The Softer Side Of My Soul - Tumblr Posts
How do you like your tea?
how do i love you?, mary oliver
“Dear loves I never met,”
— Linda Pastan, from “In an Unaddressed Envelope,” featured in When She Named Fire: An Anthology (via violentwavesofemotion)
not to sound like a hot knife but actually what i NEED is to be able to express love in an environment w no judgement or analytics i hate trying to pull myself back and not show my hand bc other people refuse to show their vulnerability i AM too much i AM over the top i WILL bake you a full tray of biscuits at a moments notice you are JUST going to have to deal with it
softest of mornings, mary oliver
from “what does love mean? see how 4-8 year-old kids describe love” by ladan lashkari
[”when someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. you just know that your name is safe in their mouth.” billy - age 4]
“After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: if anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately. Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she did this. I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. Shu dow-a, shu-biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, sho bit se-wee? The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—she stopped crying. She thought our flight had been canceled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late. Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him. We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother until we got on the plane and would ride next to her—Southwest. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out, of course, they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, the lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—non-alcoholic—and the two little girls from our flight, one African American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice and lemonade, and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—has seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.”
— Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.”
sext: i’ve built a place in my heart for you to slumber. you’re welcome here anytime you’re weary.
“This is why people touch. Sometimes words are just not enough.”
— Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything (via resqectable)
i hope this email finds you in love with me
"و لو أن إبليس يومًا رآكِ، لقبل عينيك ثم اهتدى"
"And if the devil were to see you, he would kiss your eyes and repent"
-farouq gouida
Emily Brontë, The Complete Poems
i aspire to be one of those people who are known for always smelling good and treating people kindly
Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits (translated by Magda Bogin)
i think love is revolutionary because when done right, it allows for accountability, for growth, for healing, for laughter, for joy, for connection, for touch, for coming home. maybe it is foolish of me, even a little stupid to think of it as such but when done right, when honoured, when fulfilled, when prepared and boiled and served well, it truly does magic, it truly changes lives, it nourishes, it feeds, it gives hope, hope, so much of it.
One day you’ll sit in the sun and things won’t feel so bad