Among Other Things: Vol. 3
/Happy weekend, weekenders!
Adding the newest edition of Among Other Things to your internet consumption this weekend, I hope you enjoyyyy. ❤️
Night’s Watch 📺
We can all agree that Netflix is a gift that keeps on giving, but I recently found a movie on there that’s a special whopper of a present- Roma. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón of Gravity fame, it’s a beautiful rendering of his childhood in 1970s Mexico City. The actors are brilliant, the story feels like that of every human being’s and every frame is painstakingly designed to transport you to a different time which in my case, was my own childhood in India. K and I both agreed it was our favorite movie in recent times!
(Un) Arrested Development 🙏🏽
When my parents were visiting in the fall of 2018, my mom recognized my stress subliminally the way that moms do and encouraged me to adopt the daily meditative practice of Pranayama. One of the most basic tenets of meditative yoga, it involves deep breathing exercises with the dual purpose of also clearing the mind. I’ve been using this as a nightly 15’ brain-dump ritual, and while I may sound like a trumpeting elephant trying to whisper at first, I can feel (and hear!) my airways clearing by the end. 👍🏽
Plus, I sleep like a log after… which is the next day’s problem and a topic for another conversation. 😜
Maiden Voyage 🙋🏽🚗✈️⛵️
In the recurring match of Us versus Burnout, we seemed to have gained the upper hand for a minute after a recent weekend getaway to Lake Tahoe. 🙌🏽 I’ve been itching to feast my eyes on the snowy slopes all winter long, but the universe conspired in all the right ways to make a Spring trip happen for us and we were READY. The days were sunny and brisk, but cold enough still so that the un-melted snow shone bright like a̶, nay, 13887 diamonds. More on the trip soon in a separate blog post, but this urgent PSA is for those in the Bay Area possibly planning Spring travels- Ski season in Lake Tahoe is open till July this year after record snowfall, so there’s quite some time left for a lakeside sojourn still!
This Brand, Though. 👏🏽
Okay, so I’ve never been a perfume person. What few perfumes I do own are gifts from wonderful friends on a birthday and such, and I do right by them with a daily post-shower spritz on the wrist. But I’ve never been that person from the movies that walks by for those in their walk’s wake to ooh at the lingering whiff of Chanel No. 5. Until now, that is. Now, suddenly, I’m foreseeing this kind of behavior in my future surroundings because these Molton & Brown fragrances are just that good. 💯 The brand kindly gifted me with a trio of scents from their fragrance collection, and they’re all douse worthy to say the least. A great gift idea, perhaps, or shall I dare say it… TREAT. 👏🏽YO. 👏🏽SELF. 👏🏽
Speak Easy 📝
You all know that my unpaid occupation is to read all of the things, so here’s something I read recently that struck a chord. It’s an unending internal battle for me between wanting to not own ‘things’ and wanting more ‘things’, and this quote from E. M. Forster’s essay ‘My Wood’ may have summarized my quandary just right.
It is not a large wood – it contains scarcely any trees, and it is intersected, blast it, by a public foot-path. Still, it is the first property that I have owned, so it is right that other people should participate in my shame, and should ask themselves, in accents that will vary in horror, this very important question: What is the effect of property upon the character? ... What’s the effect on me of my wood?
In the first place, it makes me feel heavy. Property does have this effect.In the second place, it makes me feel it ought to be larger....
E.M.Forster, My Wood
Hope you enjoyed this week’s love list!
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful weekend ahead. :)
XO Sushmitha
