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Instructions on Not Giving Up
Ada Limón
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all
Mar 15, 2025
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even though it’s still February, I can already feel spring trying to break through the layers of cold
the sun is starting rise a little earlier, and mornings don’t feel as harsh. I can hear birds other than crows now—small signs that something is changing
in the afternoon, sunlight floods the classroom, and outside, kids are playing again. they shriek in excitement while playing tag or hide&seek
at night, the clear skies give a great view of the stars above us, reminding me how everything may seem fragile and ever changing, but paradoxically, impermanence ensures the unique charm of the moment
so I wait—patiently—for the warmth, for the bloom, for the moment when winter finally loosens its grip, and the world can take a deep breath once again
Feb 27, 2025
The green men lining the reservoir have aged from their joyful countenance into amiable shades of orange and reddish brown. Shedding their fruits and feeding their neighbors as old age seldom alleviates responsibility. Till the day the ground freezes over and the sky is depleted of color. The men, now skinny and gray, continue to line the reservoir, awaiting the springtime shine to bring back their glory days. A token for their grace.
-Me
Mar 31, 2025
Every year, they faithfully spring back to new life. Lush and verdant, they weigh down every tree while blossoming it.
Apr 9, 2024
Top Recs from @sarah-modene
listening while I clean the house, ride my bike on lil errands and disassociate during the evening commute 😌 lonelygirl gives the perfect blend of feeling hot and emo
Jun 13, 2025
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Any excuse to sing about killing a man
Mar 14, 2025
There’s a chart I added below that’s helped me become an overall better creative. Inspiration comes and goes and often times is so flimsy that you can’t even trust it once it arrives! But being in the habit of creating breeds consistency. Creating for the sake of creating helps you develop a more efficient system + allows you understand yourself better.
What happens when you create by habit is that eventually inspiration will hit and when it does you’ll have been expecting it and prepared for it. An inspired moment combined with a system built on habit breeds amazing, truly inspired works of genius.
As someone who picked up writing two months ago and is now doing 2-3 articles a week for a newsletter, I’ve learned that I have to write regardless of whether inspiration is there or not. And when I do that, I often find myself getting inspired in the process of habit.
Final thought is that someone once told me creativity ebbs and flows and to get the good ideas out you need to release the bad ones. This means you have to create over and over and over to push out the crap and get to the gold. This only happens if you get into a habit of creating.
Hope this helps!
Apr 11, 2024
