like?
Love, kindness and warmth,
Nidsitis
P.s Will be back to a weekly schedule from this week. <3
'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