Doodle of my Mother’s painting. It is one of my most treasured things, she speaks to me through it.

I was listening to the On Being Podcast Episode (12/17/21) where they discussed the wonderful poem “i’m going back to Minnesota where sadness makes sense,” by Danez Smith:

“o California, don’t you know the sun is only a god
if you learn to starve for her? i’m over the ocean

i stood at its lip, dressed in down, praying for snow.
i know, i’m strange, too much light makes me nervous

at least in this land where the trees always bear green.
i know something that doesn’t die can’t be beautiful.

have you ever stood on a frozen lake, California?
the sun above you, the snow & stalled sea—a field of mirror

all demanding to be the sun, everything around you
is light & it’s gorgeous & if you stay too long it will kill you.

it’s so sad, you know? you’re the only warm thing for miles
the only thing that can’t shine.”

– Poem by Danez Smith

In the episode I also enjoyed this insight by Pádraig Ó Tuama:

“In Irish when you talk about emotion, you don’t say, “I am sad.” You’d say, “Sadness is on me” — “ta bron orm.” And I love that because there’s an implication of not identifying yourself with the emotion fully. I am not sad, it’s just that sadness is on me for a while.”