MARCH, a list:
Some sunny streaks in the morning really make a difference for me. The days have been getting longer and brighter. But the evenings are still too cold to enjoy a walk out.
Spring is for new beginnings, dancing in the living room with the balcony door open, laundry hanging out.
How much has changed between twenty-one candles and thirty-five – the places I have lived, the friends I have made and lost, the music I listened to, the people I fell in love with, how I have changed as a human being. All the changes are manifestations of me, who I am to become. I’m excited.
There are a lot of things in life that no one can control, which makes us feel like we’re losing control that we’ve never had to begin with, thus making us more frustrated about the things and the people that just are (and that whether we like it or not, they are allowed to be without interference).
I think I’m quite good at accepting now. Taking things as they are without reading between the lines. Acceptance and frustration can exist at the same time.
I feel grateful for my group of friends. It’s actually quite hard to find friends you click with in the same group, and where you feel like you belong. As someone who was never really part of any group growing up but spent youth floating between different people trying to be taken for who I am, I must say what we have is such a source for comfort and I don’t want to go a day without it.
I learnt of the loss of a dear person in my life since childhood last week. Lucia brought me up right alongside my mother, took care of me together with her husband and brother (who have also already passed), celebrated every birthday with me, and believed in me every step of the way. I will miss her pure and loving soul. Even though I have counted for them to be at my future wedding, I have all the closure I need, knowing the three of them are now together.
BOOKS I’VE FINISHED:
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfeg: 2.5/5 stars. I love reading about unhinged women doing crazy things that are probably not the best people around and the writing was gorgeous in some parts but mostly I was bored.
20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo: 4.5/5 stars. Pleasantly surprised by the writing, raw and unpolished narrative style, the narrator’s distinct voice and the fast-paced, slightly stilted structure.
Film for Her by Orion Carloto: 2.5/5 stars. I love this woman and her artistic and photographic eye. It is a gorgeous book that I will probably always keep around because I love flipping through it and staring at it. The writing is dreamy at times, other times I couldn’t connect very well with the poems. I know it’s not her fault I can’t relate to everything in her life, but when I lose touch and relatability with a creator, I tend to look the other way / or get bored.
POEMS ON BEDROOM WALLS:
You keep my poems on your bedroom walls like they make it easier to fall asleep. You dream of them sometimes. The words, the way you never heard me say them out loud, but you can only imagine how they sound like on my tongue. They are everything you joke about but not. You hate confrontation, except for the kind that is pretty. That’s why you like films so much, and fiction, and poems about other people. They are not about you, but they are. You don’t mind reflection unless it comes from a mirror positioned right in front of you— you hate that. So much that you stare into nothingness. You lose focus in every stanza, you scream words that are supposed to be whispered, you whisper what is supposed to be celebrated.
A SERIES I FELL IN LOVE WITH:
TWENTY–FIVE, TWENTY–ONE
I can’t stop thinking about this show, even when I’m done watching the new episodes every Saturday and Sunday. I can’t stop thinking about the characters and bonds with each other, and sub-plots. It’s been a while since I’ve raved so much about a show. I can’t put any spoilers here, but just know this project has many of my absolute favourite tropes and you may know I’m a sucker for longing, unspoken love, found family, rivalry and friendship, and ambitious drive in the youth. There are two more episodes left, I think. I already can’t wait to rewatch.
“Because we are all women, how can we speak of love? In the beginning, banished from the realm of discourse, assigned to love’s servitude not its speech, to be love’s body not its tongue,”
— Rebecca Seiferle, excerpt of “Wild Tongue”, in Wild Tongue
P/S: I’m writing a poem every day for the month of April for #Escapril hosted by Savannah Brown. Follow along on Instagram.