Maybe we are the crazy ones here
So what
Hi there,
In a Child’s Pose, kneeling with your forehead to the floor and arms stretched out in front of you, tears fall upwards— towards the eyebrows, onto the forehead. It’s a new feeling. “Let go,” she says, “Just breathe. You’re safe here. You don’t have to do anything else right now.” Yoga at 10am on a Sunday: Church for the secular. Let go, let go, let go. I do as I’m told and I learn tears can fall up, towards the sky, if you surrender.
Five things to share:
"I wouldn't stand there if I were you," I'm waiting for the streetcar with my AirPods blasting Drake. I pull one of them out instinctively; the music pauses and I step off the drain grates: The train rumbles beneath. I smile at the stranger spewing the warning at me. I used to be terrified of these things— grates and strangers. Afraid, knowing my luck, it would buckle under my weight and down to hell I go. Afraid, knowing my luck, they would turn out no good and down to hell I go. My first instinct is to put my AirPods back on. Do not engage with strangers; no matter how harmless they look. That's the first lesson this city's inhabitants must learn. The city can swallow you whole if you're not careful, I need to be careful. But despite myself, and because talking to strangers has become my favourite thing to do in-the-between moments— waiting for the bus, for my coffee, in line at the grocery store— I try my luck. I get closer to her as I step off the grates; "Ooo, I'm scared of those things," she continues. "You know nothing happens," I tease, "People walk on these all the time." This is the reasoning I used to get over my irrational fear of standing/walking on trench grates and I hope it might help her too.
A quote I want to share with you:
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
IRL > URL
It takes a daily effort to be free
Don’t you know it.
A question for you: What are you leaving in 2023?
I recently bough a metal bucket, labeled it Things I am leaving in 2023 and have been throwing notes of things I will not be bringing into the new year into it. I will burn the contents on 12/31/2023. This is the brilliant idea $140/hour can get you. Thank god neither of us have to pay for it— Metal bucket costs $5.
P.s. Three years of paper journaling!!! The years are short for real. Time flies. There is no going back once you get acquainted with the analog process. A slow, quiet, offline morning with coffee, a notebook and pen is my life-sustaining practice. I also appreciate how my inner voice, my writing voice, and how I speak IRL are very close in style so I can share a page from my journal without feeling fraudulent.
That’s all for this week!
Thank you for reading, and share with anyone you think may benefit.
If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe below.
Until next time,
Mehret