february is sweet

welcoming this month with too much ardour to summarise

another afternoon spent at the cafe near my house, my little known secret. if you live in abu dhabi, albeit not the most atmospheric, gladio cafe in al reem does the best hot chocolate at a reasonable price. the perfect cross between the coveted french hot cocoa lusciousness and classic diy powder cocoa made in the kitchen, liquidy and thick all at once. mm mm mm.

sipping on my slowly thickening chocolate like a child, i finished homework for the class where my teacher consistently mixes up my name with my other indian classmates’. she got the hang of getting our names right, but now she terribly butchers our names. how bad could you mess up jani, you might enquire? you wouldn’t wanna know. i guess this is just the universal indian student experience though.

later, instead of attending to my poetry annotation (it can wait till a free period on monday, can’t it?) i quickly tended to drink #2 (ice cold water in my new purple hydroflask— so 2019 coded) and read all my favourite substacks, some of which are linked below because they’re too good not to share.

What About Angelica Kauffman ?

how hopelesscore became even more hopeless

Why women should take more solo trips

the romantic lead challenge

how online gambling became a $100B tax on male desperation

poli-tik/ poli-tok

post substack reading, i eyed up the cute guy who’d just walked into the cafe. he looked about my age from the blurry haze i could make out in my peripheral vision, drinking some iced latte/frappe/milkshake thing. he was eyeing me up too, but in typical teenage boy fashion, left before i did. :( come on man. i’m just kidding i don’t expect guys to wait for me to finish reading my book to approach me. or maybe i do, i don’t know and i don’t want to tell you hahaha. it was a welcome change, however. the cafe i frequent is usually teeming with corporates typing away at laptops and families, and people my age are a rare sight.

the book i’m reading currently is beloved by toni morrison. my english teacher (bless her heart) lended her annotation crowded copy to me in october as she thought i could share it with my women in literature club in school, but unfortunately the girls in the club are far too young to delve into the mature concepts explored in the novel. i, however, am not too young, and have finally started it, half because i feel obligated to read it since she gave it to me so kindly, and half because it won a pulitzer prize and therefore who am i NOT to read it?

before i left, i also started 4 drafts for substack posts and stared at the words on the screen until i went insane. i took that as my sign to pay and leave. maybe next time i’ll have an exciting cafe meet cute experience to bookmark the trip as noteworthy enough, but this one has been mostly uneventful.

next on the agenda was a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up ingredients (if you can even call it that) for my quintessential sunday night dinner, one to soak up the woes of a bleak, dreary monday morning at school— instant ramen. my sunday night ramen has truly evolved; for many years i didn’t stray from the classic indian staple of maggi (curry flavour) noodles, with absolutely no add-ins except for red chilli powder so potent it’d send an inbreeding royal into stroke. the red chilli interspersion is thanks to my family friend who said that’s the way she always made it for her brother. maggi truly is an indian love language.

years later, when the supermarket near my house started stocking korean brands, i forayed into that realm. buldak built up my spice tolerance to the point where i scare/impress every dude i eat ramen with and shin is the ultimate comfort food. tonight i picked up kimchi ramen because it reminds me of my sister and purchased some silken tofu to add a semblance of nutritional value into the dish.

also got a rip-off dubai chocolate from the supermarket. shall update you on the taste of it. it better be fucking delicious because it was ridiculously overpriced.

tote bag filled to the brim with groceries and schoolbooks, i walked lopsidedly out of the supermarket, greeted by the most delightful january abu dhabi weather. i slipped my loose black cardigan on, crossed the road and allowed the sun to wash over my skin. i seldom stroll in the sunlight, being a post-sunset walking girlie always. it was serendipitous— the birds flying over the water, storks on the shore, dads teaching their sons to bicycle. i walked past a girl and her grandad, and my infectious glee must’ve resonated with her. she beamed at me for absolutely no reason. it felt therapeutic, one shared smile having me skipping along the rest of my path.

suddenly i got what the romantic poets were always going on about— nature, the sublime, this seemingly eternal beauty before me was worth everything. it is therapy, the divine, a guiding figure. it made me recall an excerpt from ‘lines composed a few miles above tintern abbey’ by william wordsworth, a poem he wrote addressing his sister, enlightening her on the everlasting healing properties of nature:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,—
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

i felt giddy and let the february sun seep into my skin and bones, refresh me and energise me for the days upcoming. maybe this is a sign i should step out of the house at 5pm instead of 7.

walking across the corniche, i longed for the sight to be forever ingrained into my consciousness. i missed it, despite being right in front of it. in a year i’ll be in a foreign faraway country, and at times i may indeed forget these breathtaking images right in front of my eyes, clear as day.

the sun took off its finery and radiated warmth onto the sea.

the cats sparred viciously underneath the grass and spiky bushes.

the children clumsily cycled in circles.

it was february. it was five pm. and right in front of me, everything was amazingly alive.

---

dear reader,

excuse that this post is somewhat different than what i usually write— a journal entry type post rather than a story or culture criticism. but i plead, beg you to step out of your homes, no matter what weather (unless you’re amidst natural disaster) and breathe the air, wave to the sun, and listen to your favourite ever playlist. if you are a loser like me and use apple music, you can listen to my current favourite manic pixie dreamgirlesque playlist, linked below. i love you ever so much, and i hope february treats you lovingly <3.

listen for serotonin