Leaflet No. 23 - Amina Malik
This week’s leaflet tea tastes like...mulberries, white lilies, cellulose acetate film, apricots, cashews, and paper
Hello, everyone.
Tea Leaf Tech is a process in which I brew a cup of the Beobab.tree’s blend (its bark, leaves, its fruit, and a dapple of honey—of course!), which is a way to introduce settling and warmth into the day’s spiral of events. During this time of sipping and slowness, ideas and images collect at the bottom of the cup. The readings of the tea leaves laid to rest on ceramic glaze will be the basis of Beobab.tree’s leaflets. From here, I invite you to sit with your own cuppa and peruse what sensations this week’s tea blend has to offer.
Amina and I met as stylish classmates in “Preserving Information Resources”, a course towards each of our Library and Information Science degrees. At the time, it was my 1st semester, it was Amina’s 2nd to last.
It’s one of those relationships born out of noticing and admiring each other’s vibe/aura/presentation where we became partners for a major class deliverable and friends since. What’s also exciting to say is that we’re colleagues in the same field!
I think it’s so exciting to me because it means I get to learn from her and apply it directly into my librarianship and life’s work.
Her expression of life is beautiful. Lately, I’ve learned it’s through engineering muffuletta sandwiches, finely dicing produce, and researching about diversifying digital repositories.
She has a strong art practice and spirit for archival work. In addition to painting, she is learning from a teacher to play the tabla, one of my favorite instruments since she introduced its music to me.
When she hosted me in May, she led me to a community concert under a bridge somewhere in Chicago, where we ate sweet-corn flavored popcorn (Delicious. I instantly knew my mom would love it too.) and swayed to a 60s-70s Bollywood renditions band by the name “Do The Needful”. Yes! It was awesome. And much needed.
The rest of this leaflet below, I think, reveals the ways she tinkers with life’s weight and distributes it into a softer expression.
Like a player’s passion onto the skin of a drum.
Amina: It’s Memorial Day weekend. It’s Sunday evening, and even as I get to enjoy a day of rest tomorrow, I opened my laptop to get ahead of work, so I can share Monday with Isabel as she prepares for her next endeavor. I give thanks to her for sharing an outlet with me to be still and reflect on moments of late that have remained significant.
When I first saw Isabel’s email to write this leaflet, a month ago now, I scheduled a time in my Outlook for Sunday night. Today, Sunday, turned somewhat unexpected – a wave of grief came above me a few hours prior, and so I thank my notification on my computer to bring me here, to settle it for the evening, to seek closure in memory of my grandfather.
It has almost been seven years since his passing. It is a daily occurrence for me to think of him. Sometimes it is a photograph that appears in my camera roll, sometimes it is a bench in a park; where he liked to sit, and look.
Sometimes it is when I eat dessert; which he always requested after dinner, and called the event “hadees” (a religious obligation).
Earlier this afternoon, I was watching an interview of Anthony Bourdain, his last, for Fast Company before his passing. I always joked that Bourdain and my grandfather were siblings separated at birth. Both men I have been inspired by greatly.
The more I looked at Bourdain’s face, the more my grandfather appeared in my memory. And in the seven years of his passing, today was the first time I thought about moments he experienced before his passing, which happened peacefully, surrounded by his children, in his home in Lahore.
More specifically, I wondered who he thought about at that hour.
We were here, in Illinois, and it was the first time in seven years I realized that my memory failed me in remembering when we last talked, before his passing.
These tides of grief were not something I was anticipating, so to remain authentically in this invitation to reflect, some of the reflections I will share speak to his presence.
Others are moments I have cherished both in community and in solitude recently:
Enjoying:
🌺A sweet treat.
My dad sent me a voice message just now, sharing how my grandfather requested ice cream before his passing. This brought me a smile, and put a bandage on feeling somber for the evening.
To honor it, I am sitting with a bowl of trail mix I mixed together: dried cherries, semi-sweet chocolate chips, almonds, cashews, and apricots.
🌺I have been listening to Bertha Tillman on repeat all afternoon, which has flowed into the evening now:
🌺Stopping to smell the flowers.
I started painting after what will be now more than a year. Petals, leaves, weeds, branches, moss, thorns, buds, are what I have found comfort in depicting.
They’re forgiving, and regardless of mistakes, you just go over, and over, and over them. I brought home white lilies yesterday – it is always tempting to pick the ones in full bloom, but the buds last the longest.
They are opening up, and my apartment is singing in their sweetness.
🌺Clarice Lispector – "An Apprenticeship, or The Book of Pleasures,"
Especially around contemporary literary trends that hone in trading femininity for apathy (MYORAR), it is refreshing to read a protagonist who resists that.
Sweetness:
Choosing a different sidewalk in your neighborhood.
Today was the first time I walked through this path, crowned with freshly bloomed trees and a golden light…warmth that comes in the heart in the anticipation of more growth.
This photo I found from a pile of mildew covered images, and one of the few I was able to salvage.
I brought this photograph back to Chicago with me on my most recent trip. Unsure of her name, or relation to me, her stature is uplifting, and I framed it a while back, not knowing the right place in my apartment to hang it.
I finally placed her near where I paint. She resembles the trees I draw. Standing tall, with firm roots, unshaken, able to embrace storms and downpour and dust and wind.
Closeness; a photograph with friends in Chicago.
The venue became a little underwhelming and overwhelming at the same time. We made our way to the water to catch the sunset.
Have you ever had a mulberry?
Every morning in Lahore I went to the fruit seller near our house to ask when they would arrive – being told to wait a few hours, and that they would only last for 30 minutes because of how cherished, fleeting this fruit is.
They are soft to the touch, their nectar is like honey, molasses, tang, and cane-like. And all of the sudden my mouth is searching its dissolved bits.
Thank you to Isabel – for asking me to transcribe a leaflet for Beobab Tree.
Though not entirely how I had anticipated to muse, there is harmony in starting with sweetness and ending with it.
I hope you get to try a mulberry once in your life.
Yours,
Amina