on balance
spiritual: birds, the moon, big thief
this newsletter is a week late. it was supposed to come out 9/29. again, apologies. something i realized is that i work harder towards deadlines when they are shared, in collaboration. and so i think i will start to think of this monthly deadline as a shared deadline with you wonders who read this newsletter, the cherished friends i make effort to keep in contact with. indeed it is collaboration, but also— in a motion to do more for myself. to make decisions in community, and autonomously. living through our multitudes.
and so it has looked like trying to find balance. to equalize so that it feels “just right,” so that the goldilocks metric wasn’t created in vain. a month and a half into the last year of this degree, it has been many things, as any variable always is, even though we might try to pretend that one thing really is one thing. dichotomies, multitudes: doing less work is doing more work. pushing harder is treating yourself with an elevated kindness. finding rhythms that root me into the ground, that bellow deeply within the earth; sound travels faster through solid matter, more molecules to move through. i cannot believe that i didn’t focus on my body the first two and a half years of school. running, yoga, and using my muscles has felt of surreal importance, because of the new alignment of my body, my mind, and what they have tried to call the soul. in this i am feeling ever more in balance.
balance, that which i cannot keep. this concussion has brewed more symptoms, and i am feeling intense: i have retired from head injuries. but new characters pop out, i read a sentence for its idolatry rather than its idealism, or in a maniacal order, the meanings don’t stay with words like they used to. looking into this computer screen right now is a labor. something i have not gotten over this shy embarrassment of: i’m really struggling to learn a language, italian. though in persistence, there is no negativity in this; these are the ways in which we majestically progress, each our own struggle, all feeling towards one. and thus, i cannot physically keep my balance. as i work towards this calibration of my ears eyes legs and core in each moment, a mindfulness, i will drill ahead and into the balance of the abstract spheres of my life, so that i can give more wholly to each of them.
and so time is escaping, leaves are falling, every email starts with an urge to look at the shifting horizon, the crescent amber moonset, the birds we saw at night, migrating underbellies illuminated by cornell’s glow. time doesn’t feel in my control right now, its “working weird” as a dear friend masha avrutsky once said and i think i never forgot, it will whisk our life away. and the passage of time this year feels luminous, and whole, helping me appreciate each moment.
the farm freshness, the afternoon bikerides on Feefi, passed on to me by the illustrious Skylar Xu, former member of Triphammer Cooperative, the big blue home in which I lived before I went abroad. (a note on the name of our dear yellow homie Feefi: in a letter was entitled “the yellow bike™” and now rides with the newer giant yellow bike, beebee, a special bike belonging to roomie nico acquired abroad in vienna. i wear a shirt of my recently deceased grandfather, from his trip with my grandmother, years ago, to Phi Phi, an island in Thailand. The name felt right somehow as paired with nicole’s bike, and reminiscent of a loved one lost. “Phi” means “older sibling.” Two times repeated? “Older sibling older sibling,” names click, pay attention to names, they are very important: this bike has been passed down a few generations in Triphammer, those who came before me “paying it forward” in the spirit of a collective. Feefi will pass on, the older sibling older sibling in a beautiful shining bike, again next year).
and now I live at Avalon. we had our first lounge, of which there will be more to come. we clean our house every week, and buy food in conversation. i am still back and forth by triphammer, which feels a lovely place, fluttering with new energy, much needed. i can tell already there are new friends afoot here. ordering food for the house has been a fun time, coming together every Thursday with sophie banks, alex d, martin and aitan (only new triphammer guy hangin out on our squad). a blend of unique personalities, the opportunity for immense growth tingles like light before dawn.
i began writing for the Cornell Daily Sun, and will hopefully be published there twice a month from now on. in this motion, i’m creating a column where i can publish my writing on music, art, literature, and more: Blue Heron Music. see my first work there right now. this is as instead of a completely new substack account, as i earlier indicated. sorry for the miscommunication.
this newsletter is dedicated to osk, who alighted my memory which rests in the shape of a firefly, to the importance of this work. in a simple question, he asked in his eternal earnesty: “is your newsletter coming out this month?” this month, extending, in our malleability, for me. may he keep his balance.
i must say, and it comes in a familiar place, that there is something i am holding back, a pronunciation of a feeling in my chest that i don’t quite know yet. and i am it. it is the way time can slow when you’re with someone; all the more enriching to watch them out unto the world, spreading the magic you know they are.
i stand, myself, flying warrior, a foot, unbalanced, unashamed.
to october, to the leaves. to love.
-aidang
I missed your letters! So glad they are here again🙏🏻
Ride the yellow into the green, then orange, then red, then white night, again.