Self care.

Art by : Yao Yao Ma Van As

What a beautiful Saturday it has been. All slow and liberating, the kind of simple thing that takes a huge weight off your chest, like going on a stroll for fresh air. I feel like I have turned into a cloud, that if I were a colour I would probably be peach, and if I were to be anyone I could be, I would really much rather be me.

It is the first time though that this kind of weightlessness has not felt like drifting. There is something so strong in me: the feeling of being grounded. It is not like before, when weightlessness made me feel like a kite that had broken its string. Now, I am more like a flag wound about a mast, enjoying the freshness of the breeze. Or like a boat, moored to the docks, rocking from side-to-side with the tide.

I am so grounded, so at peace with all that I am.

I am conscious of my issues and challenges, all the flaws I must work on, all the regrets and anxieties I have accumulated. But not now. Not as I cut my overgrown nails with care, not as I exfoliate my skin with some divine, peach-scented, pebbly scrub. Not as I scrape the toxic fumes of city life from my lungs, or as I apply some sea-coloured gel (All Tea Tree Oil and Witch Hazel) to the darkened bumps on my face.

My troubles will wait.

They will not be going away anytime soon, so what is the hurry to worry about them? Will that change anything?

I’ve decided to not worry about things I cannot change anymore.

What does worry even do anyway? It takes away time and peace of mind and gives nothing but anxiety in return.

I will not worry about things I cannot change.

So here I am, enjoying a casual Saturday with myself, rediscovering my own thoughts, remembering my own little life fondly. I haven’t done this in a long time:

Indulging.

I don’t like the word. I don’t like that I don’t like it.

But for a moment, that moment of…of self care feels like greeting an old friend again after a long time. There’s a lot to catch up on, but at the same time you talk about non-big-life-events-or-changes for much longer than necessary. You have a conversation for pleasure, because you can. There is no practical purpose to the talking. It is not a means to an end. It is an end in and of itself. I am talking to you not because I have something in particular to say, but because I want to talk to you. What we talk about is secondary, so long as I am talking to, with you.

And so I had conversations with myself, had my conscious brain meet my imagination again. Peacefully, Saturday went by.

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Note: Hi, I hope all of you have been doing well ! That is all, that’s the note 😂 Sending you all good vibes! ^^

Everyone is a loser at some point

Art by: Cynthia Tedy

Sometimes there’s just no other way around it. There’s no shedding light on the darkness, no driving the negativity away. There’s no miracle cure to all of life’s problems.

Sometimes, it’s like a bad case of the flu. You just have to stick with it. Break out in a cold sweat, hurl all you’ve eaten out, have a fever, shiver but also feel too hot. You just have to eat soup and crackers and take lots of fluids. But even then, it’s no cure. There are days when you won’t be able to make it all better. Days when you just have to play with the hand you are dealt, even if that means you have to sit this round out and wait for the next one. Even if that means you get to feel bad when you watch your friends or people you don’t like cash in those sweet, sweet opportunities. Some days, you just…have rotten luck.  And you just have to drag your sore, beaten up corpse of a body to bed and call it a day.

And it’s okay if it lasts longer than that. It’s okay. Because you aren’t meant to win all the time. You aren’t even meant to win most of the time. All you are meant to do is try your best. No one can ask any more of you than that. And it so happens that some days, your best involves you staying in bed, recovering. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

 

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Note: This is Day 19 of my NaNoWriMo Writing Challenge. Granted, writing everyday is becoming a little grating, but I’m sticking with it. I’m seeing this through even if I have to crawl to reach that finish line. Aha…hahahah…ha. But hopefully, I’ll be seeing things in a different light before November ends 🙂

Do Our Faces Even Matter?

Art by: Phazed

“You know,” she confessed “Some days I don’t even feel beautiful. But that’s okay. Sometimes I think I don’t even need to be. There are days…” she trailed off.

“Days when I just…am. Days when it doesn’t matter how I look, how I think I look. There are days when I’m not stuck in my own head and nothing about who I am matters. I just am. Without consent or approval, without shame or judgement. I just am. Like the wind, or the sun, or—or Nature. I do what I am meant to do, unhindered. ”

He smiled to her a serene smile.

“You know, I wish our eyes could see souls instead of faces. The outside sometimes distracts from what’s really important but it’s only — only a vessel, the envelope to a letter. A pretty envelope is nice, but you’re not going to read an envelope. You look at it then cast it aside, because it’s the letter you want. I wish people could understand that. There’s no point making an envelope pretty if the letter inside is blank or poorly written.” he said, a chagrined expression on his face.

“But I understand in a way,” she smiled wryly “The envelope lets you know that the letter is here and it also keeps it safe. So I’m not complaining. Even the plainest envelope becomes beautiful when the letter inside is.”

With that, she poked his nose and ran away, her head thrown back in laughter.

