Beyond my window Is a whole wide world There are trees swaying in the wind There are birds singing songs The dogs are barking and the cars Are moving along Just as the people who stop and stare Or go about their business to somewhere The sun still shines The neighbour’s cat visits my porch Everyone and everything continues Beyond my window
There is a time for everything and today marks my last post of this season, which has unexpectedly lasted for 7months. When I first started this podcast newsletter, I didn’t expect myself to write for this long and consistently every week.
Sometimes the process challenged me, but more commonly, I found different ways of experimenting with spoken word, in finding old and new voices both in written and spoken formats, and turning up to a black page; surprising myself of the words that flowed out in front of me.
I also deepened some relationships and found a way of connecting with close and new friends, home and abroad. I found that a newsletter is a great way to connect with those far away. My visitation into their emails almost replicated the conversations we have when we are together. I learned from their sharing of their stories just as I shared mine.
Just as nature as its own seasons, I think I am also coming to a cycle of rest and renewal.
A lot of the poetry I read came from deep moments of rest and renewal. Of disconnecting to connect within and living life in many different ways.
It came from writing down my jumbled up thoughts without a form of organisation.
I’ve heard from a few people of how the voice I seem to have developed in many of my thinking and writing is of “wisdom.” But I don’t feel wise. I feel like for the past seven months, I’ve merely recorded flashes of insights that I recognise in my own or someone else’s life.
Sometimes it is not based on a true story but of a theory. Sometimes it is based on many stories interconnecting with one another.
Regardless, I think, for now it is time for me to take a pause. I’ve seen many people take different forms of breaks this summer. I’ve been denying myself of one until now.
I am curious to the next stage of how my writing will unfold and how my voice will evolve and in what ways I will use it for.
If there is a next season, it will be as purposeful as this one.
I hope you will give yourself the permission to rest and unplug. To not just peer outside of your window, as the poem suggests, but to step outside of it. To experience the birds, the trees, the dogs, the cats and the people who are living their own lives, living centrally in their own lives as the main character of their own projects and dramas, as we all do; and recognise that all of this and more awaits for our witnessing of them beyond the windows we have built for ourselves.
In the meantime, do go back to the previous episodes and archives of the newsletters and podcast episode. They’re available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and if you are subscribed to this newsletter, it will go straight into your inbox.
Thank you for coming on this journey with me for the past seven months. I have really enjoyed writing and recording for you.
May we all live by our own wisdom, and for that wisdom to be crumble every once in awhile to be built up again.
Contemplations
:
How will you be pausing this year?
What are your favourite ways of disconnecting to connect?
In what ways can you learn to pivot in your life so that a renewal can take place?
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