la dolce vita

sweet life can be found sitting in my childhood backyard, searching for four-leaf clovers with everyone i've ever loved

[guzel-j]

Hi! I'm J ₍^. .^₎⟆ ❤︎ I’ve been on “appstinence” again since December last year, trying to chill on social media. Less scrolling, less random checking, less disappearing into the endless black hole of reels and photos, and yes, “Why are you here then?” 😅

This isn’t new to me. Every now and then, I log out and go quiet. I don't hate social media, but I know how easily it can take over my headspace.

This is probably the longest appstinence I’ve done so far 😅 and will I ever go back? Probably yes. Hahaha. I also tried to recover the other account (delights-in-jesus) but it is no longer possible.

So what am I doing if I'm not checking my apps all the time? Real talk, you can actually do a lot.

I’ve been more physically active: pilates, running, badminton. I went back to my loves-painting, drawing, editing videos (okay fine… I might be active again on my YT soon 👀). I started learning how to play the piano. I’m also back to my language lessons, i.e., Turkish and Japanese. I volunteered in a community, too, and connecting with people with great minds is indeed fascinating. I’m even thinking that maybe one day, I’d love to become a mentor (cross-fingers). I am also an active supporter of a missionary abroad (and if you ever feel led to be part of that in any way, drop me a message).

Now you might say, “How did you even do all that?” or maybe you’re thinking I’m just bluffing or lowkey bragging. Actually, no. The majority of the things I’m doing now are not new. They were already part of my life when I was a teen and in my early 20s and I just stopped. Life got busy, priorities changed, work got heavier. If I’m being honest, I let my career consume me for a while, partly to stay busy and partly to avoid sitting with pieces of my past. It was easier to bury myself in deadlines than to process things. But somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t living as purposefully as I wanted to. I was productive, somehow yes and no, but not fully present, not fully me.

Actually, my appstinence sort of helped me with that. It created space, and in that space, I found old versions of myself waiting, the girl who loved to create, move, learn, and explore. This is not a glow-up story but that girl felt familiar, almost like someone I had not seen in years. Maybe that’s what this season is about, not becoming someone new (new year resolutions never work anyway), but rather reconnecting with who I’ve always been.

How good the Lord is. Shalom, shalom (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) I've lost track of exactly how long I've been writing, but it all began with a WordPress blog about 11-12 years ago that has since been lost to the internet archives ദ്ദി◝ ⩊ ◜.ᐟ

[guzel-j]

I pulled on my wetsuit boots, adjusted my cap, and stepped onto the tidal flat, holding a repurposed paint bucket—it was my first time gleaning. The water was barely ankle-deep, warm from a full Friday of sun, and the bottom shifted underfoot in a way that made each step feel like walking on something alive, which it was. The flat stretched wide and exposed before me, carpeted with seagrass (nearly 80% coverage, as I would learn later) and scattered with marine life. In Poblacion, Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, the seagrass was thicker than I expected. Welcome to gleaning, I teased myself.

There were perhaps twenty-one people already out there, spread across the vast intertidal expanse in loose clusters, bent low, heads down, searching and collecting something in the shallow water, while some constantly thrust gleaning tools into the substrate with their dark silhouettes framed against the dimming sky. Fingers found nothing, then something small and quick, then nothing again. Your eyes had to be sharp and faster than you think, and even your hearing had to be tuned in.

Two young kids, perhaps the same age, worked near each other. As they waded through the seagrass, one holding a plastic bag asked the other, "Isa ra imong nakita nga kinason? Akoa duha na". I thought he was happy to be keeping score in a game, while the other kid, unbothered, replied, "Oo, isa ra," and kept wading. Their voices were innocent and bright; they were having an uncomplicated, tilted-toward-the-sun kind of fun, you know the way children do when they have not yet been told which parts of their lives are supposed to be hard.

Walking back across the flat as the last light left the water, I realized something about this community: they had probably been doing this for years, or a lifetime, and would keep doing it, tide after tide, regardless of whether anyone was watching. Perhaps there's a tendency, especially in stories about communities like this, for the words resilient, strong, and ingenious to come quickly, stacked like praise. But they can also become a way of admiring people for enduring conditions they didn't choose. The families aren't there because they're admirably tough, but because they need to eat, and this is how survival is negotiated, day by day.

Locally called ‘pamumulot’ or ‘panginhas,’ gleaning is the collection of marine resources along coastal areas. For some, it is a pastime, while for other families, it was sustenance, a main source of income, running alongside whatever the men bring back from deeper water. This can take five to six hours, with children being trained from a young age by their parents.

