Hello there it’s Sophie!!
*Let it be known here that I made moon water for all of you on the new moon eclipse in gemini last week, and prayed to my guardian angels that we would ALL COLLECTIVELY have a little bit of good luck coming up.* To new beginnings, changes and a fresh start!!
Each time I read my own writing I feel like I’ve become more new age than before…uhhh. Weird…anyhow…
How do you keep up with the boundaries you need in everyday life, so to speak? How do you continually, yet firmly reinforce them to keep whatever emphatic energies, anxieties, spirits, special requests, last minute gossip, quick meetings, calls, texts…completely outside of your mental and physical space for but a moment in time?
Do you activate a fuchsia mist that floats and hangs in the air like a transparent film, and operates like a two-way mirror in an interrogation room? Do you finally let down the blinds on your mental windowsill, where you perceive and interpret things going on all around you? Do you simply close your eyes and let the grey, circling chaos rush out of your nostrils? Or, like me, do you choose to lie in your soft, soft bed in mental airplane mode and watch cartoons until you’re convinced you live inside of them?
Speaking only for myself, watching cartoons has been a savior for me lately. Yeah, I’ve been consuming them like candy. After my workday has finished, and I finally complete every last item on my to-do list, and I’ve cooked dinner, taken a shower, called my mom, went on another walk…it’s straight to Steven Universe. And I know the ritual of watching TV is not unique, but looking back on my childhood, I realized recently that I didn’t watch cartoons all that much—I think I was in a rush to feel more mature than I was, to check out books at the library meant for “adults” and to consume things on the internet that would make me feel like I had a real knowledge of what mature people would discuss with each other. A common feeling, notwithstanding, I’ve regressed to a place in which cartoons feel like the only real truth I can find right now. I simply can’t face the reality of live-action, which is probably a metaphor for something going on inside me right now, and I welcome that thought! Of course life can be extraordinarily difficult and draining! But that’s not what I’m here to go on about this week.
I think it’s somewhere in between a sign and a total coincidence that I got the “inner child” card in Jess’s oracle card deck this past week. I’m slowly marinating on the idea of it. Key words were:
So I guess my…inner child, in a way, is responsive to cartoons. I love the boiled down morals, the brevity of each episode, the colors, the music. You know when you’re watching them that nothing too sad is gonna happen, and if it does, it’ll be promptly resolved and tied up with a bow like new before the end of the episode. Cartoons must be one of the only spaces in the world that closure is generously rewarded to (and expected) for those who choose to engage with them. Imagine!!
In this phase, it’s as if binge watching as an act just occurred to me once again. There’s something so glorious and indulgent about turning off all the lights and being completely consumed into my colorful fictional world and then sailing into sleep immediately after.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my sixth graders during homeroom a couple weeks ago. To spark a discussion, we posed the question, “What helps you feel better when you’re in a tough situation?” One of my students succinctly replied “Turning off all the lights, laying in my bed and listening to music”. Have I mentioned how affected I am by the random (not unsurprising!) profundity of middle-schoolers? Obviously it’s so important to listen to the conception of the world by children and young adults. I feel lucky to even have had younger siblings that I have seen grow and respond to the world. If you don’t come into contact with young people regularly, it’s a good reminder of how important their perspectives on life are to listen to!
On the contrary, I feel that comfort-binge-watch feeling when I’m completely entranced in watching others focus on something, too. Since I’m perpetually studying for the next LSAT, -__- I've really delved into internet study culture, specifically the videos of other (real human) people, who will film themselves studying have been really comforting to watch. It’s an interesting way of feeling like you’re not the only one doing the thing, and having a weirdly distant companionship online—finding solitude right beside someone else who is doing the same thing. It’s the same realm as mukbang videos or watching someone go through a youtube haul.
A classic example:
Ok, BRB while I go cry for a sec, all of this brings me to my final point—this week was my last week of teaching my sixth graders and the last day had me feeling so nostalgic…the last day of school has that distinct christmas/birthday-like glittering shock feeling, in that it’s a single day that seems like it will never arrive, and when it finally does each year, it doesn’t feel real!
The feeling of hyping up a bunch of 12 year olds to move on to 7th grade makes me emo. I can’t even remember what I was feeling at that time in my own life, but every year felt new and a little scary. So, in conclusion, I’m taking this ending as a signal to breathe and to reach back to a place inside where my inner child does exist!! Alright!! In truth, the feeling of moving “up”, living, moving…along, simply moving as a marker of time, is the greatest equalizer! It truly never ends. And we’re all out here experiencing it together!
OK
<3
Love u, Love Sophie
This week, I’d recommend:
The new album by Japanese Breakfast, Jubilee! Sooooooo good, amazing melodies and meaningful lyrics….Michelle Zauner is so inspiring and she’s popping OFF!! I’m about to start reading her new book “Crying in H Mart”!! Which is also apparently going to be turned into a movie!
“A call for men to dig deeper” by Eileen Myles — A quick read, title tells u everything u need to know
Article: “Fight Revenge Bedtime Procrastination” from The Atlantic. Have you heard of revenge bedtime procrastination?? When you procrastinate sleeping to do more things!! Going to bed at 9:30 pm has recently changed my life. I only did it once but that was enough to show me how life actually feels when you’ve gotten enough sleep. Wow! Would recommend!
