- To the Japanese gardens, for showing me the kind of beauty I want to create. I am learning to grow bamboo and thrifting stones from landscaping project leftovers unloaded to craigslist.
- Sleep. Doing nothing. A pot of dal with rice for comfort food.
- For the philosophy of Wabi Sabi. I woke up one day to the clerics at the Supreme court saying forced pregnancy is okay to impose on women. Recognize the impermanence of this instance of time and mend those broken cracks. #wabisabi
- To a certain girl friend of mine for raging with me on reproductive rights. Everyone else kept telling me “this doesn’t impact you. why are you mad ?” The ruling terrorized and paralyzed me. She saved me from slipping into a dark hole.
- One of my best friends in India had a back alley abortion in her teens. She nearly bled to death on that day. Had she went on to have a baby then, she would have become a prostitute after getting kicked out of her home. Saving her life sent her family deep into medical debt related poverty and they got owned by loan sharks for the next decade. The damage from untrained hands inflicted great bodily harm. The man she married divorced her on grounds of infertility and she became an unwanted women shunned by her community pushing her deeper into poverty. It took her a long time to find a husband who accepted her for her. She had twice the intelligence+energy I had but she never reached her true potential after constantly being battered by circumstances. I forgot about my debt to her, till this ruling came out. She had this deep love for land and nature. We would dig by the lake to gather clay, make pottery, make brooms from coconut leaves, build fences, climb walls and trees together, wander the fields, weave mats, catch snakes, boil roots to make magic portions, make chapattis to sell in the neighborhood, chop firewood, watch sunsets on the roof, ….be children of the dirt. I will always be grateful that I had a childhood with her and that she didn’t die on that day from her abortion. Grateful for the human rights that I still have. Grateful to anyone who will vote the extremists out of our legislature.
- Is this the point of patriarchy ? To keep us women gasping for rights ? Patriarchy amply rewards the women who fall in line and punishes the rest. Aana-pana meditation on a 5 minute timer, has been helping me control my emotions and to concentrate better at work.
- For my puppy. Hugging her, kissing her and staring into her eyes, can make the entire world cease to exist.
- To my partner.
Reading :
On Walks. ( I will find us one one good article on walks every month. )
Zen in Buy nothing group.
Materialism :
Someone please buy this. I swear by mine for being the warmest jacket I own.
Green Fire, a book on grilling vegetables.
Tiny Thoughts :
Do no harm, isn’t enough. Focus more on what to replace the void with.
Be neither an optimist or a pessimist. Just do your work well for love of work.
The men folk in my life aren’t raging for women’s rights. Fuck patriarchy.