Photograph by Jack Mitchell / Getty
- To have access to the work of Toni Morrison. To have walked on this earth while she did.
- Between the hours of the day, I have moments of calm and time to do nothing at all. I rest. I do nothing productive. I enjoy this solitude to recharge. It’s a break from responsibility and to-do lists. I day dream. I think. I write. I read. The luxury of having time is an experience in it self.
- “అన్నదాత సుఖీభవ”. ( “Anna Datha Sukhi Bhava”). This is a phrase my great-grand-mother would say before every meal. She would say it like a prayer but it literally translates to “may the mother who created this food find joy”. I have been saying it before every meal and the gratitude helps me enjoy the food more. To visualize and appreciate the soil, the pollinators, the farmer, the grocer, the bread winner and the chef who got this meal for me, makes the food tastier. It makes eating plant based, extra pleasurable. It’s helped me say no to the meat servings since I do not want to visualize slaughter houses and thank the animals for giving their life to be on my plate for 5 minutes. ( My great-grand-ma would then offer the first bite of her food to the birds outside her home, as an act of love. She would roll up the plain rice into a ball, get up, share it with the animal and only then would she eat. There is so much of her that I want to be. Love and environmentalism were one and the same, in her case. I miss her so much. )
Materialism :
This dress by Maku Textiles ( my fav Indian brand )
Reading :
Toni Morrison’s Nobel Acceptance Speech.
When a sustainably-made-fashion blogger starts sustainably consuming.
Say the word : Reproductive harassment.
Beloved is one of my favorite books. The others are treasures but Beloved is special.
Beloved was a book we read in high school English class…and it was extremely strange to experience it that way. To the white boys in the class it was a hilarious, ridiculous book forced upon us – they openly mocked the parts of the book that the girls in the class found most moving and horrifying. Openly mocked, and openly mocked the people who didn’t hate Beloved – they were vile. Many of the girls in the class ended up reading Beloved again.