- To having a home, some calm and stability. For the sense of community. That my home is brimming with people since I moved back to California. There is a psychological cost to being around some people because – patriarchy says : “your love language should be to be my maid, as I lounge on the couch”. Indian relatives confuse being a house guest with checking into an all expenses paid hotel. I am learning to accept some of this cost, openly talk about patriarchy to people who treat me poorly and to firmly delegate the duties. It took me a long time to get to this mind space.
- For Mina. For the time spent outdoors, multiple times a day.
- To Sylvia Plath’s journals. For showing me how everyday thoughts can we written down with skill. I now keep my own.
- To Mary Oliver. When an environmentalist writes about living : as a pilgrim in one’s ecosystem, not as it’s predator, it’s transcendental.
- To Masanobu Fukuoka. His book One Straw Revolution is a life lesson.
- To CCL for soul fulfilling work, for helping me find humans who care deeply* and for giving me a venue to turn climate grief into action. *A member from the org moved to West Virginia to help with lobbying Senator Joe Manchin, Democratic Party’s road-blocker. We have a local group focused on ways we can help West Virginia chapter – fund raise, write about just transition for coal workers, …. There are days when I love being a human being.
- For my husband and the wilderness in him that the civilization hasn’t claimed yet.
- To all the aunts/uncles who worried about Mina with me, when she was ill. To all the neighbors for pooling in to pay for Cinco’s vet visit.
- To chicken biryani, for finally revealing it’s secret formulae to me.
- To aging, for helping me loose interest in what is not important for the soul.
Reading :
Betty Reid Soskin wrote a blog from 2003-2019. What a treasure. ( This is how one belongs to a place in this world. Really really belong. This are the sort of lessons in civic engagement I want to be taught in lifestyle blogs written by phenomenal woman. )
This newsletter by Bookshop.
This poem, read at my grandpa’s funeral.
The aesthetic of care. (“To allow for mess and life and things that don’t look good as I think they could.” … “I break things in my home garden. Ideas, conventions, ingrained behaviours.”)
10 ways to confront climate crisis, without loosing hope.
The myth of good taste. ( espy for an immigrant like me who *used-to yap about the superiority of European sensibility. #DecolonizeBeauty )
Indian caste system and taste. ( Continuation from the previous article. The rich kids in India now have savior complex for art directing the rural craftspeople to make beige toned things. #DecolonizeSupplyChain )
Hugging the X-axis. ( Apply this to longevity of clothes, commitment to personal style, to marriage, to friendship/family, to career, to activism, to a place, to an idea, ….. )
Urban density, Urban density, Urban density. We should talk about land mis-use more.
Watch :
Environmentally Friendly, without reducing consumption, is a greenwashing. I used propagated this nonsense as a blogger back in the day.
David Foster Wallace on Consumerism.
This women’s workshop on construction.
The creativity that went into living the life that made this video on beets.
Wild and Scenic Film Festival. I am working the event. Come say hello if you see me.
Memorized the information in this video on how US almost solved climate change in 1980s.
Materialism :
This colorful pottery.
For future reference, great looking rain boots.
Oil, for leather and wood maintenance.
TRX bands, for full body resistance training sessions with out high-carbon equipment. Highly recommend.
Hiking pants for multi day walks.
Tiny Thoughts :
“In a time when we need deep work, we are window shopping. Dont do a place, be a part of the place.”
“reduce before reuse, reuse before recycle. The greenwashing monsters usually talk latter and never the former.”
“No plant needs human help to grow if its suited for the soil it is native to. When gardening, the garden is you.”
Thank you for coming back 🙂
<3
Soory Archana, but you are generalising in this point : I am a pro-lifer. And yet I also call for solutions to climate change, over consumption. And yes, access to heaathcare for all. In this time of horrific Russian attack on Ukraine, I even feel more strongly about all this things. Life of children in particular.