in time of daffodils

jesse

[hussyknee]

Her final tweet on October 8 reads:

“Gaza’s night is dark apart from the glow of rockets, quiet apart from the sound of the bombs, terrifying apart from the comfort of prayer, black apart from the light of the martyrs. Good night, Gaza.”

[gothhabiba]

The poem in the original Arabic:

(1) أعيذُكِ

في الفروضِ

والاستخارة

وأرقي كلَّ مأذنةٍ

وحارة

مِنَ الصاروخِ لحظةَ

كانَ أمرًا

مِنَ الجينرالِ

حتّى صارَ غارة

أعيذُكِ، والصغارُ

قبيلَ يهوي

تغيّرُ بابتسامتِها

مسارَه (2)

أعيذُكِ، والصغارُ هنا

نيامٌ

كما نامَ الفراخُ بحضنِ

عشِّ

ولا يمشونَ للأحلامِ ليلًا

لأنَّ الموتَ

نحوَ البيتِ

يمشي

ودمعُ الأمّهاتِ غدا يمامًا

ليتبعَهُمْ بِهِ

في كلِّ نعشِ

(3)

أعيذُ أبَ الصغارِ وبعدَ قصفٍ

يشدُّ البرجَ حتّى لا يميلا

يقولُ: للحظِة الموتِ

اِرْحَميني

"فماذا لو تأخّرتِ

قليلا؟"

يقولُ: "لأجلِهِمْ أحببتُ

عمري،

هبيهِمْ مثلَهُمْ

موتًا جميلا".

(4)

أعيذُكِ أنْ تصابي

أو تموتي

بعزِّ حصارِنا

وببطنِ حوتِ

شوارعُنا تسبّحُ كلَّ

قصفٍ

وتدعو للمساجدِ

والبيوتِ

فحينَ القصفُ يبدأُ

مِنْ شمالٍ

ستبدأً مِنْ جنوبٍ

بالقنوتِ

(5)

أعيذُكِ أنْ تصابي

أو تعاني

فقدْ حوّطتُ بالسبعِ

المثاني

مِنَ الفسفورِ طعمَ البرتقالِ

وألوانَ السحابِ

مِنَ الدخانِ

أعيذُكِ

إنَّ مَنْ عَشِقا وماتا

سينقشعُ الغبارُ

ويضحكانِ

Her last tweet reads:

معتمٌ ليل المدينة إلا من وهجِ الصواريخ، صامتٌ إلا من صوت القصف، مخيف إلا من طمأنينة الدعاء، أسود إلا من نور الشهداء. تصبحي على خير يا #غزة. #طوفان_الأقصى

[thevioletswitheredmyfatherdied]

Life updates, May 2023

- deliciously basking in healthy, fulfilling, deeply nourishing love. The kind where conflict is met by a desire to understand, where affection is freely, frequently given, where each of us aim to out serve the other

- sleeping and resting as much as my body calls for, and catching up on any missed out rest when a day goes by when I have to limit it as quickly as possible

- living with someone for the first time in a year and a half (temporarily - they move out in two days) and watching myself negotiate what it means to share a relatively small apartment, particularly as the weather gets colder

- travelling nearly every week for work; half my team has quit in the past month and it’s been both demanding and liberating. I question whether we can take the organisation in a new direction and this feels exciting in itself. Waking up in hotel rooms in new cities feels disorienting (even when the hotel room is in Melbourne) and I often feel caught in transit even as my body settles back into Sydney

- forgot to romanticise my life - this update is a reminder to self to be caught up in wonder the way I was as a teenager

[weltenwellen]

Irvin D. Yalom, Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy

[dreamsinthyme]

Anthony Bourdain (sexiest thing you can do on a date)...

“...you learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together. If your date makes the experience uptight and restrictive, well, the sex is going to be horrible too. ...I don't have much patience for people who are self-conscious about the act of eating, and it irritates me when someone denies themselves the pleasure of a bloody hunk of steak or a pungent French cheese because of some outdated nonsense about what's appropriate or attractive. Stop worrying about how your breath's going to smell, whether there's beurre blanc on your face, or whether ordering the braised pork belly will make you look fat. Eating with abandon couldn't be more of a turn-on: it shows that you're comfortable with yourself.