The Art of Being Beautiful

Art by: Sharon Cummings

There is no shame in being beautiful in a way others do not understand. Do not hang your head because you are not what “Beauty” looks like.

Beauty can be foreign, strange or unconventional, sometimes all three at once.

Think of Art. There are endless types of Art, countless styles and movements and a horde of disciplines. There is Art that is conventional, Art that everybody will like, and then there is Art that people don’t know how to like, because they do not understand it. But it is still Art, and there will be people who understand. Or even others who want to understand it ,perhaps because and not in spite of its difference.

But there will also be those who disregard Art as not being Art. That is sad indeed for them, as they will live in a world with even less Art in it.

But their opinions do not move mountains. They cannot decide that the sky is not blue and suddenly it is not blue anymore. They have no power but that of persuasion. If they tell you the sky is red over and over, you might start believing them, you might start seeing that the sky is, in fact, a little red. So have faith in what you know: that the sky is blue, that Art is Art and that Beauty is Beauty.

It does not matter that you are music and she is painted art. It has no importance that you are realistic and he is abstract. Brush strokes or crayons, paper or clay, Minimalism or  Surrealism. It does not matter.

Art is Art and Beauty is Beauty.

A Different Kind Of Beautiful

Illustration Credits: http://turkishlifecafe.com/

“I wish I was beautiful,” she sighed, envious eyes landing on the graceful, willowy girl before her. “…like her.”

“Why be beautiful like her,” he asked quizzically “when you can be beautiful like you?”

A short, strangled cry of frustration left her lips.

“But— Agh! She —beautiful is her. Not me. I am not…I am not beautiful in the way I need to be. To be beautiful… I need to be like her.”

“Tell me,” he said thoughtfully. “Do you like the stars?”

“…Y-yes.”

“And the ocean, do you like it?”

“Well, yes.”

“How about the dawn?”

“Of —of course.”

“They are all beautiful, are they not?” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“And yet, the stars do not need to look like the ocean in order to be beautiful. None of them have to look like each other. They need only be themselves, and they are beautiful — do you get my point?” he smiled kindly.

Stunned, she could only nod uncertainly.

“Beauty,” he concluded,”is a personal experience. You need only think something is beautiful, and it is.”

Beautiful Eyes

“You think you are not beautiful,” he said, his voice but a caress lost in the breeze.

“You think…You say your eyes aren’t beautiful because they aren’t doe-like, because their colour is ‘dull’. But that’s not what makes eyes beautiful.” he said.

“What makes eyes beautiful is the ability to see good in people, the ability to see a dream instead of a dead-end. What makes eyes beautiful is everything but the way they look. It is when you look at me, and see me as more than everyone else believes me to be. It is when you have compassion and love and kindness in them that they are beautiful.”

“It’s no wonder you thought you weren’t beautiful,” he chided, “You’ve been looking at beauty with all the wrong eyes.”

And, as if to further make his point, he added:

“You are beautiful for what you are,not for what you appear to be.”

(Illustration Credit: Hélène Delmaire Art)

Existential Depression (Part II)

Illustration by: Lucy Salgado Illustration

But then, something happens that changes the way you feel.
Something happens that “undooms” you,
that lifts the curse of your loneliness.

You might think it is Love,
but there are more ways to lift a curse,
than by simply receiving a kiss.
It is in the smaller, less finite things.
It is in waking up one day,
and reveling in the warm glow of the sun on your cheeks.
It is being given a kind smile
by a stranger you will never see again.
It is in the ability to see just how beautiful it is that you’re alive.

But it is also in knowing that the black hole will resurface,
and being at peace with it.

You are the Universe,
and so, black holes are bound to exist within you.
But never let the black holes distract you
from every other beautiful thing that you are.
Because you are the Universe, and so,
you are all the stars and moons and constellations too.

If You Are Not Beautiful

Illustration Credits: http://hennkim.tumblr.com/

You believe so ardently that you are not beautiful,
and that you could never, ever be
and the idea is so preposterous to you,
so laughable that, knowing this,
I do not wish for anything to be beautiful anymore.

I have no wish for azure skies and fluffy clouds,
or for blooming fields and waterfalls.
I have no use anymore,
for the rainy days I used to love,
for the thunderstorms and lightning bolts.
For if you cannot be beautiful,
then nothing else can be.

Because if you are not beautiful,
then nothing else is.
If you are not beautiful,
then Beauty does not exist.

But surely, surely, Beauty exists,
and you are beautiful.

But if the World insists,
if the World says that you are not beautiful,
then so be it:
the stars will be ugly,
the rising sun repugnant.
Eclipses will be boring,
and the ocean will be hideous.
If you cannot be beautiful,
then nothing else deserves to be.

If beauty such as your own
-the kind that shines through kindness and love,
that radiates from your very soul-
is not beautiful,
then I do not understand Beauty.
I do not understand the World.
And I will have no wish to,
because a world that says
that you are not beautiful,
cannot hold any beauty of its own.