#259: The art of giving
A Gifting Guide + December playlist + Workshop Alert
Dear reader,
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to be a better giver (and consequently, a better receiver). I suppose it’s coming from a place of trying to understand my love language and living more in alignment with my beliefs, evolving as they may be.
For the longest time, I thought my love language was gifts…little objects of affection. With the boundaries I’ve set in place for myself this year, I’ve started leaning more towards quality time as my new-found love language. I still buy my friends flowers sometimes. But because I’ve accepted that my time and energy is scarce and can’t be taken for granted, I’ve become nit-picky about how and with whom to spend those precious resources with.
I’m the first one out the door at after-parties because that just ain’t my vibe no more. (And I’m a cat mom now!)
I’m always late in replying to emails, having given up on Inbox Zero, but there’s no longer a sense of guilt I carry about it. Perhaps my ADHD blocks out the guilt I ought to feel / have felt over not completing the task I set out to do once upon a time.
Today, a year late, I’m handwriting gratitude notes and sending postcards to the paying subscribers. It should’ve/could’ve/would’ve happened earlier but I’m just one woman, who already juggles too much, and if you knew how much love I’m giving to this newsletter, you’d forgive me anyway, no?
There’s a layer of power dynamics, of the giver and receiver, which I’m trying to steer away from. But another layer to this contemplation is the authenticity I’m chasing pro-actively as a life quest since 2020. I’m trying to trust my intuition and gauging how much of myself to give, when it feels right, and how to do so without comprising.
While I continue this internal conversation, I’d love to know:
Are you better at giving or receiving? What do you like to give? Why?
Poetry Corner
In the spirit of giving, a few poems on the theme that stood out.
1. When Giving Is All We Have by Alberto Ríos
One river gives
Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.
We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.
We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—
Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.
Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:
Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.
You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me
What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made
Something greater from the difference.
2. The Greatest Joys by John Kendrick Bangs
Amid our sunny hours
In quiet, fragrant bowers,
Where roses bloom,
And happy birds are singing
Their measures sweetly ringing,
Dispelling gloom.
Let's not forget those others
The Children of our Brothers
In cities gray.
Where trouble, toil, and sorrow,
Are found today, tomorrow,
As yesterday.
The greatest joys of living
Are found in freely giving,
And paying heed
Out of our present treasure
In full and lavish measure
To them in need.
3. Give yourself some flowers by Marcus Amaker (Excerpt)
And in the beginning,
God gave your body
a checklist:
Keep your heart
on beat
and your lungs
dancing with oxygen,
not passive to air.
Make sure
the path of your blood
slows down
for checkpoints
and avoids
bumps
in the road.
Train your nerves
to keep a balanced pace
and stay within
the lines
of steady flow.
Push forward
without putting
too much
pressure
on movement.
Remember
to return to water
when your spirit
and its frame
are in drought.
Read the full poem here.
4. To Watch a Cloud is Consoling. Always. by Jaan Kaaplinski
You sent me a cloud when I was ill.
It would have my name on it, you said,
so I would know it instantly.
I watched the window from my bed,
studying clouds.
One afternoon
of white and navy cumuli
it came:
a grey horse resting in a field.
This was the one you meant, I knew –
I watched its body gently yield
from horse to cloud again as such shapes do.
Each day it floats beside me now,
that quiet horse, your gift. My cloud.
Recommended Listening
December’s playlist is ready. Oozing with boss female vocals and noise. Mmm.
Gifting Guide
Workshop: The Poetry Playground at Serendipity, Goa
Excited to invite any of you in Goa next week for The Alipore Post Poetry Playground, in association with Serendipity Arts Festival and Locavore.
The workshop is designed to make poetry and creativity accessible through guided prompts, allowing participants to engage with poetry and explore writing through a lens of curiosity and play. We will begin with a poetry appreciation session, reading aloud our favourite poems on food. Then we’ll dive into some experimental poetry formats, like spin-a-yarn, limericks, blackout poetry and found poetry, weaving collection tapestries of emotions through words.
When? Tuesday, 19th December, 2023 | 4pm to 5.30pm
Where? The Grove, Old GMC Complex
Parting words
Found this excerpt in Chris La Tray’s newsletter and it resonated hard:
“We approach our lives on different trajectories, each of us spinning in our own separate, shining orbits. What gives this life its resonance is when those trajectories cross and we become engaged with each other, for as long or as fleetingly as we do. There’s a shared energy then, and it can feel as though the whole universe is in the process of coming together. I live for those times. No one is truly ever “just passing through”. Every encounter has within it the power of enchantment, if we're willing to look for it.”
-Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations
That’s all for now. Happy giving!
Love and gratitude,
Rohini