A perfect date is with a person who eats without fear, prejudice, or concerns about his or her appearance. I remember one of my first dates with my wife (Ottavia): She ordered a six-pound lobster. I sat there, enraptured, watching her suck every bit of meat from it—she got a standing ovation from the floor staff. She's the kind of woman who will order filet mignon as an appetizer followed by a T-bone steak. Her fearless, open-minded approach to food is completely alluring. For a dinner date, I eat light all day to save room, then I go all in: I choose this meal and this order, and I choose you, the person across from me, to share it with. There's a beautiful intimacy in a meal like that. It's about exploration and taste. And kissing after dinner. And maybe there's a little wine and curry on your breath... and that's nice.”

[37q]

gravity is so romantic...

[thevioletswitheredmyfatherdied]

remembering the way i used to use tumblr – more personal text posts. somehow both more and less thought put into what i posted. more in the sense that more often it would come from me and what i was thinking and feeling at the time but less in the sense that it felt less self conscious. i’ve been trying (failing) to rediscover what the inside of my own mind sounds like. what do my thoughts sound like. i think that communication is one of my biggest weaknesses, and i think that mostly comes from the fact that my thoughts are often indiscernible to myself, making them near impossible to translate into audible words that others can hear and understand. it can be very isolating, feeling this big chasm of empty space and silence. i remember i used to write poetry. it was never perfect and it never captured exactly what i wanted it to but at the time it felt closer to honesty, even when it was cheesy and uncompromisingly extreme. i remember i used to speak in this way that i now think of as embarrassing, in this very i hate small talk kind of way, but i spoke like this because i was so lonely and so desperate for connection – and ultimately i still am! turns out this feeling of being this slightly (or not so slightly) off putting, alien-like creature hasn’t gone away. 

[thevioletswitheredmyfatherdied]

what would you call this season of your life?

[wexler]

anthony bourdain: parts unknown - borneo

[bluebandit-deactivated20220607]

I be like idc then talk to myself about it for hours

[girlmostlikely]

[orrnament]

when björk said that trying to communicate through talking feels like trying to put the ocean through a straw

[iusedtobecharming-deactivated20]

[mqxim]

[iilef]

Resisting the feminine urge to say I love you to everyone I have a positive interaction with

[vampire-kaelthas]

Ah yes the khajiit

[serratedpens]

Eden Robinson, “Writing Prompts for the Broken-hearted”

[sheherazade-deactivated20210507]

quotes that help me survive:

“You are not lost. You are here. Stop abandoning yourself. Stop repeating this myth about love and success that will land in your lap or evade you forever. Build a humble, flawed life from the rubble, and cherish that. There is nothing more glorious on the face of the earth than someone who refuses to give up, who refuses to give in to their most self-hating, discouraged, disillusioned self, and instead learns, slowly and painfully, how to relish the feeling of building a hut in middle of the suffocating dust.” — Heather Havrilesky, Ask Polly

this tumblr text post:

“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.” — Mary Oliver

From an interview with Kazu Makino:

Instructions On Not Giving Up, Ada Limon:

And this poster by Yumi Sakugawa

“You have to believe, in your heart, that even if you don’t work hard and exercise and think positive thoughts and make new friends and march triumphantly into the future, you are still enough. You will always have bad days. Being broken doesn’t make you a loser. You can crumble, and you will still be enough. Make that your religion moving forward. You are here to feel this moment. You are not here to become someone better. You are not here to impress or compete. You are not here to prove yourself. You are here to savor this life. Let down your guard. You are already enough. Believe it.” — Heather Havrilesky

“The first feminist gesture is to say: “Ok. They’re looking at me. But I’m looking at them.” The act of deciding to look, of deciding that the world is not defined by how people see me, but by how I see them.” -Agnès Varda

lyrics from the song Grow by The Oh Hellos:

“The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.” — Mary Oliver

“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you,and that you will work with these stories from your life--not someone else's life--water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. That is the work. The only work.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estes