sweetnotsour

[sweetnotsour]

this ask polly comment..

[sweetnotsour]

i like to pretend i already died and asked god to send me back to earth so i can swim in lakes again and see mountains and get my heart broken and love my friends and cry so hard in the bathroom and go grocery shopping 1,000 more times. and that i promised i would never forget the miracle of being here

[sweetnotsour]

— “The Boss of Me”, Patricia Smith

[sweetnotsour]

There was something about him that spoke to Annalie the way art in a museum did.

And that's saying something, with her having gone to dozens of museums throughout her life of 20 years. She would admit that she very rarely glances at the names of artists and the titles of their art, so she can't enumerate the pieces of art that she's seen even if she tried. But curiously, she brought a cerulean pocket notebook every time she made her bi-monthly trip to a museum. With a pen that marked blue ink, she would note the details of each artwork that captivated her eye. She did this not in an obviously painstaking way, but in a manner that suggested she was lazy about it. She would scan a piece, quickly, then very slowly, as if taking all the time in the world, and in a moment her pen would be scribbling away observations with her left hand. If you asked her if these were groundbreaking thoughts, of course she would humbly deny such a thing, and what if they weren't in fact groundbreaking? She was neither an artist or a writer; no one was going to judge her for the words she had jotted down in her notebook, and she was not going to start being the sole judge of her own thoughts.

But she did think this hobby of hers was special - in that it gave her the time to treasure the relationship we had with art and even the solitude of going through the halls of a museum alone. She identified as an idle bystander to the beauty of paintings and sculptures. From evidently careful brush strokes to the handsome slopes made from marble, art told her so much about the world, like whispers under blankets in the middle of the night - clandestine and beloved.

She never did question why art drew her in. That is, until Vincent.

He was unmistakably one of her closest friends, and she cherished the amity they have built in the span of only six months. Vincent was, in her opinion, so beautiful. Pulchritudinous, even. His lankiness may not have been attractive to the average woman in her age range, and his demeanor was exceptionally timid. But he made her contemplate about the human aesthetic and attractiveness, and she thought his smile lines were something out of a sculpture, and whenever he ran his fingers through his wavy hair she would feel her heart skip a beat - the way the most eye-catching piece of art in a museum did.

Most importantly, though, Vincent made her laugh - an exception, a reaction art had yet to elicit from her. And perhaps that was something she had not previously considered. How he spoke to her the way art did, and how he spoke to her the way unbridled joy in its purest form did, too. But maybe that was arguably the point of some stunning works of art; they bring out feelings of wonder, stealing the ability to breathe, pulling her in and never letting go. He was remarkably human and incomparable to finished work as he was a constant source of happiness for her, and yet he was also something she wished she could put in a picture frame. He grounded her, while making her feel like she could fly.

And maybe that was the point of writing all her observations down - so that, when the time came that something, or someone, stole her breath away so overwhelmingly, she knew better than to attend to her notebook and walk towards the following installation. The myriad of colors and shapes he sparked within her were twice as beautiful as he was. And maybe - just maybe - someday, she could call the love they would create a scene from the sweetest painting she could ever imagine. She would come to realize that love was a collection of her most favorite pieces, and Vincent was in the middle of it all.

One-Word Prompts

Recently, I’ve been really liking the idea of one-word prompts, so here are some that I’ve seen and/or thought of that I liked:

Alembic - anything that transforms, purifies, or refines.

​​Alluvion - a gradual increase of land on a shore or a river bank by the action of water, whether from natural or artificial causes.

Arboreal - Of or relating to trees; treelike

Bel-esprit - a person of great wit or intellect.

Cause celebre - any controversy that attracts great public attention.

Cordate - heart-shaped.

Eidetic - of, relating to, or constituting visual imagery vividly experienced and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail.

Fantast - A visionary or dreamer

Flocculent - like a clump or tuft of wool.

Paraselene - a bright moonlike spot on a lunar halo; a mock moon.

Lethologica - When you can’t think of the word for something

Mellifluous - A sound that’s pleasing and sweet to hear

Apricity - The warmth of the sun in winter

Retrouvailles - The happiness of meeting again after a long time of being apart

Antediluvian - very old, old-fashioned, or out of date; antiquated

Beneficence - the doing of good; active goodness or kindness; charity

Cryptomnesia - the phenomenon of not recognizing the return of an old memory as a product of memory, but instead regarding it as a new or original thought or idea.

Cupidity - Eager or excessive desire, especially to possess something; greed.

Foible - A minor weakness or failing of character; slight flaw or defect

Girandole - A rotating and radiating firework

Gul - a large octagonal design derived from the shape of a rose, a motif on rugs.

Handsel - a gift or token fore good luck or as an expression of good wishes, as at the beginning of the new year or when entering upon a new situation or enterprise

Humicolous - of or relating to organisms that live in or on soil.

