Dear Reader,
Hello! This might be wild to those of you who live in decent places that prioritize walking in everyday life, but I actually forced myself to go on a stroll in LA yesterday. I learned that (1) there are tiny tiny tiny pockets of LA I can call walkable, but still, (2) I can’t wait to be back in NYC.
And here are this week’s seven links to bits of the world I have been exploring, shared with the hope that you will find them to be an inspiring springboard for deeper thinking.
Listened to a podcast episode on the dark side of Botox, and found reassurance in the idea that one can treat wrinkles as badges of honor. There was also a bit in here about emotive facial expressions as they relate to our emotional intelligence and, something I hadn’t thought of before, how alterations to the face can change how we interact with babies, who rely so much on visual cues.
This piece by Hermann Hesse on nature, which I was immediately hooked to thanks to this beautiful first paragraph as food for thought:
Everything we see is expression, all of nature an image, a language and vibrant hieroglyphic script. Despite our advanced natural sciences, we are neither prepared nor trained to really look at things, being rather at loggerheads with nature. Other eras, indeed, perhaps all other eras, all earlier periods before the earth fell to technology and industry, were attuned to nature’s symbolic sorcery, reading its signs with greater simplicity, greater innocence than is our wont. This was by no means sentimental; the sentimental relationship people have with the natural world is a more recent development that may well arise from our troubled conscience with regard to that world.
Picking up this book by Annie Ernaux, published last month as an English translation of the 2014 French original, to meditate on the cultural role of the superstore. On that note, here’s what Adrienne Raphael wrote for The Paris Review: “Yet the superstore is this weird combination of a blur and hyperfocus. On a macro level, Ernaux floats through the space; she’s alone, and she’s observing people and objects as though suspended in jelly, accumulating objects for a future version of themselves that will never exist here. We’re always searching for the self we live outside the superstore.” Found this relevant given Bed Bath & Beyond in the U.S. shutting its doors.
The closet editing system I never knew I needed.
These stunning words by Khalil Gibran:
quick updates:
watching: Succession on HBO on Sundays, because they have quotes worth gold, like this one: “If I cringe any harder, I might become a fossil.”
listening: rain in the month of May — what a treat!
eating: ordered this cake for my brother’s 25th birthday, as a result of challenging myself to find local bakers who love their craft. I was sweetly rewarded :) the cake was delicious and a huge success.
using: as part of my closet purge/edit, and as something that would actually motivate me to do said purge/edit for the sake of a less (but high quality) is more attitude, I finally caved in and bought myself a set of super duper high quality pajamas and would now like to petition to make pajamas acceptable at all hours of the day. I went for Skin’s Cecilia PJ set. The cotton is buttery soft.
Recommendations From You: Day to Evening transition?
I’d like to be more mindful of how I compartmentalize the hours in the day, not so much to squeeze out every ounce of productivity in my bones, but more so to honor the day’s solar trajectory. In that vein, I’m wondering if you have any symbolic or habitual little things you do to, for example, mark the end of a work day or what helps you ease into evening/nighttime. Lighting a candle, perhaps? Music? Curious, and am all ears!
affiliate links: sometimes, I include links to my Amazon storefront (often for books or other recommendations around the home/self I’ve found useful and hope you will, too). This means I make a few pennies whenever someone makes a purchase using the link. It doesn’t detract from my recommendations coming from a place of a genuine desire to share with you. It just helps provide a few tangible tokens for my effort.
support: I love writing these newsletters and creating deeper threads of connection to you in this absurd world of ours, but in any case, it is a time-consuming endeavor. If you are enjoying my journey, and if able, please consider supporting it by way of interaction (follow along on Instagram, YouTube, or leave a comment/like here!), subscribing to my paid-tier here on Substack, or by buying me a coffee here! It is hugely appreciated, and my gratitude is with you.
Have a lovely weekend! And talk soon!
Hugs,
Ani
A wonderful piece of writing, thank you. I am back from a wonderful trip to England and hugely grateful to live in this quiet corner of France where nobody has botox. I have had to navigate so many questions from the children on peoples faces and why they don't move, why their lips are quite so big and why the eye lashes are so incredibly long. I'm so grateful these standards of beauty are not a part of their everyday world for the time being, I've not discovered why yet but suspect the the laws here are tighter on these cosmetic procedures. On a recent trip to Spain they noticed similar standards.