'You can have the words forgive and forget hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together'
Reading corner
You can't have it all
by Barbara Ras
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
until you realize foam’s twin is blood.
You can have the skin at the center between a man’s legs,
so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind,
glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness,
never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who’ll tell you
all roads narrow at the border.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave
where your father wept openly. You can’t bring back the dead,
but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands
as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful
for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful
for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels
sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts,
for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream,
the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
You can’t count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind
as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother’s,
it will always whisper, you can’t have it all,
but there is this.
[You can listen to Emily Levine read this poem here: https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/02/07/you-cant-have-it-all-barbara-ras-emily-levine/]
Healing notes
This past week I was able to be present with myself a lot more; slow down and enjoy the little moments; work with clarity and focus; I was able to stay awake for more hours without exhaustion taking over. This was despite the frequent headaches and pain - which I suppose one cannot wish away now. It feels like some part of me was able to focus on my body and health in a holistic way again especially since early last week, I also moved into a new home. Cats and I now live in the building where I grew up in.
Yet, as I travelled for work for the past few days, I watched my energy levels lower a bit; exhaustion roll right in and focus not being my friend. It could be a phase? It could be the stability that the new space with a work room gave me? It could be the lack of routine when away from home? I am not entirely sure, of course. It has made me think a lot about what works in this process of healing and what sometimes shakes it up a bit.
It is useful though for me, for anyone I suppose, to check in with the body enough to know when something isn't working out to when something feels right. Changing routines based on this helps. In case of everything else, I just remind myself that healing is not linear. Onwards and upwards. Just keep swimming. <3
Food experiments
This was a recipe used by S to make some fish curry recently. Hope you enjoy it!
Sri Lankan Fish Curry
800 gms white fish
400 ml of coconut milk
A little coconut oil
Two onions
Two tomatoes
Mustard seeds
Jeera
Turmeric
Salt
Two green chillies
Ginger-garlic paste
Tamarind juice
2 tsp of Jaffna powder
For Jaffna powder:
Dry Roast and Grind:-
½ cup coriander seeds
¼ cup cumin seeds
1 tbsp fennel seeds
½ tsp fenugreek seeds
3 pieces of cinnamon
8 cloves
½ tsp cardamom seeds
15-20 curry leaves
1 tsp peppercorns
8 red chillies
Mix turmeric powder and lemon juice with the fish. Keep it aside.
For the curry, heat coconut oil and add mustard seeds and jeera, followed by Jaffna powder, green chillies, ginger garlic paste, onions, tomatoes, tamarind juice. Cook for five minutes and then add coconut milk.
At this point add the marinated fish to the curry and put the lid on.
Let it cook for 5-7 minutes. Serve with rice!
Dear you,
Hope it is not too cold wherever you are. Hope you reading good stuff and eating good food <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