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details of hands by etienne adolphe piot

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Dancers of the Royal Ballet in Giselle — by Bill Cooper

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A Coworker Asks Me if I Am Sad, Still

& I tell her,

grief is not a feeling but a neighborhood.

this is where I come from. everyone I love still lives there.

someday I hope to raise a family in a place you could not mistake for any home I’ve ever been in.

Brenna, she says,            there’s no such thing                        as an unhaunted house.

— Brenna Twohy, from swallowtail

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I wish a lot of real life lessons were taught in school. Like how to efficiently pack a suitcase without getting on your own nerves, or how to go places without getting attached to every single thing that warms your heart. Or how not to panic whenever you’re faced with an adult problem like losing the only pair of keys to your house or being stranded in a new city with nobody to call. I wish I had learned to comfort someone with just my eyes. I wish someone could’ve taught me that tripping and falling in front of a crowd wasn’t the most embarrassing thing in the world. I would’ve loved to have been warned about loneliness, where my teacher tells me that it’s human nature and lists five thousand different ways to tackle it, and repeats this question everywhere so we’d always know the default answer. (I wish there was a default answer.) I wish someone had taught me things about boys before I got so deep and dragged in like quicksand. How they love and live, and why they do the things they do. I wish I didn’t have to read a botched up version of it in Cosmo or just wait for the “signs”. I wish I’d learned how to intervene and save someone. I wish I’d learned self-defense as a mandatory life skill. I’m sure there are classes for this, but I wish I could’ve been taught without option. I wish I had learned how to be forever confident. In my darkest hours, and in times of glory. I wish I’d learned how to live without my mother… I sit here, wondering if these are lessons at all, or if they are just experiences we need to actively seek out. But I wish it had been thrust upon me. Because I’m now an adult and I find that swimming is so natural and I have no fear of any water, but I learned it when I was 4 without much choice. Maybe if I’d been forcefully taught how to physically and emotionally protect myself and be vigilant, I would’ve never felt the fear of violation? Of being mistreated? Or being discriminated? I wonder…

#VLVT

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In 2012, I dreamed of living in a tiny quaint apartment, in a new city where I’d come home to dimly lit corners and white walls, with Steely Dan playing while I cooked spaghetti vongole for one, in blissful solitude.

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Then came 2015, and I wished for the same apartment, but with Sarah Vaughn and Mildred Bailey serenading me.

I imagined exposed brick walls, a vintage clothes rail and some house plants I’d soon adopt! I wanted homemade ramen, and frosted window panes.

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In January 2017, I had grown tired of house-hunting in London and begged for a pigeon hole! Anything I could just call my own.

I envisioned duck-egg coloured walls, a fireplace, wooden furniture and the sweet waft of sandlewood essence.

I wanted a home.

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Today, I’m here. A warm Victorian townhouse in London.

With high ceilings, a large fireplace and wooden floors. A pale pink vintage clothes rail stands stacked with winter coats in the corner. The snakey stems of a Devil’s Ivy trailing across many bare, exposed shelves, Steely Dan is begging Ricki not to lose that number, over my speakers, as dim light bounces casually across white walls and upcycled furniture.

There’s no spaghetti vongole on offer, but I do have some Darjeeling tea and a lightly-buttered scone, because breakfast food all-day is my reward.

I must leave you here to take in my current experience but not before I define it.

A real phenomenon called “dreaming into life” aka manifesting aka magic… ✨

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by neekmason http://ift.tt/1LqDDym

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LIghthouse keepers will never be memorialized like soldiers or cops because they didn’t kill anyone (as part of their job) but they’re like, heroes who saved untold lives through discipline and self-sacrifice doing an impossible lonely job and I’m worked up about  it 

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Vatican Museum | © LeronMasoN

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Fuck.

one day hozier is gonna cover hallelujah and by god it’ll kill me but what a way to go

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Stacking books on the floor, and other hobbies...

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I don’t feel like I am asking for much. I just want this anxiety to melt like snow under the sun. The same sun I want to sit under every day. In a space I feel safe into, the warmth on my skin, feeling light and serene. A light breeze. Days flowing easily like a melody. I just want to be at peace

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I never knew my grandfather, except that he lived in Madras and was once married to my nana.

I vaguely recollect the day I met him. It was my first and only time. He seemed rather strict and asked me several questions, all of which I remember answering quite unabashedly.

A few days ago, my mother sent me a photo of this letter that he had written to me, shortly after our meeting. The feelings it now evokes within me are nostalgic and bittersweet. He had thought of me. I was important to him. The "small" gift he sent me, turned out to be a generous box of art supplies. Sketch books, paints, brushes... He'd given me more than I needed. He had spawned a love of art in me. One I carry with me to this day.

The next time I saw him, was at his funeral. He seemed quite small by then and I was a teenager, who hadn't fully understood his love for me. I remember feeling quite numb. It wasn't until later that day, while I was strolling though his house that I found the original picture I had drawn for him as a little girl. It was in his room, framed, centered around all his other high-valued art. He had kept me close to him all his life, just like he had promised.

Dear Grandfather,

I'm not sure how our relationship would've turned out, had you still been with us today. But I know we could've bonded over our mutual love of art, handwritten letters, and the idea of home... If only immortalised by the people we love. Framed forever and close to our hearts.

Thank you for showing and reminding me how much I was loved. We will meet again...

Your very sweet Archana

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Muramasa Kudo aka 工藤村正 (Japanese, b. 1948, near Tokyo, Japan, based Los Angeles, CA, USA) - Untitled  Paintings

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Dark Academia // Fall Reminiscence