no. 17: spoonfuls of sugar 🥄
(surprise! lots of new vocab this week)
Hi friends,
Alinea - the start of a new paragraph
More broadly speaking, alinea represents a break in a train of thinking; the beginnings of a new idea. This week felt like many pockets of new ideas: from house decor-turned-metaphors to the art of daily joy.
Despite writing in different time zones and drawing on different sources of inspiration, our moments of ‘alinea’ always seem to converge. We hope you enjoy 🤍
J:
My Stuff is Only Half Unpacked
...which is, coincidentally, also an apt way of describing my “Big Ideas” section this week. Bouts of travel - especially these long-haul flights - always throw me into a weird state, landing somewhere between sluggishness and active recovery. Like waking up even earlier than usual ready to seize the day, only to hit the bed by lunchtime for a nap. Or wanting to resume the workout grind, then giving out after 10 minutes. I feel like the human form of the rainbow cursor: stuck in some kind of prolonged reboot phase.
Which brings me back to the idea of things that are only half-unpacked. The scattered piles of Stuff taking up the only empty spaces in my room are a physical manifestation of my mind right now. So many things to sort, and only half the bandwidth to do so. Anyways - here are some of those fragments.
Thinking Small: some good advice from a webinar I attended. College students here tend to equate being effective (and ultimately, being successful) with scale. Planning week-long conferences; throwing parties for hundreds. Maybe this semester is then a push for us to think in the opposite direction: of finding meaning in smaller, individual and more personal interactions.
‘Am I Forgetting How to Socialize?’ - a thought that occurred to me as I stumbled to end a conversation without the aid of an End Call button.
National Day, 10,000 Miles Away: throughout my 16 years growing up in Singapore, this was just the 2nd time I celebrated National Day overseas. I’d been blessed with my time there over the last four months, but it makes seeing home on a tiny screen - pixelated and laggy - hurt a little more.
Going Nowhere: Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness is the perfect post-travel book.
N:
The Internet is a Shitty Curtain
I am writing this to you from the vantage point of a new window, where the tulle curtains blow softly into the room. It’s a romantic picture, but to be honest we haven’t installed proper curtains yet, so what covers my window is a mere translucent, filmy, idea of a curtain.
Last night I was self conscious, wondering if people could see me from the outside (which of course they could.) In the day I feel invisible, like the world outside is porous: I am omniscient from this very window. In the night it switches, and I become the observable object.
I am reading Natalia Ginzburg and she writes of the Latin words ‘fulgor’ (radiance) and ‘torpor’ (apathy, lethargy.) At what precise time does fulgor turn into torpor? I suppose the time when the visibility of my room is flipped. When the shade of darkness makes the brightly lit interior display itself entirely.
This made me think of the internet, of course, which is the ultimate place in which we view and are viewed. Where we can control our image we put out to the world, but cannot control how it is received. We share pictures of ourselves, update our descriptions, broadcast our thoughts, desires, and fears. Part of it is narcissism – we don’t know who is viewing, and that adds to the idea we may be unknowingly respected and adored. Ironically, at the same time we see everyone’s best selves on display and compare ourselves incessantly. We are caught in the center of a tide of visibility. One that always turns.
J:
Heat Waves *Been* Freaking Me Out
When new Glass Animals music kept making a regular appearance on my Discover Weekly playlist, I started praying for a new album. Folks (I am emphatically pausing here) - we have been graced by a new album INDEED: Dreamland has been good company throughout this second round of isolation living. “Heat Waves” is, of course, a favorite. Other standouts: “Hot Sugar” and “Waterfalls Coming Out Your Mouth”.
Also, A Podcast Highlight
Sporkful’s latest episode, “Inside the Turmoil at Bon Appetit”. Sporkful’s episodes on BA (there are now two of them) do a great job of explaining why this very public reckoning of a food magazine - from the way recipes are developed to what (and who) gets featured on their video channel - matters.
N:
Dear Sugar,
A new podcast by Cheryl Strayed, bestselling author and columnist playfully nicknamed ‘Sugar’, titled ‘Sugar Calling,’ where she talks to authors over 60 (a very niche group haha)
On the Floor listening to ‘On the Floor’
Also a new podcast (!) by Esther Sim. ‘On the Floor’ is conversing with a younger age group: 20 somethings. Chill chats about life, dating, and feelings in New York.
J:
Like New York Stuck on a Saturday
While I’ve been doing my best to self-isolate in my apartment, I do permit myself the occasional afternoon walk. The other day, I caught up with a friend on a little ~ sunset stroll ~ out of University City. We marveled at Philly’s charm; the entire city feels like New York stuck on a Saturday. Al-fresco tables spilling onto the sidewalks; people walking juust a little slower. Smaller streets, less traffic, brighter clothes, more dogs. Watching it all put me at ease.
N:
A cute and smol mantra from a yoga session – to never apologize for your edges because if you do, you lose your edge.
J:
“If the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become” - Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
N:
The Importance of Beautiful Questions
"The ability to ask beautiful questions is one of the great disciplines of human life … a beautiful question starts to shape your identity as much by asking it as it does by having it answered.” – David Whyte
and
“Life is a joyous participation in a world of sorrows” – Pico Iyer, Joseph Campbell
J:
As told through last week’s camera roll highlights:
...A Cartoon I Loved:
By @gorkiegork on Instagram
...The Fact That I Saw Jake Gyllenhaal This Day, Last Year
We are a family of Gyllenhaal stans; last summer, we were lucky enough to snag tickets to see the man himself in Seawall/A Life, a beautiful Broadway show about family, loss and fatherhood. Even though I was sat on the balcony of the third floor, it was enough to feel like I was in the presence of a god.
...And Lastly, These Dogs in Sweaters AKA Actual Outfit Inspiration for the Weeks Ahead
(We love a cuffed sleeve moment)
N:
Pictures displaying
…Millennial Hedonism in the form of Spam Fries covered in Guac
… and Counting the Days
This recollection of Tuscany from an essay volume, with my copious highlights
Hugs,
J & N