i have in my email task list (to the right of the inbox layout), one called “teflon!”, which is not a task in itself, but a reminder to embody the quality of the teflon pan, meaning non stickyness. silly? sure. useful? kind of. teflon is an industrial product invented for war tech and later repurposed for domestic use, in 1946. teflon is, as the description on their site say, an oil and stain repellent.
i get a lot out of reflecting on the quality of objects, animals, people, events with certain traits that i would like to know more about or traits that i should probably develop for/ in myself. this way, objects become symbolic proxies, metaphors that stand in for inner states that have a complex digestive process.
for example, i sometimes go to yoga when i need to anchor myself with some core strenght. other times, i go to a zumba dance class when i need cumbia-style sillyness and a bit (or a lot of) movement coordination. or i stumble into my teflon! note and remember to let unsavory things unstick from my nervous system. or how sometimes i crave being next to large bodies of water* when, i guess, i might need to “be like water, my friend.” the list can go on and on .every week is made out of a long, loose task list of tiny reflections (and somewhat mindful practices) that act as digestives, like the shot of țuică i had yesterday, under a willow tree.
Coined by biologist dr. wallace j. nichols, blue mind theory argues that being near water puts us in a semi-meditative state. © form of things by asel.
about luck. me and a friend hitchhiked for the first time in 20 years, after getting stuck in a village close to a lake we went to see and hang out by. after hanging out by the lake we walked for a late lunch to a nearby village and had to make our way back to the train station at a certain time. the bus which was suppose to go through said village at a certain time wasn’t going by at the hour we hoped. so, we planted ourselves at the bus station, waiting to get the courage to stop a random car. for a while, we just judged the cars that went by, by their cover. is this type of car more likely to have a dubious driver? speculations based on superficialities, but fun, in the moment, and perhaps not 100% inaccurate. we then joked about how to effectively signal the driver: the classical hitchhiker finger, a casual wave? we tried both, but the wave eventually did the trick. a jeep with two women stopped after first passing us by, without intending to stop, but then pulled up 15metres down the road and signaled us to jump in. “my sister told me to stop because you looked like us.”
an intimate photo (from a series on friendship) by theresa babb aprox. 1900, happening in camden, maine, usa - one of two places on the east coast “where the mountains meet the sea". found these photos on the public domain image archive and they made my gaze linger as everything in the image, but the clothes, looked "timeless and strikingly modern."
