To Our Daunting December: The Little Letter Series: Delights of the Ordinary No. 63 (S2)
Happy Holidays.
#TheLittleLetters is my new series where I send you tiny letters of little learnings as opposed to long-form essays. They may help you gear back or throttle up but I promise most of them will be positively wise.
What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. it also depends on what sort of person you are.
- C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
December months can be dauntingly demanding!
Because, besides our run-of-the-mill jobs, thumb-scrolling through the gift and party ideas, in some form, we also attempt to adjust our moods to say goodbye to this year’s timeline so we can start another. It is sort of standing under a doorway where the old is stirred to be mingled with the new!
It is we who are passing when we say time passes.
- Henri Bergson
Hence, when I write letters to you under this sophisticated pale blue sky that covers our entire enormous earth, showing the guts to renounce her old profession of a Nutritionist and restart as a writer, I hope to nudge you to find some breathing space in your synthetic living, making sure that as you adjust and re-adjust to life’s demands my newsletters may keep you a cheerful company when you need a little respite.
Because there is an enormous distinction between letters and emails. Since emails are quick and dry, “[a] letter, by contrast, always arrives from the past. There is a waiting – a forced patience – built into the mechanics. You wait for a letter to arrive. You wait for a reply… in both space and time: I am sitting at the kitchen table; I am in the garden, under the apple tree; I can hear the children in the bath upstairs and will soon have to fetch them. In that sense, a letter is more “composed” than an email.”
And even though we all live in this speeding world of the internet, I still make it a point to write letters to you, in which you will find calm and tremendous strength to pause in our ordinary.
And if at all, I will forever lecture the importance of ‘pausing’ in our unpleasant temerarious tempo of hurriedness. Since we are conditioned to boast about living in ‘cities that never sleep’ - as our medal of honour, certifying our busyness… “and have come to see the very notion of “leisure” not as essential to the human spirit but as self-indulgent luxury reserved for the privileged or deplorable idleness reserved for the lazy.” We practice goodness by observing the ordinary virtues around us.
So, if you see anything like such, just stop for a while and maintain a stance of gratitude:
- a ladybug trying to trek on a grass leaf.
- a bumble bee routing into our ear thinking to make its home.
- a whole day of hard work and hitting our heavenly beds to suddenly realize that everything in the world is mythical.
- seeing your children grow, then realising you are growing older.
And also to say, this is the last edition of Delights of Ordinary for 2024, a year that went by quicker than it arrived. So, for us, in the coming days, we plan to front-load our mouths with cakes and crackers, snuggle under a duvet to watch some Christmas movies and then snore and snort at that time of night. The basic theme here is to let the time wrap at its own swiftness, without holding the mighty madness of loud parties and moving under the pressures of festivities. I hope you do the same this holiday season.
In all goodness, I am sending this as a last issue so I may pause myself for a while, yet wish under my breath that you too will spin a lot of mini giggles and long waves of laughter. In cold winter days drawing each other in warm hugs, marshmallows and hot coffee without pretending that we have it all together. Because the truth is none of us have it all together. We are all in the process of collecting the fragments of our lives in the best way we can.
I wish you a Merry Christmas and a precious New Year!
“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they are too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don't recognize inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost. But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.”
―Heide Preibe
That’s a wrap for the year twenty-twenty-four!
And, before I sign off, I like to thank you for being my gracious gentle readers and hanging with me in and around my words. For writing in, sharing your thoughts and sometimes encouraging my drowning heart, checking in when I missed my schedule.
A mountain-size thank you!
I wish you good tidings, peace and light in full measure and in every corner of your heart, many cuddles and carbs this season.
I will see you on the other side of time.
- Anugrah
Delights of the Ordinary is for us who are trapped in the world of hustle culture but are quiet at heart with an itching creative bone. This newsletter intersects culture, art, science, and philosophy with our practical 9-5 job space.
Who am I?
Hi, I am Anugrah. You can know more about me here. I write Delights of the Ordinary which currently is a free publication. Yet it takes me many hours of effort to write and curate it. I may need lots of coffee to keep me going. You can :)
Stumbled on my publication? Explore all my previous editions here. And in case you don’t wish to spend time browsing then complement this post with The Art of Adulting, Time Flies or read about Turning Suffering into Strength.
If you ever feel like dropping in a message or a comment, do not hesitate. We all can only thrive in people. We can be those ordinary creative beings who can change the world. You and me.
I just stumbled across this post and am just here to say that I love both quotes along with your reflections. Thank you.
Hope Peace Joy Love of the Season.
Have a Blessed Christmas!