About Time - 2023 in review

“It’s important to care about all the silly, ‘forgettable’, ‘unnecessary’, delicious little things that make up life and make life worth living.
The bulk of our lives is scrawled in the margins.
This is the stuff that matters.

Eat a cookie.”

11 notebooks. Everyday for the past 365, there have been scribbles - secret codes, puzzle pieces, bizarre curious perplexing bewildering funny strange familiar magical magical mementos that form some nonlinear map of this little ordinary life. Always an adventure. Always derping. Discovering. And this year particularly, so so deeply profoundly humbly proud for the living, closer and closer to how we vow to live.

That’s extraordinary. Doing ordinary things in extraordinary ways. But, it’s not even about the doing. It’s actually true. What we all know, and say, again again, yet still need to believe, remember, and then - practice. It’s about the in between. While doing what we love, being what we love, being with love - to let the verb of that loving, giving, receiving, noticing - let that infuse all the spaces within and around us, spaces that we often can’t even name or capture or grasp. But it’s there. Little moments. Little moments in the process, the margins.

There is magic in the unnecessary,
that is profoundly necessary.

I am not embarrassed to care. 

Going through the last 2 notebooks, from fall to winter, is wild. So much of me, revealed to myself. So much heart, remembered, revived, relived, haunting, infesting, possessing, numbing, … restarting. It has always been the blessing, (as much as it is equally a burden and a curse), to have the capacity to feel, again. To have the desire to start, again. And along the way, wow. Just be floored and astonished by how much gratitude we can channel, fuel, for the moments of connection we find with the world. Unravelling us, stretching us, burning and caressing us, again and again. To have the space to cry just by looking at the snow, falling in slow motion. To giggle like we’re back in a teenage dream. To play music, ya know.

Once again, a love letter in code. To future selves, to past lives, to be known by strangers, friends, we shall never know. A thousand times over, thank you.

xoxo,

Sophie, Sky, Tong

//

selected scribbles.

To sit and look
Pink. Sand of kindred spirits the same tone as this wall. The same hue as that photo of the sky you love and know so well.
That makes you cry, still. Always.
To wipe off dust.
That hill that is different now.
To take care of something. An object. A plant. A person. To really look. To reread something - a card someone else wrote, a journal we kept.

We are our own best mystery novels.
Clues and evidence in every corner.

To gift and receive time.
To respect but not be bound to the clock. No
ticking, no alarm, no electronics in this room at night.

September.
To sit and see how we are a part of this world.
To be soft, fluffy, and sweet.
To cute. To colour.
To the enjoyment of music.
company. food. the process of .
not progress of or
To fill spice jars
organize the pantry. Almond flour, corn flour, coconut flour, buckwheat flour, almond butter, peanut butter
honey

Touch and feel the temperature of this pink.
To hear, breathe, gift noticing to the tingling massage
of calm.

To be patient. To be slow.
To be upside down.

“Perhaps,”
Which mantra do you need to be reminded of today?

Where can we hide gifts,
for ourselves,
clues for ourselves.

A note here, a picture there.
Handwritten.
Buzzing mbira. Except not. But, the calm of midnight melody. Jamming with a recording.

The slow of solitude. Dance around time. That I with myself improvise the plans. That we, are easy-going yet passionate. To take not too seriously, but with heart.
How you set yourself up.
You have all the time. Take the time. Listen well. Move slower. Sprint when you want, let your body be tired when it is tired.
We all have this physical, messy, ‘gross’ fussy body.
That keeps us grounded, real. “To feed,” to accept.

Getting back to my coffee routine. Morning rituals. Company of poetry. So many voices, stories to remember.
Take care.
Send a note. Give something away.
Draw and colour.
Keep practicing. Play. Listen. Allow yourself to smile when you feel like it.

That’s all.

If all of

this life love

is just a derpy

joke

might as well laugh

***

Spend time with loved ones
Pay better attention.
Divided attention is not half. It's negative.

"The moment you create something, it is no longer yours." How wonderful.
We are here, derping along. Finding things to get excited about.
Allow yourself to be romantic. You can.

***

When to speak and when to remain silent. 
Did you listen long enough?

“Ask someone how they're doing
Make lists to remember.

who are the people - to write to
to call
to mail a postcard.

To honour. Honour. Honour.
To fail. Fail with so much to love.
We do have to choose. Do small things in big ways, yes, but do small things with intention, with consistency.
Draw a map of relations.

Is not about prioritizing, linear, ranking.
It's your treasure map. Honour map.

You've said what you need to know so many times. It’s about the people. Small ways. Showing up. It's for yourself. Take care, Storylistener.“

***

Suddenly
I remember

We really just come back to the same place again and again.

***

Our melodies - as how we see the world. 
Our grammar, rhythm, punctuation.
Period. Period. Period.

To fully like an experience:
To desire a sense of objectivity. Grasping how it ‘really’ is outside our minds, yet- there is really nothing outside our own minds. The whole world is just. Conjured. No matter how removed. ‘Realistic’. Framed.

I'm not here to be impressed. To impress. To be extra human.
I'm ready to be disillusioned. To be naked. To be playing, some little part of our collective existence.

But how wonderful. To have the skills, the strength, the emotional capacity, athleticism, passion to deliver some kind of energy. “Connection”, that sticky word. Connect through what. Physical touch, listening, tasting.
"We were young"
"Nobody Knows"

We were just quite silly, right?

When your heart is full of hope and joy - speak to someone who uplifts that. Not that we only want to hear affirmations.
But allow yourself light that nurtures growth. 
Use cynicism as a different kind of fuel.

No longer, do we say. "I wish"
I wish there was more time to -
Well. There IS more time. We are never "too busy” to do what we love. There is all the time, space. Just the right amount. Don’t try. Just ‘do'. It will happen. Reframe your language.

Everything that has brought us here. Is supposed to.

“Let's write something about"
Alberta.

The “Big Sky” of Alberta
where you could feel
the scale of the world
we’re a part of 

***

Writing to 'know' what you are thinking. To find surprises, along the way, 'endings' unexpected.
To feed your mind.
Hunger. The power of,
that drive, craving for, desire to

To only know after recognizing - the representation, expression in someone something else. To really only see, notice, understand in the mirror.
That is me. The construction of, 
my story, my experiences.

Ideas calling ideas

Within a day, we share something ‘new’. Everyone has said it, the same. “Strangely familiar, strangers.” 
We have all written the same poem.
Cafe spritz. Cookie. Punched in the face. The speed, bike racing downhill, the breeze. Evening lights. To sit, in a concert hall.

To smile each time at a name.
The first person you want
to tell
The sharing with,
Collective experience of.

A friend. Friend. Friend.

To hunger, To put ourselves in hunger, to feed, to revolutionize, ha. To self or other. To play into our hunger for. To satisfy or withhold.
The play, the perspective.

“A Sense of Proportion.” Once said,

//

How do we hold a soul?

//

Remembering is a courageous act.

The story has to live,
You have to keep telling the story

//

Art knows more than we think it knows

//

It’s in the showing and the sharing - the risk of that that -
where something extraordinary happens.

**
Yes. To be open-minded. To scrutinize. Reconsider our assumptions. To be critical, aware, to question. But constantly? Question our choices, our beliefs, our ‘normal’. Perhaps not always.

At what point do we commit to whaat we believe, believe what we know. At what point do we stop reconsidering.

**

“A taste we have no idea how to name.”