Tropic Morning News

Jessica (she/her). Canada. Owner of a miniature bowling set.

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Blog Intro / About Me

Hi! I’m Jessica (she/her) and I'm not good at social media or "about" pages. I'm mostly here to share my writing, because I've heard that if you want to make a career out of writing (which I do) you're supposed to share your stuff online. So. Enjoy the awkward self-promotion!!

I write about chronic illness, realistic hope, and the beauty and trials of ordinary life. I also write about faith sometimes, but like, as a Christian Leftist who believes everyone has inherent worth and hates how religion has been turned into a weapon against marginalized people.

I also love music, baseball, and British comedy, so I might post about those things on occasion.

Have a nice day and such!

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I made a Taskmaster edit - Songs with the word "everybody" in them but Mathew Baynton is the one singing "everybody!"

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Three Ways to “Live First, Then Write” Within Your Limitations

A quiet life can still enrich your writing

Since the NaNoWriMo website has shut down, I wanted to repost this article I wrote for their blog back in 2022. It reshapes the advice to "live first, then write" to accommodate life with chronic illness.

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1995 - Common People, Pulp.

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Released 30 years ago today!

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As today is his birthday, I thought now would be the perfect time to tell The Absolutely True Story of How I Named My Vacuum Cleaner After Russell Senior. Enjoy.

-I got a new vacuum cleaner

-I kept forgetting where I put it, seeing it out of the corner of my eye and becoming mildly unsettled for a moment because wait what was that?

-This reminded me of Russell's story about getting a Vic Reeves cutout for his daughter, placing it at the top of the stairs to scare off burglars and terrifying himself every time he saw it

-This made me think of Russell any time I saw the vacuum

-I remembered how Russell's surrealist play included instructions to turn on a vacuum and not turn it off until the audience became restless/the first audience member left and this strengthened the connection between Russell and vacuums in my mind

-I realized if I named the vacuum after Russell, I could call it Russell Cleanior, which is the sort of terrible pun I adore

-I decided it was official—the vacuum would be named Russell Cleanior

(I followed this up by naming my air purifier Candidair Doyle, though that was more pun-based and as such has a less interesting backstory.)

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Tulips!

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Five Things I’m Trying to Find Hope in As We Live Through the Sixth Year of COVID

Believing in a better world in the midst of feeling stuck and left behind

It can be hard to have hope when you're still COVID-Cautious and feeling left behind, but here are five ways I'm trying to find hope anyway.

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Easter Flowers!

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If you're a Covid-Cautious Christian and want to be part of an online community that shares your beliefs and values, send me a message and I'll invite you to the Covid-Cautious Christian Discord server I made last month.

It's a small, friendly place and most of the users have chronic health issues and will understand if you take a long time to reply to messages. 💕

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the green vase strikes again 💐 24x30 inches, oil on wood

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picked up some flowers at the grocery store 🌸

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Don’t mind me, just following trends 🪩

Oil on wood, 2022

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Heart Macarons with Lemon Buttercream

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Gingerbread Cake with Mascarpone Buttercream

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Looking for God in My Enemy’s Breath, an Essay by Jessica Natasha Lawrence

—it’s the pain of those unmet needs that exposes your claws and bares your teeth. Every fallen feather is a prayer—God, save this world.

I originally wrote this over a year ago and assumed an essay about baseball, ableism, and Ignatian spirituality would be too niche to ever be published, but it recently found a home in Valiant Scribe.

(Just a little note that when I talk about allowing the albatross to fly, I'm talking about living with our negative emotions, not suggesting we shouldn't challenge harmful systems!)

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Peaceful walking trail (and a filter that makes it look like a sketch)