Snowbound
Winter's quiet pleasures, forced rest, and the fixations that have kept me sane.
Winter arrived before I was even prepared to face it and brought with it its classic difficulties and joyful pleasures. In January, a record-breaking snowstorm kept me inside for 2 days straight and all of the sugar from different desserts I baked started going to my head, making me feel manic and claustrophobic. A season of change is percolating, and I think everyone can feel it.
…
This new year has forced me to let go of a couple things. Some wayward wishes I had were granted, and now I’m left with nothing but a blank slate and a dimly lit dream that flickers when I look at it for too long.
For a long time, I’ve been stubbornly performing the cycles of my routine, which I thought prioritized rest and lowered my cortisol, or whatever else. But the truth is, no amount of morning walks, baths, yoga, or singing bowl sounds were fully grounding me because impending doom was haunting my every day. I was not happy in my job, and the confinement of corporate writing left me feeling creatively drained and unworthy of a practice that I enjoyed so much at some point. One that was healing to me.
Now that this aspect of my life is over, I have a strange but fabulous opportunity for reflection and a decent amount of newfound personal time. I can now give myself to a process I believed in but hadn’t truly committed to: Rest and Reflection.
The past few weeks have felt like an uncomfortable secret, and I think that came from the general shame of having no direction and no plan. These days, all I seem to hear about is advice on how to keep on climbing and climbing the corporate ladder. It seems like the goal is to climb it so high that the ultimate reward is … a never-ending ladder. I keep wondering why the ladder itself became the destination.
Fixations
Bread of Angels by Patti Smith
This book made me indulge in long hours of reading in bed. Halfway through, tears started running down my face and they did not seem to stop until the very end. Patti is a personal hero of mine, and her writing has awakened parts of me I had not fully seen. This is a heart-breaking/warming memoir that serves as a great reminder to carry your creative sensibilities and eternal love for life as protection while you move through the seasons and challenges of living.
A documentary about jazz virtuoso Chet Baker. This film tells his life story through personal interviews and accounts from collaborators, lovers, family, enemies. Its perfect greyscale, soundtrack, and beautiful artistic shots turned an ordinary Monday morning more romantic and moody. An ideal start to the week.
Tonada de Luna Llena - Simón Diaz
If you are Venezuelan, he needs no introduction. If you are not, this is a beautiful entry point into the work of one of Latin America’s greatest composers. He was not only an incredible musician, singer, and songwriter, but also widely known for his comedic spoken word and charming personality. So beloved that he is commonly known as “Tío Simón” (Uncle Simón).
This song specifically fills me with deep emotion and transports me to simpler moments, when I did not yet understand what it meant to feel homesick.An Apprenticeship, Or The Book of Pleasures - Clarice Lispector
My approach to reading Clarice Lispector has always been to pace myself and read as slowly as possible. I really savoured this book, sometimes returning to entire chapters, underlining particular combinations of words, and extracting my own questions from the text. As expected from Lispector’s work, the language is deliciously unique, and it vividly paints its settings and images in your mind.
I feel like it perfectly captures a certain experience of the female mind. A friend even described it to me as a “beautiful tale of womanhood”. I read that this book received a lot of criticism for being “simple” or “accessible.” Maybe the central romance made it seem superficial or cliché to some. In my experience, the opposite was true. Its simplicity made it deeply relatable and immersive. Lispector herself said that this book is a reflection of her own “humanization.”
It was especially affirming to read how Lóri, the book’s protagonist, struggled to integrate joy into her life having only known deep pain. She portrays the courage and effort it takes to feel happiness through misery. The “apprenticeship” is the gradual learning of vulnerable living, where joy and pain coexist.
“In the worst moments, remember: whoever can suffer immensely, can also feel intense joy”.
Her work is playful, dramatic, sensual, and delicate. This image in particular captured me and I have been coming back to it for weeks:
I hope you’re well. Stay warm and give yourself grace if where you are the weather is as harsh as it is here in Canada. Sending you love.
loved this one! shedding > eternal ladder