They / them. 32. I feel better in the forest. Nerdy musician. Zelda enthusiast. This blog is a largely uncurated mess of whatever I happen to be interested in at the time 🤷♂️
Jam your face in some grass!!! Feel the sun on your skin!!! Adore your loved ones!!! Look at the sky!!! Life begins anew!!! Everything will be okay!!!!
I've always just adored nurtures aesthetic. The beautiful scenes of lovely flowers, stunning sky and fulfilling sunlight peek through the darkness, beckoning you and reminding you that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Squiggly, seemingly chaotic lines dapple the darkness like troubled and overwhelming thoughts, but they make way for birds and flowers, to me it speaks to this ability to accept our anxieties and transform our thoughts into something beautiful, like music that feels like summer, like art that speaks to those who interact with it. Text that looks beautiful and fitting, but also feels like text in progress, like a paper yet to be written, reminding us to LOOK AT THE SKY!!! that EVERYTHING WE NEED IS ALREADY HERE!!!! That sometimes, the inner voice in encouraging!!! that we're going to be okay!!!
anyways, I am so beyond lucky to be living this life. I'm so lucky I get to experience it all, and I'm so glad nurture pulled me through my darkest moments.
Actually, this is a BIT of a tangent but, I don't know! I want to talk about it. tw for pet loss, if you're willing to listen to me yap at length haha. It's good though!!! I promise it's not sad. But it's kind of an essay lol.
In April, Nurture will be 5 years old (only 5? dang it feels like this album has been in my life for forever!). I've listened to it since it came out, but, idk, I struggled a LOT with my mental health as a young adult, as I think most young adults do, and Nurture was a huge support for me, but I think I kind of took it for granted until I lost my last rat (and my heart rat), big boy. I associate the album with him a lot, I think. Before Big boy died, as he was approaching the end of his life, I was really reaching a low point. I won't get into details because it's kinda pointless and I'm a stranger on the internet, but right before he died I was probably at the lowest I'd ever been. I didn't really see how I'd keep going without Big boy, as he was really my light and love, he was my reason to push forward, but after he died I got better... surprisingly quickly. I remember the day I lost him was most definitely the worst day of my life, but after a couple days, I was just pulled towards Nurture and started listening religiously. Wind Tempos in particular had a chokehold on me. I clearly needed it, and it just felt like, in the most normal way, some part of Big boy was trying to speak to me through me finding it and hearing it again. Of course I know I was giving it meaning, not some spirit of my dead rat, but it just felt special. I had seen Nurture live at Red Rocks years earlier and had heard Wind Tempos live, but it didn't speak to me the way it did at this point. Every phase of that song feels like this point of transformation and growth, making your way through grief, finding the joy in being alive through the love you felt for the ones you've lost. If there's one thing my rats have taught me in this life, it's to love unconditionally and fully (and that cuddles are the best). I loved Big boy SO MUCH. He was the light of my life and, at the time, it felt like I would never love anything as much as I loved that rat. But listening to Nurture, and processing that grief taught me that if there's one thing my precious boy would have wanted, it would have been for me to learn to love life as much as I loved him. That there is so much more to our lives, that there's so much purpose and joy to be derived and that we are truly and sincerely lucky to be able to experience every facet of our existence, from the highs to the lows. Maybe I lost Big boy, but the love I have, and the love he gave to me hasn't been lost. Since he died, I've put so much of myself into becoming the best person I can be. I think we humans are always a work in progress, and I will always be a flawed being, but I never stop believing that I can be better, that I am not a lost cause. nobody is!
Maybe it's a gift that I couldn't recognize
trying to feel alive
I'm really lucky to have gravitated towards Nurture after he passed. I would not have processed the grief the way I did without the hope that Nurture gives me. It gave me a whole new perspective on life, and really, I would not have met the friends I did, or be anywhere near where I am without it. I know it's just music, but it was a regular reminder to breath, look at the sky, consciously think about what I am living for, have grace towards myself, remember the people that make my life good, and be more mindful in general. I cannot express how many times I've heard "Look at the Sky" and literally looked up, only to notice the most stunning view that I just never thought to notice right in front of me. How many times I've heard "Trying to Feel Alive" and remembered to stop for a moment and remind myself that whatever trials and tribulations I might be facing are proof that I am alive and I am making it!!!! Or heard Lifelike and stopped to feel the warmth of the sun on my face, and the freshness of the air if I am outside. These songs have become mindfulness exercises in and of themselves. I am so lucky to have people in my life whom I love so deeply, who I cherish so fully, who make me want to grow and change and improve, who inspire me to be the best person I can be, but also without harshness or anger. It's important we grow, change, and hold ourselves accountable where we can, but it's just as important that we give ourselves grace and understanding. This message in particular is more prominent in SMILE! :D but I do think it's important to love ourselves as much as our loved ones do. I tried to force myself to "be better" through anger directed at myself, and refusal to accept that I am human and make mistakes, and it made me miserable for so long. It was only once I treated myself with kindness that I found myself becoming a better, more positive, more full person. I think everyone should find that balance. I will admit, it falls out of balance every once and a while, but I always try my best to keep that balance as much as possible. We are only human, after all!
