Hello, Wonders!
First, thank you everyone for being here. I’ve been writing daily Letters from Love
Dear Love,
What would you have me know today?
Sassy Snapdragon, sometimes I sit here amidst these colorful chalky pastels like geometric prisms just waiting for you to wake from slumber.
To be together again is a mystery and an adventure.
To sit in the quiet as your heart rises from dreaming is a reflection of dreams realized into be-ing. Being with you is like the anticipation of waiting for Polaroid photos to unveil their images in the darkest of nights or the brightest of mornings. Remember those feelings? The feelings of emotions so wild and true that life’s melody brings you to a cosmic dance and even Hafez smiles!
Time to write, Fatemeh. Time to write. One story at a time. Incorporate poem and prose. Invent and innovate. Dream into being all those stories around bonfires and holiday gatherings. Dream into language the travels before dawn even on this unusually chilly morning. Dream into being a friendship in analog time and cherish all your beloveds.
Love,
Love
(Merci, Lizzy &
& Pepita & the Lovelets) and am writing haiku that I discovered before I started kindergarten. I actually began to read at 4 and writing around the same time.I had a red bound Mother Goose book of verse that I carried with me in my small, chubby hands like some children carry teddy bears or dolls or footballs or Matchbox cars.
I’ve been wildly imaginative as far back as I can recall.
Fast forward to 2025.
I’m reimagining a chapbook either self-published or sent out for publication.
My intentions include putting something of beauty and whimsy and soulful reflection out into the world. I also want to honor and celebrate all the wonderful teachers I’ve had in my life including my French teacher and all the English teachers who believed in me and encouraged me to use my gifts. More on them soon.
The working title for my collection is: Mortar & Pestle. I’ve been a fan of alchemy and Merlin most of my life. I adore Tolkien and read the Hobbit and others at around 14.
Alchemy actually has a history of beginning sometime during the Middle Ages though I suspect the concept and practice existed even earlier.
Alchemy (from the Arabic word al-kīmīā, الكیمیاء) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe.[1]
I am keeping the style simple for now and posting here once a week with sprinkles here and there in Notes.
[1]
Craig, Edward(ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge
Goal: By June, brainstorm, dream into being a chapbook of poems.
Working Title: Mortar and Pestle: An Alchemist’s Dream
Form: Haiku and Free Verse
Due Date: June 18, 2025. Procrastination Date: October 30,2025
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_and_pestle
Mortar and Pestle
2/22/2025 Saturday
Goal:
Poem a day.
BOTANY 101
She sits on a silver metal stool. Her mind eager to learn and curious enough to explore the science of plants.
Haiku #1
Butterfly bush sing
Roots rumble through onyx soil
Spring tremors bloom Violet
Haiku #2
Sanskrit "mrnati" - to crush, to bruise.[6] (Wikipedia)Clay in your open palms
Soft spheres of earth like marbles
Weave silk threads each day.
Sit in the dark dream
Open palms supine
Lips wet with ink sing.
Equinox moon glows
Merlin giggles alchemy
Morter and Pestle hum
Mrnati: Sanskrit
To crush, to bruise now
Rice free of brown husks feed us
2/25/2025
Calligraphy
When I was about 5, first grade, a Calligraphy artist visited our public school with her bottles of black ink and Calligraphy pens.
I was mesmerized. It wasn’t until later after school that I was told that Calligraphy is actually a Persian art form. I felt captivated by a part of not only myself but my ancestors.
My Mom ever supportive of my artsy self even then took me to an art supply store and I bought a pen set. My Dad actually had a pen collection himself.
Haiku #3
The smell of ink like
possibility in black
My liquid eyes weep
A gentle large palm
holds out her papyrus skin
And high fives me hello
We smile with pen nibs
Soft aerogrammes come by post
Tender words remain
Lastly, I’d like to celebrate and give thanks to Robin Wall Kimmermer and Molly Jacobs.
I attended a virtual presentation here:
Reading recommendations:
Film recommendation:
Love,
PS
Woooooo hooooo!
Tickets and info here:
Amy Sherald and More at the North Carolina Museum of Art
Image: Amy Sherald, She was learning to love moments, to love moments for themselves (detail), 2017, oil on canvas, 54 1/8 × 43 in., © Amy Sherald, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth; Photo: Joseph Hyde
“The title of the exhibition, The Time Is Always Now, references an essay on desegregation by American writer James Baldwin (1924–1987). Organized around three themes—double consciousness, the persistence of history, and our aliveness—the exhibition showcases works by artists including Michael Armitage, Jordan Casteel, Lubaina Himid, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Amy Sherald.
This collective assertion and interest in figuration and representation, examining both the presence and absence of the Black figure in art history, transcends geographical boundaries. Through their work these artists invite a shift in the dominant art historical perspective from “looking at” the Black figure to “seeing through” the eyes of Black artists and the figures they depict.”
I love everything about this - the writing, artwork, the recommendations, the humor! What a treasure you are 🥰❤️😍
Constellations, I have to tell you—I laughed out loud several times reading this, and I loved every moment of it. The *Due Date: & Procrastination Date:*? Absolutely brilliant. That alone deserves its own gold-foiled page in the chapbook.
Your writing has such a playful depth, this seamless weaving of whimsy and wisdom, the way you gather words and alchemize them into something magical. I can already see *Mortar & Pestle* taking shape, humming with alchemy and wonder. And the calligraphy moment—oh, I felt that. The way certain art forms just *click* into our bones, whispering something both ancient and intimately personal.
I have a fountain pen collection myself and love writing with them—the feel of ink flowing onto paper, the weight of a well-balanced pen in my hand. My grandmother loved calligraphy and writing, too, and she showed me so much of it. There’s something about those early introductions to craft, to beauty, to the deliberate movement of hand and ink that stays with us, that calls us back again and again.
I can't wait to see where this journey takes you. Keep dreaming, keep weaving, keep writing. 💫