an ode to october

a month of grief and gratitude

(This format is heavily inspired by

isobel hope

’s fieldnotes post!! ) 

Oh, October. You have been so kind to me and so awfully cruel. I cried a lot this month, and I am not really a crier. I cried of joy, of grief, and of gratitude. The following is my attempt to summarise the month. I didn’t take a lot of photos this month but for November I intend to really pull through, and also get my film developed.

I know I will have left out many things, both on purpose and on accident, but nonetheless here are some snapshots of my life.

Quotes of The Month:

• “Life is made in the ordinary” - a sentence I’ve been thinking a lot.

• “Live boldly.” - Madi, my roommate and dear friend. I can’t quite remember the context, but it’s been on repeat in my brain.

• “Inhale love, and then exhale love, as much as you can” - my Hot Yoga instructor (my first class ever!).

• “Choose courage over comfort” - my Hot Yoga instructor (Also during my first class, she was just a very well-worded lady)

• “Short people walking are like pigeons” - Julien, on a particularly funny day at work. I barely make 5 foot 5, Julien is 6 foot 2. I think that qualifies me as a pigeon. 

• “Sometimes I have to think to myself, is this a border?" - my sociology professor after explaining how researchers had suggested that to empower young girls and shift them away from perfectionism, when they go the extra mile on an assignment we shouldn’t tell them good job. We should question if they really needed to do that. For example, if they make a big presentation and add an (arguably) unnecessary border to make it look nice, we should question if that was necessary. Teach them that you don’t always need to go the extra mile. I’ve been thinking a lot about where in my life I add too many borders.  

Moments from the month:

• Going on a small walk among a ton of blackberry bushes with the view of a mountainside, full of autumn foliage

• Feeling a lil down and my roommates rallying for me followed by snap-dancing down the street 

• Bringing banana bread wrapped in beeswax paper to my friends

• Cafe date with Emma in the pouring rain followed by delicious vegan burger

• Julien running over to visit

• Ratatouille night

• Learning how to belay

• All the walks with Madi

  • Especially the super rainy Sunday one

• Spin Sundays <3

• Colouring my hair pink (Atleast in theory) for an otherwise very accurate Lady Bird Costume

• Bakery walk with Madi while discussing the plausibility of getting a dog

  • update: still negotiating.

• The tea and fortune cookie evenings

• Smelling the autumn rain in the morning from my backdoor

• Buying a lil treat (pictured below) with the cash I found in my jacket (also pictured below)

Scrapbook pictures: 

my october snapshots!

Poem of the Month: 

The Orange by Wendy Cope. 

I went to a lovely Friendsgiving at my friend Jess’s place. The girl I sat next to at dinner and I talked about poetry, and this one came up. I know its also trending on Tik-Tok, but I don’t really care. There’s a reason its popular. I have been trying to give my loved ones oranges in various different forms. Acts of service, baked goods, and making sure certain mugs are put in certain spots.

The start of November means soon I will be giving everyone I love actual clementines. Get excited!

Songs I’ve Loved Listening To

• Ok Love You Bye by Olivia Dean

• Almost by Hozier, the love of my life

• Favorite Colors by Peter Sun

• Back To December (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift

• Help Me Willie Nelson! by Humbird

• River by Leon Bridges

• Friends by Farmers Son

• Islands by GoldenOak

Rose, Thorn, Bud

Rose: 

Life is made in the ordinary and the ordinary has been really nice lately. My roommate, Madi, and I have been spending a lot of time going on walks, eating treats, doing little everyday things together. I am adding in another quote from Madi here, “I stir your peanut butter, and you kill the spiders.” This statement somehow felt like the greatest claim of platonic love.

Being in your 20’s, it is so easy to get caught up in wanting to do ALL the big things possible. So easy that you forget how nice it is to crawl into a bed with newly washed sheets, to drink tea out of a cute new mug. It is in these moments you have time to think about which of the big things you actually really want to do. So I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about what I really want to be doing.

Thorn: 

My great grandmother passed away in late October. I’ve been too busy to let it properly set in. Rather, I’ve been keeping myself too busy to let it properly set in. 

My great grandmother was a very cool lady and I did actually have a very close relationship with her. I feel a weird need to justify that, because sometimes when people are really old it’s almost as your relationship can only be one based on parentally enforced politeness. Anyway, she used to bike around with her brother playing the piano for his mobile cinema. She was a working woman despite being a mother and a wife, a rather feminist move in the 1950s. Her hometown is writing a newspaper article about her. No matter where I have lived in the world, she has always sent me a handwritten birthday card.

I have never been sad about choosing to live far from Denmark, but when she passed I felt such a mix of emotions. I wanted to be home, but I was also grateful to be able to pretend it wasn’t real. I keep forgetting she’s no longer going to be there for Christmas as she has been every year, and that I won’t receive a birthday card from her when I turn 22. Even if she is no longer on Earth, I see her in the sun rising, and feel her in the warmth of the sunrays. I’ve done a terrible job grieving, pushing it all off for when it feels more convenient. I think I am trying to pace my sadness.

Death is weird. Especially when someone is 98 and pass away exactly how they wanted to: In her home, still in relatively good health, clear-minded and surrounded by those she loves. It isn’t tragic, nor unexpected when someone who has almost lived an entire century passes. A handwritten note I wrote her was put in the urn with her ashes. Well, handwritten isn’t exactly right. Since I am in Montreal, I had to send a scan of the note I wrote via text to my grandmother to print. So a printed out copy of my note will be mixed with her ashes. The year she was born was the first time a television picture with a greyscale image was transmitted. I said my goodbyes to her over a perfectly pixelated FaceTime call on a silly tap-tap device that listens to me. Technology is a wack and wild thing.

Anyway, grief is a weird thing. I have also been working on a written piece about this which I may or may not publish here. 

Bud: 

I started top-rope climbing like properly. I’ve tried it a few times before, and loved it. I especially know that I like it a lot compared to bouldering. I am happy to be able to admit this. I am putting this as a bud because I would like to keep climbing, and keep getting outside. I don’t want to say anymore because I don’t want to sound like a climbing stereotype just yet.