singularities
words as a mini universe
Hi friends,
This week, as told through a series of daily serotonin boosts (doodle edition)
N:
J:
As therapeutic as the act of writing is, there is always a sudden scramble right before we hit the ‘publish’ button: did we use the right words? Did we end with the right sentence?
Usually, we begin Kopi Club by tackling a large theme, a big idea, and then narrow down our focus. This week, we are inverting that process: starting with a word, and envisioning it as a building block for its own mini universe.
It’s been 3 weeks now since we’ve last sat down and jotted down our thoughts for the newsletter, so we’re treating this week as an extended free-association exercise to get us back into the practice of writing. As microscopic as this exercise sounds, it is how each newsletter - or any form of writing, really – begins: with a word.
Sidenote: Happy Pride Month! We support all forms of love and have changed our banner to celebrate~ Check it out!
N:
Rustle
When you think of the word rustle, maybe you think of trees rustling in the wind. They move about, swishing: a soft, dry, crackling choir. When I think of rustling, I see my mother coming home from the local market – bags brimming with fresh vibrant greens. I hear her hands rummaging through the bags and placing the ripe fruits and vegetables in their specific locations in our small fridge (much too small to accommodate our vegetable appetite). Thyme, Mint, Cilantro, Spinach. The vegetable bucket overflows, and she rearranges them like flowers, laying them horizontally, vertically, in any way they will fit.
Today I make a trip to the market with her, the handle of the bag containing bok choy and misshapen squashes tucked into my elbow. It is chaotic, humid, busy. The aunties and uncles running market stalls slap their baskets and count off money in Chinese. I am happy to be back in Asia, even with the summer heat, though today’s market visit is cloudy, with droplets of rain giving a cool haze to the surroundings. It strikes me – I am so lucky and glad to be home. We laugh, piling the bags of produce into the trunk, how on earth are we going to fit all these vegetables into the fridge?
Moderation
The other day I listened to a podcast conversation with Celeste Ng, author of ‘Little Fires Everywhere’. She talked about motherhood in her book and in her own life: how she was coming to terms with letting go of control.
The irony is that for most of our youth, we’re convinced we can live on both sides of the coin: to hurtle ourselves entirely toward success but avoid burnout. To sleep deeply, but not for too long. To love freely, but hold tightly onto independence. We circle around these extremes, spending our youth being ecstatic and fearless. We have everything under control. We can have everything.
That state doesn’t last forever, Ng says. At some point, there will be tradeoffs. It took motherhood for her to realize that sometimes, you’re going to have to survive on the periphery of what you actually want. Sometimes, you’re going to have to hold back from engaging too deeply with your desires, retreat from them. That your wants are no longer just about you.
She writes of it as
“Training yourself to live on the smell of an apple alone when what you really wanted was to devour it, to sink your teeth into it and consume it, seeds, core, and all.”
I love that line. It is a lesson in moderation.
Quilt
See things from above – the immensity of the world compressed into one frame. See the rivers that run to the ocean, the highways, cliffs, coastal walkways, skyscrapers. Little ribbons of light that flow off the buildings. From above the landforms and waterways look like oil spills, seeping into each other. Maybe this is enough to understand the world is very open, and we are very small.
J:
Sculpt
Our house is a miniature art gallery. In every room, there are pieces of my mom’s work. Paintings fill the walls, ceramics line the shelves. She must have been missing her studio, for it was her idea to order slabs of clay and spend an afternoon making sculptures. I’d never seen my mom make ceramics before, but already I was envisioning calmness.
Very quickly, I learned that ceramics was not as relaxing as I hoped it would be. Though the newspaper-clad dining table brought me back to the memories of messy sculptures and anxious parents protecting our furniture, this mass of earthenware was less forgiving than the Play Dough I remember. I don’t know why it ever occurred to me that sculpting was an act of leisure, for it felt very much like the opposite. A lesson in control, where every motion assumes new meaning. It is almost poetic, the way figures emerge through this method of construction. Not by intense addition or subtraction, but through a series of subtle yet constant transformation.
The clay registers everything: smooth surfaces that speak of intense concentration, or thick walls indicative of cautious hands. I look over to see the dish my mom is working on - the unbroken clay is a testament of her swift movements. She is fluent in this medium, whereas I am only just starting to learn.
Crease
Funnily enough, I’ve taken to napping recently. Not that I am in need of breaks; my calendar has never been this empty, and the most taxing thing I ever do now is stumble through 30 minutes of exercise.
As I woke up from a nap the other day, I saw that my forehead was marked with the imprint of my creased bed sheets. These creases as signs of comfort.
They are my body’s signature: the dog-eared novels, the wrinkled pajamas - this is how I’ve started to tell time.
Steep
There is something meditative about the act of preparing a cup of tea. Whereas the first sip of coffee cuts through the groggy fog of the morning, it is through the ritual of making tea that I welcome the familiar afternoon lull. The actions are slower, calmer. Without the urgent craving for caffeine, I let myself linger. Watch the amber wisps of brewed tea dance around my cup. Even the sounds are more soothing. The slamming of capsules and loud whir of the coffee machine are replaced with the gentle hum of water boiling, and the light clinking of the spoon as I stir in a generous dollop of honey.
If mornings beckon me out of bed, afternoons usher me back to the couch. This is my favorite way of passing the long afternoons: the quiet solace of slipping into the summer heat, steeped in the opening chapter of a new book.
We’ve realized through writing this newsletter for an extended period of time, words tend to converge into familiarity or habit. We fall back on similar phrases, similar rhythms. We wanted to challenge ourselves to focus on the words themselves, and allow each word to become a distinct object, feeling, sensation – a thing in and of itself.
Hugs,
J & N