Brisk

 I am writing this while on the sofa right after preparing my 4th warm drink for today—a cup of chocolatey peppermint herbal tea by a local brand called President’s Choice. It’s 10 degrees Celsius and we haven’t turned on the heating, because it’s still a comfortable kind of cold. The home-related mishap that I wrote about previously is now fully repaired and there were other minor home improvements made. Aside from that, there were other good news around achievements within our family and so we’ve celebrated those. I am happy to say that at this moment, I feel calm and contented. It is partly due to the weather and the natural seasonal colours outside…and partly due to my faith (work in progress) and trust in God. I’ve gone through periods of spiritual highs, lukewarm-ness, and lows—I’m thankful that I’m still being pulled towards this desire to achieve the fullness of life. With the unfortunate and heart wrenching events happening in other parts of the world, prayer and supplication for peace is crucial. In relation to prayer, I curated a personal playlist that I’ve been listening to while praying in the evening:  https://spotify.link/oL0ln9vzVDb. I randomly chose tracks from Spotify’s Peaceful Meditation playlist to create this.

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Yesterday at the supermarket, I saw a box of tea labeled “Stress Soother” and grabbed it. It’s autumn-appropriate because it contains cinnamon and I tried it in the evening as a nightcap, while burning a favourite candle. I burned the candle after cooking—highly recommended practice when using a bunch of aromatic stuff.

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In case no one has told you yet, I understand that you have worries. I will not deprecate your hurdles by saying that everyone is going through some form of hardship. Even though the next person is also going through trials, that doesn’t mean that there exists some measuring stick of tribulations. It is unwise to find comfort in convincing ourselves that others are in worse circumstances. Anyway, what I’m saying is that I think I heard you through the ether and that you may need an echo reply. Imagined or real, I know I would appreciate any kind of moral support.

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I will close this with a super mega happy thing that I got: a $3 reusable bag from the public library. For some time now, I’ve been seeing people around town carrying a canvas bag with the Toronto Public Library Logo. I wanted one, because I thought it was cool. I wanted to be the cool local who had the canvas bag—implying that I was a regular library patron. Superficial, eh? Well, no matter what anyone thinks, I am sooo happy I saw this. I’ve been asking libraries for it and they would always say that they’ve run out. This version is different because it’s black—the ones I see were the usual beige canvas bag with a blue logo. And clearly, this photo I took is some form of “flex” (as the kids these days say) because we recently organized our bookcase. This really made me happy.