#204: On keeping up, finding community and a gathering of flower lovers 🌻
Dear reader,
I’ve been tired. My life has been feeling like a to-do list I can’t keep up with. I was talking to a friend recently who resonated, and said “It feels like September is 3000 days long”.
It’s a big realisation to know that sometimes, even if we really want to, it’s super hard to stay afloat and nurture yourself. I’ve been overwhelmed by the reality of work from home (not mountains) and the mountain of things to do and keep track of. But in other news, my balcony garden is full of chillies, marigold and basil aplenty. So yay. Small wins, right?
Connecting to people and seeking community has been giving me some comfort. Reconnecting with myself via interactions with familiar comforting faces, doing workshops to push myself out of my comfort zone and into the midst of my fellow artists and poets, all of us looking for ways to express ourselves and hold space for being who we are.
Reminded of this:
“Human beings are immensely complicated creatures, living simultaneously in a half dozen different worlds. Each individual is unique and, in a number of respects, unlike all the other members of the species. None of our motives is unmixed, none of our actions can be traced back to a single source and, in any group we care to study, behavior patterns that are observably similar may be the result of many constellations of dissimilar causes.”
-Aldous Huxley on Making Sense of Ourselves and Each Other
I’m learning to show up for the joy of exploring and playing with ideas around others, being vulnerable and plunging myself into the real world once in a while, which more often than not can lead to some beautiful synergy in the room. :)
A Flower Lover’s Weekend with Hoovu Finds 🌼
That brings me to the one rather lovely thing I’ve been working towards through this month…As some of you may know, I’ve been curating a page called Hoovu Finds, which celebrates flowers and art. We’re doing our first two community events back-to-back this weekend in Bangalore, and everyone’s invited!
Saturday: AF Weekend 2022 Flowers x Art Party
24th September | 11am at Hoovu Fresh, Yelahanka, Bangalore
Join us for a morning of flowers, art and good vibes at the AF Weekender 2022 Flowers x Art Party 🌸
I’m hosting a floral zine workshop and curating a flower lover’s playlist + Chef Nayantara Menon Bagla has made the most delicious flora-inspired Buddha Bowl for the event + Learn gajra-making with the lovely ladies of Hoovu Fresh + Experiment with floral dyes + Be one of the first readers of Rucha Dhayarkar’s tender zine The Floral Monologues.
Sunday: The Floral Monologues in the Park
25th September | 11am at Cubbon Park, Bangalore
Join us for the launch of The Floral Monologues, a photo zine by artist and storyteller Rucha Dhayarkar that explores her relationship with flowers.
We'll have Rucha talk about the zine and do some flower sketching with you all. She’s also going to create a floral mandala in the park with flowers courtesy Hoovu Fresh. I’ll be there reading flower poems, so do bring your favorite flower poems along to read.
Do come by and have a gentle Sunday with us! Please register so we can email you all the exact location.
Poetry on Community and Togetherness
1. Cento Between The Ending And The End By Cameron Awkward-Rich
Sometimes you don’t die
when you’re supposed to
& now I have a choice
repair a world or build
a new one inside my body
a white door opens
into a place queerly brimming
gold light so velvet-gold
it is like the world
hasn’t happened
when I call out
all my friends are there
everyone we love
is still alive gathered
at the lakeside
like constellations
my honeyed kin
honeyed light
beneath the sky
a garden blue stalks
white buds the moon’s
marble glow the fire
distant & flickering
the body whole bright-
winged brimming
with the hours
of the day beautiful
nameless planet. Oh
friends, my friends—
bloom how you must, wild
until we are free.
2. Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
3. One Morning by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
One morning
we will wake up
and forget to build
that wall we’ve been building,
the one between us
the one we’ve been building
for years, perhaps
out of some sense
of right and boundary,
perhaps out of habit.
One morning
we will wake up
and let our empty hands
hang empty at our sides.
Perhaps they will rise,
as empty things
sometimes do
when blown
by the wind.
Perhaps they simply
will not remember
how to grasp, how to rage.
We will wake up
that morning
and we will have
misplaced all our theories
about why and how
and who did what
to whom, we will have mislaid
all our timelines
of when and plans of what
and we will not scramble
to write the plans and theories anew.
On that morning,
not much else
will have changed.
Whatever is blooming
will still be in bloom.
Whatever is wilting
will wilt. There will be fields
to plow and trains
to load and children
to feed and work to do.
And in every moment,
in every action, we will
feel the urge to say thank you,
we will follow the urge to bow.
The September Spotify Playlist is here!
I’ll keep adding songs that find me till the end of the month. Happy listening!
A few good reads
ManyBooks, an extensive library of books in digital format for free to anyone on the internet (via swiss miss)
Cheryl’s new advice column The Sweet Spot
Don’t Surround Yourself With Admirers. Instead, befriend people who inspire awe in you.
I hope to see some of you this weekend with flowers in your hair. 🌸
Here’s to more blooming!
Rohini
Fellow flower lover here🌼 and love your idea of building a flower lover community