little pearls
writing hill, lessons for thirties, being oneself, books, and the story of the Himalayan rains
Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining me. I hope the weeks have been good to you.
Apologies for being away for so long!
Head-down in a project and carried away in its writing, I couldn't put myself to anything else.
Your emails telling me you miss the newsletter were a great reminder and push.
Thank you, everyone, for checking up on me.
I am at that stage when I feel I won’t ever get out of this writing hill.
Just a couple of days ago my partner and I were discussing that writing, in my current case non-fiction, is like burrowing through a hill. Trying to find a story from the heap of memories. One grain in particular or something that has been gurgling throughout your life. You burrow and burrow and burrow. You think you have a story. You are covered in mud, filth, droppings, your own and of others, cobwebs, darkness. It smells of the past. You hope to dig so deep that you can see the other end of the tunnel. You want to see light. But the more you dig the more is there to dig. The tunnel never ends. It seems to stretch into the eternity of time.
You think you will never get out. You are knee deep in soil and all you want to do is scream and break your head against the hill because now you are so buried covered in grime that you just can’t shake off and shrug off. This is it. You do want to see the light. Where does it all lead?
You can’t come back the same way you entered. You have to go through the tunnel, and you can only come out the other way. Most ways are one way.
The only thing to do now is to keep at it, and perhaps one day you will see the light. You would have dug through and through the hill.
Soon you would find yourself into another labyrinth, which would perplex you as much. So there it is.
As the artist Sol LeWitt said in this letter to his sculptor friend Eva Hesse, leave all thinking behind and just do —
“Learn to say “Fuck You” to the world once in a while. You have every right to. Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, numbling, rambling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just
DO”
I don’t know when I would see the light. The big win is that I am back to waking up at dawn, and around the time the sun rises, the curious furry mongoose children gambol up on each other. They do it just like kittens.
little pearls are everywhere to find
Do you sometimes feel it was about time you got out?
For this week’s letter,
Some of my past writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
travel tips.
Articles From the Past
Thinking of a Career Change at 30? I Quit My Job, Too
I thought this is a good time to remind myself why I quit my work to pursue writing full-time and how hard it was to switch professions. This personal essay narrates my decade-long search for work I could enjoy. Hopefully, it would be of help to those who are rethinking their careers or life’s path.
For new subscribers, this article is a good introduction to my blog and my inspiration behind all this. Welcome you all :)
Read the narrative now. Or Pocket it for later.
Life Lessons to Excel in Your 30s - With Notes From Friends in their Early and Late Thirties
As I (almost) complete another cycle around the sun, I remind myself to make the most of this 30-40 decade. My partner turns 30 soon, and I hope there are at least some ideas here that might help him. And for those of you who are goldening into their thirties, too ;)
Read the inspirations now. Or Pocket them for later.
Quotes I Love
“In the end one experienceth only oneself.”
Nietzsche
“One is so apt to think of people’s affection as a fixed quantity, instead of a sort of moving sea with the tide always going out or coming in but still fundamentally there: and I believe this difficulty in making allowance for the tide is the reason for half the broken friendships.”
Freya stark
“Anyone with any degree of mental toughness ought to be able to exist without the things they like most for a few months at least.”
Georgia O’Keeffe
“I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. How your writing looks. And the way you feel. Life is art.”
Helena Bonham Carter
“You are not responsible for the world—you are only responsible for your work—so DO IT. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be.”
Sol LeWitt, in a letter to Eva Hesse
sometimes life is about separating the rotten peaches from the healthy ones, cleaning those first which had started to spoil from the decaying of others, checking in on the good ones every day, picking up a few, and hoping you did your best.
Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading short stories, books, articles, and so much more. I can’t possibly list all what I have read in the past week so I’m putting down the things I found most relevant and worthwhile.