Hydra - A persistent or many-sided problem that presents new obstacles as soon as one aspect is solved.

Infodemic - a massive amount of widely and rapidly circulating information about a particular crisis or controversial issue, consisting of a confusing combination of fact, falsehood, rumor, and opinion.

Integument - A natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind

Jocular - given to, characterized by, intended for, or suited to be joking or jesting

Lachrymose - suggestive of or tending to cause tears; mournful

Limerence - the state of being obsessively infatuated with someone, usually accompanied by delusions of or a desire for an intense romantic relationship with that person.

Lunisolar - Pertaining to or based upon the relations or joint action of the moon and the sun

Meritocracy - A system in which a person’s progress is based on ability and talent rather than class privilege and wealth.

Neophyte - A beginner of novice

Nescience - Lack of knowledge; ignorance

Proceleusmatic - Inciting, animating, or inspiring

Pulchritudinous - Physically beautiful; comely

Qiviut - the soft, dense, light-brown woolly undercoat of the musk ox, used in making fabrics.

Sartorial - Of or relating to clothing or style or manner of dress

Satori - Sudden enlightenment

Saudade - A deep emotional state of melancholic longing for a person or thing that is absent

Sumpsimus - Adherence to or persistent in using a strictly correct term, holding to a precise practice, etc., as a rejection of an erroneous but more common form.

Sweven - A vision; dream

Tohubohu - Chaos, disorder, confusion

Uitwaaien - the Dutch practice of jogging or walking into the wind, especially in the winter, for the purpose of feeling invigorated while relieving stress and boosting one’s general health.

Vernal - Of or relating to Spring

Vibrissa - one of the stiff, bristly hairs growing about the mouth of certain animals, as a whisker of a cat.

Zeitgeist - The spirit of the time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time

Amity - friendship; peaceful harmony.

Gazeetter - a geographical dictionary

Anamnesis - the recollection or remembrance of the past; reminiscence.

Ginkgo - a large shade tree native to China, having fan-shaped leaves and fleshy seeds with edible kernels.

[sweetnotsour]

I plug my earphones into my phone. It takes some time for me to search for a fitting song once I open the Spotify app. Fitting for what? you may ask. Obviously, fitting for how I feel. At the moment I let my emotions guide me to the search bar, and eventually, I type, "gravel." My choice of song comes up as a result in a jiffy. I press on it then.

The song that reflects my current feelings is Gravel to Tempo by Hayley Kiyoko. It's not a new song choice. Nor is it a wild one. It's a safe one, for sure, though not necessarily, completely sane. Listening to it fills me with nostalgia, reminding me of a time when I sought reprieve from emotional pain. I was still an adolescent when I first listened to it. It's been years since then.

Still, I am unsure about what gravitates me towards this song, even back then. Is it the beat? It's steady and careful, but isn't afraid to soar, albeit at a height that's not very ambitious. Is it the lyrics? They are close to being unsettlingly lonely, with signs of being afraid and terribly shut off from the world. Or it could even be the music video - reflective of the lyrics and yet mimicking the liveliness of the beat, something fun without being comedic.

This evening though, as I listen, all of these combined - the song itself with the image of the music video I have in my mind - illuminate a message deeply wedged in my heart: This work of art makes me feel lonely. And free. Hayley's character in the music video gives that impression too. A freedom - tethered to the ground by a profound loneliness - compels her to dance and express herself the best way she can. This same loneliness causes her to pursue freedom she can only obtain through unabashed self-expression.

Loneliness can be a burden that weighs you to the ground, but is that totally a bad thing? What if that burden is a necessity as much as freedom is? We are free to feel lonely, to feel this burden as it is. And we are lucky enough to feel so lonely that it incites chaos and self-discovery, whets personality.

It is likely that I will forever cherish Gravel to Tempo, for how it made these feelings manifest within me. For how it calls me to dig into myself and ponder. For how it makes me ask, "Does all this gravelling go hand in hand with the tempo I set for myself?"

And "How do I strengthen the connection between the gravel under my feet to the tempo that beats its wings, struggling to reach the sky?"

I hope that I find the answer to these questions, and if I can't, then I hope I have the skill and dexterity to create an answer good enough for myself.

writing prompts! a single word edition

serendipity

bountiful

rambunctious

slapdash

exquisite

harrowing

wistful

knoll

virtue

cantankerous

flesh

ambivalent

muster

placid

boisterous

audacity

sequester

marrow

inkling

disjointed

spite

illuminate

effervescent

umbrage

disadvantage

[sweetnotsour]

Bianca Stone, “The Future Is Here,” in Someone Else’s Wedding Vows

[sweetnotsour]

Simone Weil, 'Void and Compensation' (in Gravity and Grace, trans. Emma Craufurd)

[sweetnotsour]

The rain was picking up. Drops of it splattered against the window, forming lines as they trickled down the window pane. The lines looked like an illustration of lightning - the same lightning Helen would see if she adjusted her eyesight and really peeked out the window. But well, her eyeglasses were missing again (and Mom had scolded her for it with so many tsks again, too), so she just could not be bothered.

