Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #14

(Above: my beloved Buddha statue in our back garden . F imported him from Thailand (!) for my 40th birthday. (So I’ve had him 12 years.) He’s made from volcanic rock and was very black when new. Now he’s faded and mossy…but still serene.)

Hello! 

I’ll be taking a break from the digest next week because I am going to be away for ten days being a resident as part of this new artist residency programme down in Ōtaki.

Ten days is the longest I will have been away from my family in 25 years! I feel a bit anxious about who or what or how I will be outside of the braid of my family.

Who AM I when I can think long, digressive thoughts without interruption? 

When I only have to worry about feeding myself? 

When I don’t have to try to keep everyone’s appointments and life-admin in my head at all times? 

When I can utterly design my own schedule each day? 

I don’t know. 

I’m curious to find out. 

Do you think I’ll be okay?

But for now, here’s some thoughtful, calm things for your slow perusal.

A list of genuinely beautiful compliments

Do you ever want to express how much you enjoy or like or care about someone but struggle to find words that don’t feel clunky or inadequate? 

Here’s a list of excellent compliments to inspire you. I tend to fall back on the same superlatives with my friends: love love amazing incredible talented strong beautiful…like too much sugar in a dish I worry I become cloying…that it sounds insincere because of the volume.  I think they possibly stop hearing me? So this list was inspiring to me.

A song (and an introduction to an amazing person)

‘The heart never tires / the heart is tired all the time’ sings Meg Vellejos McCoy, (formerly Meghan Yates) in this beautiful song.

In 2021, I worked with Meg in her capacity as ‘art monk’ and community pastor. She ran a peer support group…essentially for tired artists to listen to and support one another. To tend to our sadnesses and darknesses so we could move through them and begin to find fresh ground for inspiration. We met via Zoom. 

The rest of the group were all in the USA. I was the only southern hemisphere person. That suited me at a moment of despair and burnout when I didn’t want to know anyone or be known in that way that is unavoidable in New Zealand > our tiny floating hobbit village of interconnection.* 

Meg was an amazing facilitator, deep listener and reflector. I got so much from the sessions. I feel like she (and the group) gently helped me to put myself back together. 

I also feel like they helped tend the ground for magic in my life because while I was in her programme I found out I had gotten the contract for ‘A Forager’s Life’. 

Meg has just relaunched her website and has lots of new offerings. I recommend her work. 

I also love her music. I don’t understand why she isn’t more well-known as a musician because I think her music is incredible with very unusual vocalising style, powerful lyrics  and a unique voice. You will think I’m exaggerating but I mean this … I think she’s as good as early Joni Mitchell. 

If you’re curious about her music there’s a whole live concert here…poignant for how she can hold silence and pause in a live setting where she is the sole focus. Courageous! 

& This is my favourite Meg record, ‘The Other Side’. 

It’s music which demands to be deeply listened to.

(*Mostly I love this about village feeing of NZ but sometimes it’s refreshing not to know or be known. Who are we out of any context?) 

A simple but delicious and easy dessert

I haven’t travelled much in my life, but I did spend two months in Turkey in my twenties. 

More than once, we were served this beautiful dish as dessert. 

It is ridiculously simple to make but sometimes the best dishes are the best because they are simple. 

It’s a macerated dried apricot stuffed with an almond and then served with a little whipped cream or rich yoghurt. That’s it! It probably doesn’t sound very impressive. You’ll have to trust me. Tell me in the comments if you try it and what you think. 

Affordable Art for the Week

I love the soft light of candles. I love fruit and vegetables. 

This week’s affordable art is NZ $28 and is a fig candle by Poppy and Sage. 

Usually I prefer plain beeswax candles. I’m not a huge fan of soy or scented candles or novelty candles…but this fig candle looks so much like a fig! I dunno why.  I just like it! It amuses me. 

They also do apple candles, orange candles, pear candles…even a flat peach! But it was the fig that caught my eye. 

A very calm video where a fibre artist lovingly mends some tattered textiles

The combination of her sweet voice, gentle ruminations on ‘make do and mend’ philosophy, her focussed attention, the satisfying mends and upcycling is entirely calming.

If you’re feeling at all frazzled, stop, drop and watch and let the calmness soothe you. 

Poem for the week

In this poem, Eddie Krzeminski captures so vividly the impersonal, over-stimulating bamboozlement of the modern supermarket. 

The poem floats through random observations and there’s a real sense of his urban isolation and craving for more connection …to both people and food. 

‘Daydreaming in Publix’ 

by Eddie Krzeminski 

I’m tired of Apple Jacks, Apple O’s, Apple Crisps,

Apple Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch,

Apple Chex (Gluten Free), Apple Pebbles,

Apple Raisin Bran, and Apple Frosted Flakes,

but they are always, for some reason, on sale.

*

Standing in the pink menagerie

of meats, I realize that at twenty-five

I still don’t know the difference between

ground chuck and ground round.

I scry my future

through the expiration dates

on milk cartons:

hundreds of empty jugs

towering towards the sky,

surrounded by the shadows 

of seagulls.

*

I know there’s a man in a mint green shirt 

standing in the darkness behind these shelves 

in the milk crate city.

I’ve seen his phantom hands

pushing new cartons out.

Why this urge to reach 

and embrace them?

*

Crisp cold bags of butterhead lettuce,

big-stalked celeries, savoy cabbage

rimpled like the folds of a big emerald

brain, yellow and orange bells.

I don’t have enough money

for any of these.

 *

O red-haired girl

leaning over 

the freeze-dried plums,

blouse drooping

like a night-worker’s

eyelids,

can you teach me

the intricacies

of prunes?

*

 I hate the way my hair looks

in the stale white light

of 600 LEDS.

* Charon hauls the carcasses

of spoiled fruit-stuff

behind the swinging double-doors

and down into the underworld.

* 

I think of pushing 

my bum-wheeled cart

into the stacked pyramid

of Budweiser cases—

the implosion, fugitive cans 

bursting against the dur-a-flex floor,

spinning and shooting foam 

to the tune of Enrique Iglesias.

*

The fourth grade in me wonders why, 

with so many pounds of gelatinous cuisine,

nobody’s thought of starting a food fight.

* 

My father taught me

what the color

of the bread ties mean

but among the whole grains

I remember nothing.

*

What did you think of the supermarket poem?

What’s your relationship with supermarkets like?

Have a restful weekend, hey?

Think of me away from home…finding my feet in Ōtaki. 

& I’ll see you here again afterwards.

X Helen