dark-academia-rambles

[dark-academia-rambles]

“After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: if anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately. Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she did this. I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. Shu dow-a, shu-biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, sho bit se-wee? The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—she stopped crying. She thought our flight had been canceled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late. Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him. We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother until we got on the plane and would ride next to her—Southwest. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out, of course, they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, the lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—non-alcoholic—and the two little girls from our flight, one African American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice and lemonade, and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—has seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.”

— Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.”

[dark-academia-rambles]

"REGRETS" by Nora Hikari

[dark-academia-rambles]

Thomas Edwin Mostyn (1864-1930, British) ~ The Old Gateway, n/d

[Source: Christie's]

[dark-academia-rambles]

NASA released the clearest pictures yet of our neighbours in the solar system

Oh and of course us

Honourable mention

[dark-academia-rambles]

Open again !!

btw I'm taking requests for web weaving!!

[dark-academia-rambles]

“That’s why high school, or a crappy job, or any other restrictive circumstance can be dangerous: They make dreams too painful to bear. To avoid longing, we hunker down, wait, and resolve to just survive. Great art becomes a reminder of the art you want to be making, and of the gigantic world outside of your small, seemingly inescapable one. We hide from great things because they inspire us, and in this state, inspiration hurts.”

— One of the best articles I’ve ever read. Rookie Mag. By Spencer Tweedy. (via wildyork)

[dark-academia-rambles]

btw you will miss this in 5 or 10 years. memory will smooth these circumstances down like a river stone, and you will find yourself longing for a shade of light or a moment of this particular innocence. you don't know about what happens next, and one day that will be the most alluring thing of all. don't leave it all for nostalgia. have a nice night now, whatever night it happens to be.

[dark-academia-rambles]

[dark-academia-rambles]

does anyone know if you can get in trouble for feeling weird

[dark-academia-rambles]

[dark-academia-rambles]

The Kiss of Freedom by Rami Kanso

[dark-academia-rambles]

mary oliver, upstream

[dark-academia-rambles]

The Ball, Gaston La Touche

c. 1889

[dark-academia-rambles]

cant stop thinking abt ursula k. le guin’s essay abt the carrier bag theory….. she’s like, maybe the first human tool was not a weapon, but rather something that holds, a bag, a pouch, a vessel, something for gathering and storing and sharing. let’s shift the narrative of humanity from that of violence to that of safekeeping. and i’m like

[dark-academia-rambles]

I had a dream me and my childhood best friend walked home together after the first day of school. I had this dream the summer after I graduated; she was staying another year. We hadn’t been in the same school for 3 years, when I had this dream. It reminded me of a simpler time. A time where everything felt much more certain

[dark-academia-rambles]

Palestinian Tatreez Hearts Tapestry Wall Art

[dark-academia-rambles]

I know it is my father's first time on this Earth, too. And I know He had it worse when he was little.

But I was little too.

— Franz Kafka, from letters to his father