[guzel-j]

In the midst of days when it feels like your world has fallen apart, have you ever doubted you’d get through it? Have you wondered if life would ever be good or normal again? I’ll be honest. In some of my darkest trials, there have been moments when I had those doubts. There weren’t even any pinpricks of light at the end of the tunnel, just day after day of darkness. But dark times in our lives are necessary, dear friend. It takes dark nights to bring us to bright days. It takes the dark of night for plants to germinate and grow. It takes the dark of night for us to see the stars shine. And it takes the dark nights (our difficult times) for us to grow as a person.

Hope today feels a bit lighter for you, dear friend!

Shalom, shalom (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

[guzel-j]

Two years passed before my low-maintenance-but high-maintenance-when-we-finally-meet friend and I saw each other again. These are the relationships where you can go for years without a single phone call, but the moment you sit across from one another, you skip the weather and the "how are yous" to go straight into the deep end of the soul. Perhaps it is because we are both eldest daughters, accustomed to carrying responsibilities, but silently longing for spaces where we can be vulnerable without explanation. She was my go-to person during a season of heartbreak, and a companion in crazy-adrenaline-rush-and-sponty mountain and side trips.

It wasn’t exactly a planned encounter. I had already booked a flight that I could no longer rebook because of the unforgiving reality of expensive airfares nowadays, which are crazy high, so I decided to follow through and endure the 6-hour wait haha.

We share a love for coding, too, though she is far more the pro between the two of us. But what stayed with me long after the flight home wasn't the catching up, it was the conversation about discernment. I think she's in the middle of questioning things lately and has asked for my POV on it. I shared a thought that discernment is not merely about knowing what is right, but about choosing to do what is right even when it is difficult. Expounding here it though. Discernment, as defined, is the ability to exercise keen insight and sound judgment. But today, in an age when we live as inhabitants of a global village, flooded with information, opinions, and noise, it has become more than a definition. Over time, unacceptable things have become societal and cultural norms, even expected, and to resist them is to risk being seen as different, or even out of place or "canceled". Having a discerning spirit will always set you apart. No matter what may come your way, discernment will empower you to stay grounded in the truth, instead of being moved by the things around you. From a Christian perspective, it will require immediate obedience and being still enough to hear what God's speaking to you. What began as an unplanned meeting became something far more meaningful, and perhaps that is why a six-hour wait and a long-overdue conversation with an old friend was precisely where I needed to be reminded especially these days. Shalom, shalom (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

[guzel-j]

[kocalls]

[ivytea]

pigeon courier's journey through a strange town inhabited only by cats. drawings for STICKII 2025 vintage advent calendar

[nicoyarobin]

[guzel-j]

i love this scene, Laboon reminds me of an Avatar scene 😂

[nicoyarobin]

[greengableslover]

EMMA. (2020) dir. Autumn de Wilde + Food

[gillisiart]

Painted a collection of Jane Austen novels!

Clockwise from top left: Pride & Prejudice, Emma, Sense & Sensibility, Persuasion

[nicoyarobin]

[beaulesbian]

ONE PIECE ⚔ RORONOA ZORO & SANDAI KITETSU

chapter 97 || anime episode 49 || live action episode 2x01

⚔ "You don't know that sword. It's cursed. The Sandai Kitetsu is third in a lineage of magnificent but ill-fated swords. Even renowned swordsmen who wield a Kitetsu blade all meet a tragic end." ⚔ "How about we test what's stronger. My will, or the sword’s curse?"

[guzel-j]

Friedrich Nietzsche, from a letter featured in The Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche

[folktail]

Susan and Lucy: We're not friends, we're sisters

Louis Leopold Boilly, Two Sisters / The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) / Krystal Sutherland House of Hollow / Cover of C.S Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Pauline Baynes / Unknown / Little Women / Chen Chen, 'when i grow up i want to be a list of further possibilities' / Louise Glück, Descending Figure / Prince Caspian (2008) / C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian / Florence and the Machine, Grace / C.S Lewis, Till we have faces / Hunger Games: Mockingjay / unpublished poem by me (@folktail) /Jessica Goodman / just like falling snow by @zannolin / C.S Lewis, Till we have faces / unknown / unpublished by me (@folktail) / poem by @inkskinned

my other pevensie sibling dynamics weaves can be found here

[platypaws]

pnf revival challenge day 4: driver’s license!

Hosted by @howtonerdoutovereverything!✨

I wanted to add a page where they get pulled over by cops but ironically I spent 10 hours driving myself today and I’m falling asleep at my desk kfbshckm anyway here’s a bonus meme:

[guzel-j]

I miss Phineas and Ferb, best in its optimism propaganda - unapologetically loud about grit, creativity, relentless authenticity, determination, and that almost absurd level/of confidence/delulu in making your dreams come true.

[landsccape]