Curiosity Roving : V.14 : Quiet Bloom
Curiosity Roving
The Grand Adventures of L Rose Goossen
V.14 : Quiet Bloom
in which we watch and listen
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Greetings and Salutations!
And welcome to the fourteenth volume of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. For new subscribers, a special welcome to my little world. You can review the last year of my adventures in the letter archive: https://tinyletter.com/curiosity_roving/archive
It's been three months since I made an unscheduled crash-landing in rural Manitoba. I am in a very strange state of limbo, and I don't know how long it will last. I do entertain the idea of suspending this project until I can resume the geographic variety of adventure, but for today, I have chosen to persevere. I'm still open to the possibility that this protracted moment will eventually prove to be a passing anomaly. After all, we've just stepped out of pandemic season and into riot season without even enough lag time to change the decorations, and my head is spinning. How about yours? For anyone reading this today, I'm honoured that you have chosen to keep my voice at your side through this strange and challenging time.
peaceful protestIt is appropriate to begin with an acknowledgement of the current conversation around the necessity of proactively upholding the human rights of people of colour. I'm white, I'm privileged, and I'm paying attention. Racism was directly addressed and educated out of us tiny Canadians during elementary school, but I can recognize that I have benefited from, and occasionally exploited, the advantages that have been accessible to me as a white woman. I can recognize that systemic racism is active in my home country. I appreciate that so many people are now taking the initiative to hold ourselves accountable and step up to the responsibility of making changes. If that's what you're here for, I have included a collection of resources for self-education on this subject in the Appendix.
bleeding heartHowever, Curiosity Roving is more like an antidote to the news, so today, I'm showing you flowers and I'm writing about rest.
My generation has drawn the short ends of the statistical sticks across a wide selection of quality-of-life metrics - financial stability, emotional wellness, and even life expectancy seem to be on a downward slide among the millennials - but after the experience of the last few months, I am convinced that one of the greatest and most profound losses in the vast sassy void that we have claimed as our natural habitat is the loss of true rest.
My generation has drawn the short ends of the statistical sticks across a wide selection of quality-of-life metrics - financial stability, emotional wellness, and even life expectancy seem to be on a downward slide among the millennials - but after the experience of the last few months, I am convinced that one of the greatest and most profound losses in the vast sassy void that we have claimed as our natural habitat is the loss of true rest.
honeysuckleOn April 2nd, near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns worldwide, Florida business advisor Jeremy Haynes published a viral tweet that read:
"If you don't come out of this quarantine with either:
1) a new skill
2) starting what you've been putting off, like a new business
3) more knowledge
You didn't ever lack the time, you lacked the discipline."
1) a new skill
2) starting what you've been putting off, like a new business
3) more knowledge
You didn't ever lack the time, you lacked the discipline."
harbingersThis suggestion that a group of people living through the novel experiences of collective crisis and a global state of emergency should be using their time to start a business is perfectly demonstrative of the toxic hustler culture that is the bread and butter of my peer group. Now that so many of us live with perpetually pocketed internet access, the meaning of a full-time job has become increasingly literal. Even when we're on vacation or enjoying leisure hours, social media users stay busy with the production of benignly manipulative content to prop up our public image, and consumption of the same. The self-made entrepreneur is the primary deity of late capitalism, and we are all conditioned to subtly shame ourselves and each other for ever giving less than 110%. When we burn out, we are encouraged to disappear. It's a dirty, dirty river that we're in, and we've all made compromises to stay aboard the raft of the status quo and thrive.
I don't want to complain, because millennial life is also super great and sparkly and fun in a lot of ways, and I certainly didn't spend all this time and energy promulgating my own personal myth just to debunk it. Still, faced with such a climate, I believe that the choice to deliberately rest constitutes an act of subversion. And, of course, I acknowledge that having the option to rest is a privilege.
