Sometimes a creative outlet is a fun little hobby and sometimes it's a lifelong affliction. Like I crochet because making little woven animals sparks joy and I'm a writer whether I like it or not because I'm tormented by visions

just saw someone say u can't have slow introspective stories in movies because it's not the right medium for it. oh my god can you please start watching literally anything that hasn't come out of modern hollywood. you don't even need to have seen wavelength or like james benning or structuralist film or anything like that. watch a wong kar wai movie. or an edward yang movie. maya deren's meshes of the afternoon is on youtube. cmon man

spring horror is good because of the symbolism of death and rebirth and storms and everything being vibrant but still cold. and summer horror is good because sweltering heat and insects long days. and fall horror is good because halloween and death and scary movies. and winter horror is good because snow contrasting with blood and freezing temperatures and long nights. btw.

Quattro strade, dir. Alice Rohrwacher (2020)

why do all the words sound heavier in my native language? scratch that. why did I choose to seek refuge in a language of another instead of training my tongue to bear the heaviness of my own?

one thing i need to start living by is “become the thing that you want” if i want friends who throw themed parties maybe i should start throwing those parties. if i want someone who writes me love letters maybe i should start writing letters for the people i love. if i want to hang out at museums and pretty cafes maybe i should invite my friends to these places. and maybe even then i won’t find the kind of people i want to be around. but then i would have become the exact person i want to be around. and maybe that’s good enough.

I’m ok. I’m gonna be ok. I’m gonna live a beautiful life and I’ll get to know beautiful people. I will create things of beauty and be surrounded by flowers. And I’ll love myself, and I’ll be soft, I’ll be kind. And I’ll be ok.

-Donte Collins, from Calling the Boy Home

Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present (2012) dir: Matthew Akers

These are facts that saved my life.

There are wonders here.

Things worth experiencing, worth knowing.

 Magic hidden in plain sight.

Bats can hear shapes.  Plants can eat light.  Bees can dance maps.  We can hold all these ideas at once and feel both heavy and weightless with the absurd beauty of it all.  These are some facts that are easy to overlook.

These are facts that saved my life.

— Jarod K. Anderson, “Field Guide to the Haunted Forest." (Independently Published, November 27, 2020) (via A Layman's Blog)

and very, very often, self care is not plants and ice rollers and fluffy blankets of peace.

it’s standing over your kitchen sink and crying while doing the dishes because you just want to go back to bed but the dishes need done. and you don’t know why you’re crying but you're trusting you need it. and you aren’t listening to the music that pulls you into a spiral; you’re listening to some cheerful shit your friend sent you. it’s getting up and staring at your fridge and closing your eyes and then cooking yourself food even though you hate it and it’s miserable. because you know that you’d cook for your friend, and you are trying to befriend yourself. it’s dragging yourself into the shower because you know you’ll feel better afterwards. it’s doing mundane tasks with patience, cursing under your breath, trying desperately to give yourself grace. grace is the beginning of care. care is the beginning of love.

we think it’s supposed to be peace and yet the most powerful self care moments are when we hate everything but especially ourselves. and life does not feel worth the loving. to look into that pain and yet choose to care for yourself in however many pieces you are — that is care. love. grace. trust. belief. it hurts because it’s love where there was no love before. it heals because it believes there will be love, one day, soon.

not enough secret gardens and hidden passageways and bookshelves that open to a mysterious library these days. get working on that girls.

do you ever read a book that carves out your heart so slowly and delicately and then hands it to you carefully like it's a present and it's painful beyond belief but it's also something you desperately want to feel again

yes girl you are so [if i loved you less i might be able to talk about it more] [hands are unbearably beautiful] [i'll take care of you it's rotten work not to me not if it's you] [if you are intolerable let me be the one to tolerate you] [i could recognise him by touch alone] [i love you i want us both to eat well] [on purpose i love you on purpose] [whatever our souls are made of his and mine are the same] [i am half agony half hope] [you have bewitched me body and soul and i love love love you] [he is half of my soul as the poets say] [i'm sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for but i'm so lonely] [i love you most ardently] [let me stay tender hearted despite despite despite] [someone has to leave first this is a very old story there is no other version of this story] [mostly i want to be kind] [tell me how all this and love too will ruin us] [you said i killed you haunt me then] [someone somewhere can you understand me a little love me a little] [i will love you as misfortune loves orphans as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong] [sorry about the blood in your mouth i wish it was mine] [who will come into my kitchen and be hungry for me] can we kiss now

via radiantsomatics

art + lemony snicket

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