✮Five Brilliant Things✮

On questioning stale assumptions and welcoming spring

Hello,

There is a distinctly restive flavour to this week’s selection - a sense that everyone is a little tired of the world’s nonsense and is ready to to do it differently.

Perhaps that’s becasuse here in the northern hemisphere, we’re tipping towards summer - today is the equinox, meaning that the night and day are of equal lengths. Call it a spring clean, if you will - but maybe not too literally.

Rebecca Armstrong on the kind of mess that artists make

‘I’ve learnt that there are just so many things I want to do that aren’t cleaning, because cleaning takes so much time, precious, slippery, running-through-your-fingers time, when I could be reading about American butter sculpting in the late 19th century. Or doing shibori dyeing workshops, or getting better at making faces from air-dry clay. Or earning some money.’

Katy Wheatley questions the assumption that all exercise is a virtue

‘If I stopped, even for a day, I would lose all interest in it and go back to lying around eating novels and dropping biscuit crumbs in my cleavage. I was an all or nothing exerciser. It made me bonkers, but I was quite thin and quite bendy, so I got lots of praise for it and that covered over the cracks for a while.’

Elissa Altman on letting go of our myths of security

‘Lawyers’ letters began to arrive at the apartment, shoved under my door at three in the morning, followed by frantic doorbell ringing. The letters were addressed to “John” and “Jane” Doe, and my father always instructed me to not open them; I could never understand why.’

Shalom Auslander offers the startling new concept of ‘living from home’

‘We’re not even pursuing happiness at this point. We’re just pursuing pursuit.’

On a gentler note, Kaitlin Curtice offers a ritual to welcome in Spring

‘Springtime is sacred for us Anishinnabe folks, it’s our new year, the time when everything shows up, life springing forth from their resting places.’

Take care,

Katherine

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