Fully acknowledging I'm coming from a place of good fortune and luck as I write this. Obviously the Covid situation sucks for many, and even now as a laid-off employee I'm pursuing whatever funding I can so I might continue paying my rent. A lot of people and communities are definitely having it SO much harder though. May we always hold them and their struggles in our thoughts, and remember our privileges if we believe to be having them.
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| Pacific Spirit Forest |
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| Painting nook in our house with some last rays of sun |
Maybe an unpopular opinion: these few weeks have strangely but truly been the happiest and most content time of my life (excluding my last shroom trip haha) ; feeling really grateful to be on this constant high.
One of my life dreams is to go live, for an indefinite period of time, in the mountains in Sichuan like Li ZiQi ( please look her up on YouTube! ) and spend all my days in nature harvesting and gathering food, cooking, bonding with friends and family over these things, listening to music and watching the sunset. These days, with no (in-person) classes or work shifts or meetings to rush to or hustle as much over, I feel like I've been living out this exact dream, just in Vancouver instead of Sichuan. My communal home of 6 people have the loveliest time isolating together in our beautiful house. We do our best to be resourceful, making our own bread and oat milk and hummus etc, and planting our own food garden in our backyard. I never get over how blessed we are to have Pacific Spirit forest right next to our house always receiving us for our solo nature walks. Everything is slowed down. I spend my days on yoga, meditating, being in stillness and peace, doing SOME (still haha) schoolwork, walking in the forest, making dinners for my second fam (exercising my nurturing side has been very emotionally healthy for me) and eating and watching Ghibli films with them, painting, dancing, re-learning the guitar, creating - it's all so simple now. Strange to say but my world also feels a bit smaller physically (in a good although trippy way) now that I'm restricted to just our house, the forest and the grocery store a 10-minute walk away. Kind of feels like we're living in a lovely house in the countryside. We are no longer overwhelmed with too many capitalistic options of what to buy, what to spend on outside just for the sake of having something to do or have fun, where to eat out, etc. Times like this I realize how loud and noisy the world normally is with all of our human desires to do something for the sake of doing it or being productive.
Leading up to this pandemic and quarantine period I had for months been feeling increasingly restless, restricted and even directionless. Though still grateful over many things, I felt boxed in by the rigid day-to-day structure I lived in, so hardly defined by the obligations of work and school, neither of which particularly sparked passion in me. That was it, I lacked passion, and space or time in my life to explore my creativity and pursue things I truly enjoy, to the point that I for a long while did not know anymore
what brought me true joy and passion. And I knew I needed more space to explore and tap into these things. Sometimes the library I was studying in at 10p.m. would literally feel like a little box, and I would rush to finish schoolwork so I could leave that whole place and go walk in the forest in the dark, away from institutions, rigidity, to allow some room inside me to open up so I could breathe.
Now with the time boundaries of work and classes crumbling away, everything feels timeless and free, and that's probably what makes life so dreamlike now. There are several moments where I find myself lying or painting on the backyard patio in the sun, or in the dark on the living room floor snuggled in a blanket and the warmth of my housemates' company as we watch a movie together, our hung-up fairy lights dancing above us, or walking by myself in the forest from evening til dusk as the trees around me turn from green to a beautifully mysterious grey, and I start thinking "Life is perfect right now. It's heaven just as it is".
Some of my moments and creations:
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| A painting |
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| Chinese chilli oil noodles & pan-fried tofu |
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| Turmeric veg stirfry & vegan butter corn fried rice |
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| Chinese-style braised potatoes |
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| Homemade falafels, by Abdo |
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| Will and Abdo hanging on the roof |
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| Willow on the backyard patio |
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| Saige and her guitar in the sun |
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| Curry and tempeh by Abdo |
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| Black tea bags soaking to make kombucha, by Max |
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| Oat milk from scratch, by Guru |
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| Pasta with homemade vegan alfredo cream sauce |
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| Another painting |
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| Painting on the patio |
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| Lying on the couch listening to an audiobook, watching our camellia bush in full bloom |
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| Wanted udon to make Hoisin noodles but Guru brought pasta from the grocery instead..haha |
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| Blueberry banana vegan pancakes |
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| Sourdough bread and hummus made from scratch by Guru |
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| Pacific Spirit forest as the light fades |
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| Korean vegan bibimbap with king oyster mushrooms |
Love and health to everyone
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