I don't want to complain, because millennial life is also super great and sparkly and fun in a lot of ways, and I certainly didn't spend all this time and energy promulgating my own personal myth just to debunk it. Still, faced with such a climate, I believe that the choice to deliberately rest constitutes an act of subversion. And, of course, I acknowledge that having the option to rest is a privilege.
hanging outAnyway, that's what I've been doing. Here in the Interlake, the seasons have finally changed. The last few weeks have heralded a sweet onslaught of birds, blooms, and butterflies, so I've been sitting around and looking at them. The lawnmowers have emerged in force. The weather can finally be celebrated, rather than ignored. I've found a lemon radler in the local shop that pairs nicely with a sneaky afternoon moment by the lakeside, and I like goin' over there and talkin' real country at the checkout. I decided a couple of years ago that I'm old enough to call everyone 'honey', so I do as much of that as I can. I've been up some slippery staircases and down a few new back roads. I've been challenging myself to remain horizontal for increasingly long periods of time. I'm in the midst of a purely subjective study on the cumulative effects of leaving one's feet in a sunbeam. I've been plumbing the deep dark depths of the memory tank; personal, familial, and collective. I'm exploring even more ways to be less angry. I'm growing my hair. I'm recording some music. I'm minding my business.
stopwatchReader, there is nothing in nature that blooms throughout the year. So look: you can take a break. You might not need it today, you might not even need it soon, but when you need rest, please take it. Even if that's just kneeling in the shower and putting your forehead on the floor and letting the water rain down on your shoulders and temporarily forgetting that you exist and have opinions and a face and people know you and stuff. Even if that's just throwing yourself into bed and wholeheartedly yielding the entire weight of existence to gravity for as long as your schedule permits. I mean, yes, there's a time and a place to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, but have you ever tried just sincerely and devotedly surrendering for a minute or a month? Do it. Rest begets readiness. Don't take my word for it. Ask the perennials. Ask the trees.
limited time onlyToday's Sauce features a short poem about some of the precocious local flora. I wrote this one on April 11th and my predictions were exactly correct. There might be an allegory in there somewhere.
www.curiosityroving.com/sauce
Happy Solstice!
Until next time, stay curious. -- Rose
Until next time, stay curious. -- Rose
Appendix : This and That
1) Resources for self-education on the current conversation around upholding the human rights of people of colour:
- White Awake : https://whiteawake.org/self-education/themes-and-resources/
- Dismantling Racism Works : https://www.dismantlingracism.org
- Compilation of anti-racism resources for white people : https://docs.google.com/…/1BRlF2_zhNe86SGgHa6-…/mobilebasic
- Sara Ahmed's articles : https://www.saranahmed.com/articles
- White Noise Collective : https://www.conspireforchange.org/reso…/antiracism-practice/
- Practice Showing Up : https://www.jardanapeacock.com/…/16…/practice_showing_up.pdf
- Buzzfeed put up this quiz that invites you to literally check your privilege. It's not flawless, but it's fun. I scored 42.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/how-privileged-are-you
2) Hustle may be bread, but oxygen is art:
- Ryan Cook's new collection of gospel covers and his entire back catalog are streaming here : https://portal.ryancook.ca/
- Bella White (you may remember her from V.2) just moved to Nashville (!) and released her first single : https://lnkfi.re/BrokeWhenI
- Barbora Xu created a 'Morning Music' series during quarantine and it is totally enchanting : https://www.facebook.com/barboraxumusic/
- This hand drum concert by Mohammed Reza Mortazavi is a wowzer : https://youtu.be/fAdWfGb5rIo
- DJ SUAT just might be a fully actualized creative human : https://www.facebook.com/SUATISM/
- For the down and dirty DnB/Jungle crew, DJ Aphrodite has been hosting some full-power 2-hour live sessions : https://www.facebook.com/djaphrodite/
- This festival of short films is on until the 22nd and it's great : https://www.psfilmfest.org/2020-shortfest/film-finder
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