reflections on the sparkly feeling
an attempt to share thoughts once a week. welcome to week #1!
november 11, 2023
(featuring pretty pictures i’ve taken of nature)
this week was a great reminder that life is full of such beautiful things! cheesy as it sounds, this week i allowed myself to be reckless for the things i love. i took some time off work to see my favorite musician and my lovely friends. i painted, i read, i listened to music, i talked for hours, i wrote. i think at the end of the day, i’m a very simple person (aren’t we all, sorta?): i want a warm cup of tea against my lips and that little sparkly feeling in my stomach.
i think most of my writing is an attempt to explain this sparkly feeling. i encounter the sparkly feeling during the following activities:
looking at mountains or stars
seamless conversations with close friends
listening to songs that i know i would’ve loved when i was 14 but only discovered recently
writer’s groups
when everyone sings together at a concert
reading a book outside in the spring
closing my laptop after i’ve been in the zone while writing
getting a good deal on something i really want
when lots of people i love are in the same room
i felt the sparkly feeling a lot this week. i saw Jungkook of BTS perform in Times Square. i heard five songs off his new album, two that had never been performed live before! the next day, i talked for hours with my friends. how are you meant to stop grinning after that? (how are you meant to stop the aching feeling after it’s all over)?
the sparkly feeling is, to me, a reminder of what being alive is about. the sparkly feeling is what the 9-5 tries to crush, what capitalism tries to convince us is moot. sorry for getting sociological with it. society, as we have it structured now, likes to convince us the sparkly feeling can be found in new cars and excel sheets. i have never found the sparkly feeling in an excel sheet and i never will—mark my words.
maybe this is just the pain of being a creative person in a society that does not truly value creativity. but i have to imagine this isn’t a plight exclusive to creative people. everyone wants more time with their friends and family, less time at work. there’s a reason all the memes about mondays exist. we live for the weekends. it’s not our fault, i don’t think. we’ve been born into a world that is much greyer than it is meant to be. this earth bursts with color—so do we. after all, we’re the earth’s children. there’s a reason kids play in dirt. there’s a reason we return to dust posthumously. perhaps if we understood our relation to the planet better, we would feel more colorful. our days would be fewer emails and more eating fresh oranges on picnic blankets.
i think it is no surprise that so many of us live in cities, in apartment buildings with manicured lawns and long highways surrounding us. where are the gnarled, warty trees? where are the weird little bugs? even though i don’t consider myself a particularly outdoorsy person, i have to admit that i never feel closer to a god (whatever that may mean) than when i am in nature. i can feel the earth pulling me back to her in the mountains.
is it selfish to say that the fall leaves remind me of me? (beautiful, colorful, proud). ((spiraling, withered, crunchy to step on)).
i am bummed about the current state of things, if that wasn’t clear. i think the world is bigger than we’re told it is, i think we’re bigger than we’re told we are. the sparkly feeling is evidence of this. we are made with and for the mountains, with and for each other. to identify the sparkly feeling, seek it out, and create it is power. at least i think so.
i will probably spend the rest of my writings trying to describe the sparkly feeling better than i just did. it will not always be obvious that this is what i’m doing, but i promise i’m doing it. if so much complexity can be found inside this one feeling, then rest assured writers will write about it. me included.
when do you feel that sparkly feeling?
reading!
this week, i’m reading way too many things at once. but fuck it, we ball. i’m reading:
Percy Jackson and The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi
listening!
i hate to report that my Spotify daylist actually does a good job of curating music for me. i listen to it frequently. otherwise, i’ve been listening to lots of Chappell Roan, The Aces, and BTS (of course). i have a new playlist called “fall” and i have yet to get sick of it, which is impressive.
bts!
this week in bts news, Jungkook performed live in Times Square and thousands of people showed up without a formal announcement being made until a half hour before the show began. he released his new pop album, Golden, last Friday. i still can’t decide my favorite song, but currently it’s probably title track “Standing Next To You” or “Too Sad To Dance.”
just as important in bts news, Jimin posted a picture of an egg “just because.” he was very pleased with himself.
"i want a warm cup of tea against my lips and that little sparkly feeling in my stomach." oof :')
I think there is such a beauty in simplicity and I have recently been finding myself trying to learn to find happiness in the everyday. I think there is an expectation today that one must do "great" things in order to be succeeding. But really isn't it all about chasing that "sparkly feeling". How beautiful and lucky are we that we can see sunsets and feel breezes and hear the ocean? Friends are there to talk on the phone and books can take us on adventures. All this to say I loved this piece and completely agree with what you are saying. My recent sparkly feeling is from the weather getting colder! I love when Autumn moves to Winter and everything gets sleepy.