As promised, sharing the books I have been reading,
An Illustrated Journey_ Inspiration From the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers by Danny Gregory — There is something simple and pure about this book. It is a collection of sketches and introductions by artists who travel and draw on location. They don’t do it for anyone. Just wherever they travel, they draw, sketch, paint. They love it. Reading of adults from all over the world taking out time to do what they love to do while sitting for hours on a small foldable stool over the roadside in the rain and the sun under the watchful eyes of the wayfarers makes me happy. The thoughts are simple, the sketches colourful, every-day, and interesting. I adore this simple bright book. It holds a lot of dreams, compromises, and courage.
A Simple Life: Living off grid in a wooden cabin in France by Mary-Jane Houlton — Another simple book by a traveller who has to buy a house in France to continue sailing there. Though otherwise she lives on a boat with her husband around Europe and the UK. I am glad Mary-Jane had to buy a house. For the bucolic home she purchased in the French country brought us this immensely useful, adventurous, and truthful account of making a new life in a new country, while staying true to ourselves. Off-the-grid, compostable toilet without running water, self-installation of water and electricity, leaving the yard or more like the surrounding forest as it is for animals are only some of the things explored in the book. The author not only talks about how to set up a home in the wilderness and how to install and manage all the systems ourselves, she also narrates the challenges of finding oneself in a strange neighbourhood and the internal journey in making the shift. Loved the nature-dipped book.
A Month In The Country by J. L. Carr — J. L. Carr travels to the English countryside to revive a wall painting and becomes one with the place, while unravelling layers of himself, too. He works every day slowly and steadily, excited for the painting to come up, is befriended by country locals and is visited by them while he uncovers the wall-drawing pixel by pixel. In doing so, he describes us the land, the people, their struggles and happiness and dreams. It is a beautiful book on the simplicity and the temporary nature of life while emphasizing that the world is too wonderful to ignore.
Self Contained: Scenes from a single life by Emma John — Though I wouldn’t recommend this book to everyone, I would recommend it to those who can cruise through the narrative meandering and ignore that some chapters don’t go well with the theme of the book. So they can see that the writer holds a mirror to her heart and mind. This book reminds me that we can read just to get to know another human being and how they are dealing with what life throws at them. So we can evaluate our own lives, get some advice, and laugh at the benign nature of some of our problems, while feeling connected and less lonely.
More books next week. Currently reading:
Full Tilt_ Ireland to India with a Bicycle by Dervla Murphy;
Journey_ An Illustrated History of Travel;
John Muir first summer in the sierra;
Home in the World A Memoir by Amartya Sen;
All God's Children Need Travelin' Shoes by Maya Angelou;
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell;
The Velveteen Rabbit;
An Innocent Abroad: Life-Changing Trips from 35 Great Writers;
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey;
Better than Fiction: True Travel Tales from Great Fiction Writers
I’m also re-reading Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg — a must-have for every writer.
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
that’s worth mentioning
I haven’t seen anything for a while. Writing and reading takes up all my time.
And for all adventure lovers!
Sharing some of the latest pictures I have been able to capture here in the Indian Himalayas.
one evening.
this is just sunset
survival
real ghost town in the rains
this was a double rainbow, above our host’s house
here it is
rain rain everywhere, all pipes broken - not now, about two weeks ago and then another month and a half ago. The rain broke all records of the past 33 years in Himachal Pradesh. Climate change at its worst.
did this for many days, water didn’t come for a week. see the pressure cooker? that is for drinking water.
the carpets that hung wet
mountains and fields broken, locals shaken, but laughing: “how can we hold the mountain after all?”
electricians and local men fixing the electricity after a heavy rainfall. Frankly, even in so much rain, electricity was never a problem. the power went out that night when the wires broke, and in the morning, the men worked in the rain and restored it.
the verdant green after the rains
the rice valley of Karsog
meanwhile, writing goes on.
up in an apple tree, like one is supposed to be (You can’t see any apples, except the one in my hand, because I plucked them all)
miss snail, you are so pretty so glorious so out of this world yet so much of it
yoga in the rain
my friend, the pear tree, the one i climbed every day for a month, in sickness, happiness, and tears
pears all out, corns are swelling now. the cycle goes on.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you have a great week ahead. Hope the photographs brought you some sunshine :)
Let me know what you think about this letter. Press reply.
Yours,
Priyanka
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