A thunderstorm was forecasted earlier that day. If she didn't know any better, she would think a tornado was coming their way with the way the combination of rain and wind formed the wildest tempest she had witnessed all year. The lights had gone out in dusk and they no longer had electricity (for how much longer, her family wasn't sure, but it had already been five hours), and it was chilly at this time of the year too and their generator was broken and a tiny but loud part of Helen honestly wanted to cry and Mom was already in despair while Dad was soothing her and--

Well, there's no reason to panic, Helen thought. This was so definitely a typhoon, but she tried not to think about the situation they were in altogether. The house shook from gale, the winds a force she did not want to mimic -- and so she attempted to breathe properly. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Slowly, she felt herself relax back into her seat by the window.

At least Lance was being calm about this whole thunderstorm-typhoon ordeal they were having. He was probably in his bedroom with Dad, talking about their Star Trek Lego collection or reading the final book in the Percy Jackson series.

Her brother Lance was a precocious kid. He cried, like any other kid his age did, when he fell from his scooter and scraped his knee, the pain novel and tremendous for a child. He sulked when he was not allowed to eat more candy. He also threw Lego pieces around for others (read: Helen) to step on barefoot whenever he was in a bad mood. But there was something deeper behind those mischievous eyes of his, and sometimes she felt compelled to believe he was a wise, senile man in his past life who counselled younger people around a bonfire, harboring knowledge from decades of experience. Meanwhile, Helen felt like the direct opposite of him -- much older in age but younger, smaller, and actually petulant on the inside, though she hid this the way Lance hid his wisdom.

A knock on her bedroom door promptly yanked her out of her thoughts. She shook her head and stole a brief glance out the window. The rain was still wreaking havoc all around them, and she sighed.

She stood up and walked to the door. And was surprised to be greeted with the sight of her younger brother in tears, sobbing into the stuffed teddy bear he had sworn he was already too big for.

"Hey, hey. What's wrong?" Helen asked, calling, "Mom? Dad?"

"Shh," Lance hushed her. His nose was runny, his eyes puffy. He must have been crying all alone for a while now. "They're asleep."

Indignation flared up inside her -- to whom exactly she did not know. But she pushed it aside to usher Lance in, closing the door behind them with her foot. His shoulders were shaking from his sobs. Helen gently guided him to where she previously sat and pulled the chair for her study table closer, positioning it opposite of him.

She reached for his freezing hands, berating herself for not checking around to see if he was actually with Dad.

"I'm scared, Helen," Lance whispered to her in a voice that was so small you'd have to be right next to or in front him to make out the words. And this revelation shocked her like lightning striking her in the middle of an open field. Lance? Scared? When was the last time he appeared to be afraid? But then she took a good look at him and realized he wasn't the wizened man she had imagined many times before. He was, at the end of the day, just a child.

She had to be strong. Maybe not for herself, but for Lance. She wanted to confess, Me too. I'm afraid, too.

But what kind of older sibling did that? And... this was not the time. Lance was young and vulnerable but he was strong, too, but that was beside the point. A flash of hot lightning made them jolt from their seats, Lance flinching and Helen's eyes widening. His head whipped towards her, his eyes as big as saucers, mirroring hers.

Gulping down fear, Helen spoke to him with a voice that trembled. Stop it, she thought to herself, at the same time she told Lance, "It's okay. You're okay."

She wasn't sure if she could believe the same for herself, or Mom, or even Dad.

But this storm was going to end, and that she believed, the way she believed in Lance.

March Prompts 🍀

Word prompts to use for doodling or writing

flowers

butterflies

petals

grass green

spring

flutter

cherry blossom

lake

bees

comet

four leaf clover

daydream

smell

feathers

blooming

thunderstorm

boat

colorful

kite

waterfall

shiny

rabbit

tulip

flower crown

bridge

pattern

nature walk

clock

brick house

fairies

garden

[sweetnotsour]

Greetings!!!

I'm trying to get back into the rhythm and hobby of writing. I've been inspired by the writing prompts here on Tumblr, so I thought, why don't I make a writing blog so I can expand on these prompts? Initially, I was thinking I could keep my writing in response to these prompts tucked away in my Google Docs. But where's the fun in that? And so voilà, here I am!

If you read my work and have something to say, please be kind! My skills are rusty and I predict the writing I post here will be used as warm-ups/practice for other projects I have most of the time, so it's not going to be super polished.

So yeah! Welcome to my blog ☺️ Here's to writing!

With love,

Amber (she/her) (main: @joyunfolding)