2: Leaflet
filial attentiveness, tea that will make you shout, the best balm for your buck
Good morning! The first leaflet has fallen from the Beobab tree. It signifies a start of a new season (new moon tn!).
Here are some things I want to share with you.
Song/Poem Feature:
How to fall in love with your father by Ross Gay
*View in your browser to respect the poet’s line breaks, i.e. for added meaning
Put your hands beneath his armpits, bend your knees, wait for the clasp of his thinning arms; the best lock cheek to cheek. Move slow. Do not, right now, recall the shapes he traced yesterday on your back, moments before being wheeled to surgery. Do not pretend the anxious calligraphy of touch was sign beyond some unspeakable animal stammer. Do not go back further into the landscape of silence you both tended, with body and breath, until it nearly obscured all but the genetic gravity between you. And do not imagine wind now blowing that landscape into a river which spills into a sea. Because it doesn't. That's not this love poem. In this love poem the son trains himself on the task at hand, which is simple, which is, finally, the only task he has ever had, which is lifting the father to his feet.
From Against Which (Cavankerry Press, 2006).
Images
Recommended things
Dance (and I really do mean standing up to do so) to this fantastic performance by the Afrodija Social Club, directed by Sadie Woods, “her work focuses primarily on social movements, liberatory practices, cultural memory, and producing collaborations within communities of difference. She also deejays under the moniker Afrodjia, focusing on diasporic music and culture of the Americas and the Global South.” Alexander and Navid saw this performance live in Virgo season...imagine.
University of Illinois Chicago is doing a public health online course, “Epidemics of Injustice” that is open to the community(!!) through zoom lectures by guest speakers. I highly recommend the speaker series and their course site, which posts relevant and radical lit on the topic of race, health, and equity. Dr. David Stovall’s talk on Critical Race Theory is a great one to sit with. All the lectures are uploaded on their youtube channel. You can check out this trove of resources again & again whenever you’d like.
Set up a big monitor or second screen next to your work laptop. Play this and revel in the imaginary of having an aquarium. Study/work/chill companions. #shrimplify
I KID YOU NOT. Somalians have achieved the perfect ratio of everything you could ever desire in a tea-drinking experience. Here is a recipe for Somali shaah. Please do yourself a flavor and brew! This, or journey to your closest Somali spot and pay patronage.
From the commonplace
“When I can’t kiss my Love, I put on Badger’s Tea Tree Lemon Balm Herbal Lip Balm!”
Anise candy fell into my food vocabulary this past month—it’s refreshing & very sweet.
Have you solved today’s quordle?
A Quote
A lot of people feel that you have to write for a specific existing audience, but the way that feels more promising to me, and the way I go into writing things, is writing for a potential audience. People you hope exist, as opposed to placating the people that you know exist.
- Bettina Makalintal here