Taste Nirvana coconut water : - D
Article: “What Robots Can—and Can’t do for the Old and Lonely” - “For elderly Americans, social isolation is especially perilous. Will machine companions fill the void?” I read this article yesterday and it had me thinking again about the importance of human connection, and left me feeling wistful.
Alberti writes that, for many of us, the loneliness of old people is held up as evidence of a lost era—of a better, kinder, more neighborly society gone by. For others, like some medical researchers, loneliness is a biological inevitability, a hazard of aging. But both formulations, Alberti argues, overlook the structures and the systems that have given rise to lonely people: industrialization, secularism, modernity. Some critics fear that, as social robots improve, they will be used as a means of care rationing—and that insisting on human company, at personal or family or communal expense, will be seen as a kind of indulgence.
More meatballs!! IKEA meatballs are my fav of the week lol
Article: “Caught in the Study Web” -interesting article examining internet study culture…
In the highly-pressurized pursuit of the academic goals they’ve been told will help them succeed, students venture into Study Web to feel less alone; assuaging anxiety with inspiration, pursuing perfect grades through para-social productivity, and quelling fears about the future with cyber friends. As Zoom school has left young people even more desperate for connection and support, they’re turning to Study Web—post-to-post, DM-to-DM, and webcam-to-webcam—to find it.
And lastly, this very slippery slope…
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A note: if you ordered t-shirts from us, we are shipping them out this week so be on the lookout! :- )
If you still want to order one, we do have extra white shirts, so contact us if you’re interested!
hey guys,
Ironic that you’ve linked an article on bedtime procrastination, Sophiesoph, because that’s what I’m doing right now…as I write this very sentence! It’s got some good tips that I will definitely try tomorrow, too late for me start them tonight now that I’ve already begun having Ideas. What a shame that they made both the night time AND the morning so incredible, each in their own respective ways. I so badly wish that I could condense my sleep needs and deal with them in the hours between 2 and 5 p.m.
These past few weeks I’ve been making the effort to seek out and lean into pure pleasure. Something about the sweltering heat, though at times it is almost unbearable, feels soothing and decadent. In the depths of winter it is so easy to forget the bliss of a summer evening walk. The weather has me moving slower and I welcome the balmy haze because it forces me to relax and melt into the day. It heightens my sensory awareness of my surroundings, perhaps because there’s just so much more to take in. Lots of colors and buzzing. I love a snowy landscape and all of its stillness, but nothing can compare to being outside in the warmth, when everyone is sitting in the park doing their own little things, and a breeze comes through and you all feel that ahhhh yes feeling together. A moment of companionship in our respective solitudes.
Sophie and I recently had this season’s inaugural dip in the James River and I was able to once again validate that swimming belongs in my top 5 favorite sensations and is one of the best things about being alive. Yes there’s probably sewage in that water and wouldn’t it be nice to instead have constant access to the Mediterranean Sea but I work with what I’m given. Did you know that there is a name for the sparkly light that reflects off the surface of the water? It’s called sun glitter. From the Wikipedia page:
Sun glitter is a bright, sparkling light formed when sunlight reflects from water waves. The waves may be caused by natural movement of the water, or by the movement of birds or animals in the water. Even a ripple from a thrown rock will create a momentary glitter.
Light reflects from smooth surfaces by specular reflection. A rippled but locally smooth surface such as water with waves will reflect the sun at different angles at each point on the surface of the waves.[1] As a result, a viewer in the right position will see many small images of the sun, formed by portions of waves that are oriented correctly to reflect the sun's light to the viewer's eyes. The exact pattern seen depends on the viewer's precise location . . .
Sun glitter can be bright enough to damage one's eyes. Caution should be exercised while observing the glitter.
This effect can be observed on any moving body of liquid within range of the sun, and space photography has detected sun glitter on the methane lakes of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, likely caused by “springtime winds”. I’m comforted by the parallels between our worlds and experiences— I used the moon water that Sophie and I made to wash my hair and am feeling the celestial connection.
The approaching summertime has made my cares feel a lot lighter and less-permanent. I’m trying to channel the energy of a bartender I met last night who, after serving a smoked old fashion asked in full sincerity: “Doesn’t that fuck?!”
hahahahahahahahahaha ….from this point on, everything fucks!!! - Sophie
Yes, and if it doesn’t fuck then I don’t want it!!
Other things from this week
☆ Our neighborhood cat, who we refer to exclusively as “Hobbes’ brother”, has begun sitting with me while I do yard work. Here’s a photo of him sitting on the nasturtium:
I’m currently reading Modern Nature— a book composed of Derek Jarman’s journal entries documenting his life and garden at Prospect Cottage following his discovery that he was HIV positive—and was happy to find that Jarman was also growing nasturtium at his seaside home. You can see it in this photo of him, it’s the red and orange flowers next to his left leg:
☆ A quote from “The Art of Loving”:
"[T]he logical fallacy in the notion that love for others and love for oneself are mutually exclusive should be stressed. If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue--and not a vice--to love myself, since I am a human being too. There is no concept of man in which I myself am not included."
that shares sentiment with the Mary Oliver classic:
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”
☆ Thinking about growing up with CDs and how the song’s order number used to be my main point of identifying favorites. My Dad has all of Shania Twain’s early albums and in re-listening to Come on Over this week I was reminded of what a true bop #2 is:
arrivederci xx
jess