The Sunday Currently | 30 Jan. 2022
It’s a kind of free therapy—when a cat sleeps next to you. This is Oli. :-)
Live first, write later.
Sometimes, due to the busyness and demands of life, I tend to pass through life without reflection. I do not get to enjoy the present moment, because I keep thinking about tomorrow’s worries. I try to do Morning Pages (from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way), but I am not quite consistent with it. Sure, I may be able to show up for my responsibilities and to try and live even with the limitations and anxieties brought by the pandemic and the country’s political state with the elections coming up soon, but I am not able to dwell in happiness for the littlest things in my life that keep me going.
I have a friend on Instagram, and her name is Fay Sebastian (@mileventwelve)! She does Weekly Recaps, and I loved looking through the photos and descriptions of her week. It made me feel happy to see her being able to recount her week’s events with so much joy and reflection!
Inspired by Fay’s attention to life’s joys and in an effort to help with my mental health, to ground myself in the present, and to practice an attitude of gratitude every week, I will start doing The Sunday Currently. The Sunday Currently started here at http://siddathornton.blogspot.com/2011/07/the-sunday-currently.html. I used to do this before, and I quite missed it! I’ll change a few though which will work for me.
Here is The Sunday Currently for January 30, 2022:
reading Hannah Hurnard’s Hinds’ Feet on High Places (which I started on December 2021. It’s a long read for me, and I feel like I am also journeying with Much-Afraid, and sometimes I feel like I am Much-Afraid) and Arikawa Hiro’s The Traveling Cat Chronicles (which is the book I’m reading with my Reader Fam friends Christian, Denise, and Nicole).
writing the script for my next Arli’s Atelier video where I share how I self-published The Things We’re Afraid to Say. I finished it the other day, but of course there’d still be edits!
drawing illustration spreads for a contest I’ll be joining!
learning more about Discord. I’m a member of my friend KB Meniado’s OK to BE and Bookbed x Silent Readers servers! Also learning how to care for our cats more everyday, both pets and the stray and feral kitties we feed in our neighborhood. We used to be so clueless years ago!
listening to Japanese indie folk songs; right now, it’s やさしいままで (Yasashii mama de) by never young beach.
thinking about my priorities this week. I list down the main tasks I have to do in a week and then hash them down to smaller tasks spread throughout the days.
smelling nothing in particular right now, but a few minutes earlier, the bola-bola siopao I put in the steamer for Sunday dinner.
thanking one of our friends who donated for our community cats in Makati, the current and dedicated group of volunteer feeders there (and everywhere!)—they just had the second mass spay-and-neuter earlier and for Animal Kingdom Foundation (and other orgs!) who always advocate for love and care for animals.
hoping for better days ahead.
playing Camelot, the fifth singularity in the mobile gacha game Fate Grand Order.
watching Our Beloved Summer (I love how Choi Ung is an illustrator! He inspires me to work hard more!); Fate/Apocrypha (I’ve finished a third of season 2 already; personally, the story kind of drags a bit—I enjoyed Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works more); rewatching Whisper of the Heart and From Up on Poppy Hill (because I need some feel-good vibes lately); and Nobuta wo Produce (I’m so happy it’s on Netflix! I’ve always wanted to watch it when I was in high school).
needing to breathe more deeply and reassurance. Sometimes, when I feel anxious or when I’m too focused on a task, I forget to breathe!
feeling woozy. I think I need more sleep. I think I need to sleep earlier.