ANYWAYS, long rant over
Welcome back, spring! May this year be joyful, and may we find hope, love and kindness where we can, and make the most of what we have!! Make sure the people you love know you love them, make sure to look at the sky and admire what you see, take a moment to feel the warmth of the sun on your face, the coolness of the breeze in your lungs, and the love for everything you hold dear in your heart! You can make it through this year! We can make it!
This goes out to Big boy, of course. Small rat with such a short life, but one that touched me forever. I always hold a piece of him in my heart, like an everlasting glow that reminds me of all the good in the world.
To finish out, I'm linking one of my favorite live Nurture songs!!! I often find myself skipping to Trying to Feel Alive. Just a skippy song!!! Skipping to this song on a sunny day is one of the best feelings in the world. Happy happy joy joy!!! I'm so happy spring is here! I am higher than a kite!!!!!
the whole 'nobody would miss me if i were gone' line of reasoning is so completely and mindblowingly false, it's almost laughable if you take a couple steps back. there's a lady at work who has been there for maybe two or three weeks and has only talked to me a handful of times, ask where the necklace i usually wear went. another person asked where i was cause i wasn't scheduled for about a week. i regularly think of friends who have deactivated their accounts or who i've lost contact with and what id tell them. i still think about people i haven't talked to for years even though i didn't know them well. people still think about you even if you're a passing specter on the street. and that's not even holding a candle to how much the people who are personally involved in your life care. people do notice and care. all the time. it might be hard to see it or remember it but people do care. ily.
There's people who have a religion, and there's Religious People. The first type is just normal people who happen to have a foundational structure they like to have their world built upon. The latter type are the kind that make me want to lean in and say "look, I would not even want to get into the kind of Heaven that would let you in."
In my experience as a third culture kid who travels a lot the best indicator that you as a non-x is appreciating x culture is if the locals actively invite you to participate in it with them
Yes, you are allowed to buy those handmade Inuit winter clothes if an Inuk is literally selling them to you. They would not be offering you a price point if they didnt want you to buy and wear them. And you might discover that theyre the best winter clothes youve ever worn because of COURSE they would be if theyve kept this culture warm in harsh winters for thousands of years.
Yes, you are allowed to join those Cambodians in that local holiday theyre celebrating during your visit if they literally invited you to it. They would not have invited you if they didnt want you to participate. And in the process you might learn a lot about a culture you never wouldve interacted with and you can all have a laugh together about your clumsy but genuine attempts at getting your footwork right in one of their traditional dances.
Yes, you are also allowed to ask if you can participate in something from the local culture you are visiting. Sometimes you will get "sorry, thats a closed practice" but in my experience most of the time you'll get "of course, let me show you how to do this!" And in my experience people tend to appreciate when others make an active effort in sharing their culture and wont stone you to death if youre clumsy about it while youre learning. I guarantee that the local children doing all of this for the first time too make the same mistakes you do and they can tell if youre being disrespectful or genuine.
So much "cultural appropriation" discourse really starts to sound like "you cant participate or visit any other cultures if youre from a Colonial Culture and have to stay in your little box and never relate to other people"
So within two days of each other, Fox News writes an article comparing aromanticism and asexuality to pedophilia, and then Matt Walsh releases a video saying asexuality is a mental illness and asexuals are tricking teenagers into having depression.
Not sure what’s going on right now over in Conservative World, but it’s a hell of wild U-turn for them to suddenly switch from “Oh no! The left is sexualizing our children!” to “Oh no! The left is asexualizing our children!”
It’s a reminder, I guess, that they’re coming for all of us. The fash and the white supremacists will not make nice distinctions between the queers when they put us up against the wall. There is no gatekeeping, no label-policing, no purity-purging and no assimilation that any of us can do that will save us. They want us dead, and while they’ll start with whoever is most vulnerable at any given time, they’ll get around to all of us eventually.
Queer solidarity means all of us because the fash are coming for all of us.
ANYONE who is trying to divide our community is a fucking Fed. That includes other queers who like to argue about who is and isn’t “allowed” in our community.
today I used the phrase "breasting boobily" in casual real life conversation and everyone was shocked asking how I came up with that and I had to explain it. ive been at the devil's sacrament so long that I forgot he wasn't god
if there's one thing i appreciate about americans, its that they are DELIGHTED by "american love burger" jokes. they cant get enough of them! much like how they cant get enough of burger……
[ image description: a gif of Anthony Bourdain sitting in front of a red and white wall, eating an In N Out Burger and saying, "I'm just a cheap, nasty, low down...trailer park... BURGER SLUT". / end description ]
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