Homies! I hope you are all doing well. It was insane to write November in the title and to think how fast time seems to be going. Everything lately feels like warp speed. A fun little fact about me is that I suffer from frequent bursts of vertigo. I personally believe that it is a lie but the doctor told me it is impossible to think fast enough to make yourself dizzy but he’s only professionally trained for over a decade. Quick detour aka side note: can you believe it takes ten whole years to become a doctor ?! And that’s a minimum benchmark. Vets take roughly five years and librarians six. So what I’m basically saying is the animals have a right to be pissed when they rebel and take over the world.

Back to the vertigo! I genuinely do think I think too fast and it contributes to my dizziness. I am too often the cartoon version of a bird sipping espresso and then darting around the place, bug eyed and frantic. Sure I’m diagnosed with ADHD which is just a fancier way of saying ‘health risk’ but there are days I feel I am moving so fast I am leaving the world behind me. I used to smoke cigarettes to calm myself down but I quit four years ago and still don’t know what to do with my hands. And then there were the times those cigarettes were laced with something a little funkier and of course that works but you get to a point where you realise it’s doing more harm than good. I decided to take the plunge and build healthier habits and ultimately I failed. Sure, I don’t smoke at all. I don’t drink. I’m drug free. But I have not managed to replace them and when I spiral I still don’t know how to stop myself. Writing helps but it gets a little obsessive. I wrote a whole chapbook in a day on Thursday of last week which is great but also not. Then there’s exercise which starts off my morning well but doesn’t last all day. Put short I still got a lot of shit to get together. And I guess I’m telling you this because perfection is a painting I have grown sick of seeing. Our minds are messy sometimes and things take time. Not everything is solved in moments. We are in such an instant world. Fifteen second reels and disappearing messages. Ten second stories and limited characters to tell our stories. We are too exposed to the hurry. Too influenced to keep moving when sometimes all we need is a little stillness. So put down the phone, find a few blank pages and write something without any limits. Not a poem just a letter to yourself to let yourself know how you’re feeling. Truthfully, openly. Feel what it is to have all the space in the world, outside of a screen and outside of a social media that just wants you to go a little quicker. The time is yours, own it.

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May we slow

and find still

in the spinning.

Share the hush

Here are a few slow songs to listen to in this hurried world