#198: poetry for a rainy day + a khoi bag of curiosities + slow brewing thoughts

Hello there!

It’s pouring outside, I’ve got my July Spotify playlist playing, and there’s fresh guacamole in my life. Come dance with me:

A few of you wrote in last week asking if I was alright/why the newsletter hadn’t arrived in your inbox last Monday as per usual. I’ve been on the verge of a burnout throughout July, pushing myself more than I could handle and chasing far too many deadlines.

But heck yeah, it’s finally August, and I’ve promised myself that I’ll be better about my work-life balance. Plus, there’s a lot of exciting new projects I can’t wait to share with you all in the coming weeks.

Until then, here’s a photograph from Goa that a friend said is very ‘Rohini’. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Postcard from Goa. With love.

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poetry for a rainy day

The Rain by Claude Monet

1. Time by Alex Dimitrov

   Again I am unprepared
   standing under an awning
   in the middle of summer
   autumn, winter, spring
   watching the downpour
   in what could be
   the middle of life;
   wondering how long I'll wait
   before becoming the rain.
   

2. Rain haiku by Muzib Mehdy (via)
   Translated from Bengali by Sanjuktaa Asopa
   
   rainfall
   the clouds translated
   in water’s tongue

3. On a Day When Life Feels Black and White by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (Inspired by “Impasse des Deus Frères” by Vincent van Gogh and Kayleen Asbo’s musical response, “Moulins de Gallette.”) 
    
   Some days, like today, I long for rain,
   long for the muted, grey kind of day
   that unfolded in the oils of van Gogh,
   when he’d stroll through the flat
   and quiet daytime streets of Montmartre,
   those dreamy hours when the world
   is not too bright, not overly exultant,
   not too sure of its gaiety,
   a day when the wind is the only thing
   that feels it needs to move,
   when I don’t need to know anything
   about anything, can notice how
   the world resists resolution,
   how the barest scrap of color
   can change the whole scene,
   can let myself be content to be gray,
   can let myself be a student of windmills,
   notice how it’s the invisible forces
   like relentless love, like persistent wind,
   that make the whole world spin.

4. How to Pour Madness into a Teacup by Abegail Morley
   
   She hangs her tears at the front of the house
   cuts the rain in half and puts time
   in the hot black kettle. She sits in the kitchen
   reading the teacup full of small dark tears;
   
   it’s foretold the man in the wood
   hovers in the dark rain above the winding path.
   The man is talking to her in moons,
   she is laughing to hide her tears
   
   and with little time, she secretly
   plants the moons in the dark brown bed.
   She shivers, thinks the man is watching
   as the jokes of the child dance
   
   on the roof of the house. Tidying,
   she carefully puts hot rain in the teacup,
   sings as she hangs her tears on a string
   and watching the dance, thinks herself mad.

5. Red by Mary Ruefle
   
   I fucking depended on you and
   you left the fucking wheelbarrow
   out and it’s fucking raining
   and now the white chickens
   are fucking filthy

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a khoi bag of curiosities

via The Ice Cream Project

• The Ice Cream Project (need me a tub of Heinz ketchup ice cream)

• Meet the Smooth-Coated Otter of Goa

• The Birdsong Project founders made a playlist of their favorite avian-toned music

• Petrichor: why does rain smell so good?

• Attend: A journey through Forbes Pigment Collection

• New BEST museum showcases Mumbai’s past and future

• How a 50s food writer championed Kerala's cuisine, one column at a time

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slow brewing thoughts

• “Without the known existence of free will (this is up for debate, I am not an expert), there is an implied “meant to be” in all that we experience just by virtue of transitioning through it. That what will be will be. I find this thought both comforting and terrifying. Our job is just to experience and understand and be as kind and gentle as we can be to ourselves and radiate that to others.”
  -Re-defining Fate in 2022 by Carissa Potter (love her newsletter SO much)

• “No one will bring back the years, no one will restore you to yourself. Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course. It will cause no commotion to remind you of its swiftness, but glide on quietly. It will not lengthen itself for a king’s command or a people’s favor. As it started out on its first day, so it will run on, nowhere pausing or turning aside. What will be the outcome? You have been preoccupied while life hastens on. Meanwhile death will arrive, and you have no choice in making yourself available for that.”
  -Seneca On Coping with the Shortness of Life

• “practice is holy.”
  -adrienne maree brown

• ‘hauntology’ — a moment lost in nostalgia; a snapshot of a time that can never be, again.
  -Fariha Róisín

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Lulling myself to sleep with these adorable cuddling otters on loop. So precious.

via

Good night, and happy Augusting!

Love,
Rohini