farahzine25

welcome to farahzine25 for july2022.

july is my month.

i started farahzine 2 years ago, in july2020. i am both pleased i’ve hit the two year mark, and OVERWHELMED with surprise that time has gotten us here.

its not that life has been uneventful over the last two years. on the contrary. life has been full. i am heavy, having absorbed and retained it all. but it still just “happened”.

does that bother you? does it excite you? does it scare you?..... does it fascinate you? it has all sorts of effects on me. it changed me. quite literally, i have noticeable strands of white hair in my fringe: i love them, but i realise they also signal a sort of decline. didn’t that strange man try to make a joke about women in their 40s? he never finished the “joke”, he knew it would offend. he did not wish to offend. he did because he did not go all the way…. as if this fragile little creature cannot handle ageing. on the contrary: i find that i am more myself, the older i get. i am much more comfortable in my cellulite-ridden body than i was before the early signs of crows feet started to appear. i am more authoritative now because this bone sack has set me in such a way as to feel like i am here (most of the time). i feel more me. don’t you? when i was little, i remember lying on a bed in a family’s guesthouse because we were renovating, and i put my hand to my heart, matching it against the tick tocks of the clock placed on the left -side table. i couldn’t understand: why am i here? how fascinating it is to be able to match a sound inside me to one outside of me. how great it is for the internal to correspond with the external. all of the answers i got at the time for why i am here, why we are here, which i collected by means other than directly asking, were not enough. instead, i decided i will know when i’m older. i allowed myself to be patient and to accept that the answer will come to me with time. that what my beating heart yearned for: the answer, will be found somewhere, somehow, at some point. that the clock incident will click. fast forward over 20 years and i still don’t know. i have a few guesses, and my heart knows there is an answer, and that the answer is beautiful and kind…. it can sense it but it cannot yet see it. fast forward over 20 years and i am still asking the same question. and my heart still has the same conviction that i will know when i’m supposed to know but now it knows my heart isn't beating to match the clock. it is the clock that is in tune with me, and with you if we allow it.

for previous farahzines: farahzine, july2020 farahzine2, aug2020 farahzine3, sep2020 farahzine4, oct2020 farahzine5, nov2020 farahzine6, dec2020 farahzine7, jan2021 farahzine8, feb2021 farahzine9, march2021 farahzine10, april2021 farahzine11, may2021 farahzine12, june2021 farahzine13, july2021 farahzine14, aug2021 farahzine15, sep2021 farahzine16, oct2021 farahzine17, nov2021 farahzine18, dec2021 farahzine19, jan2022 farahzine20, feb2022 farahzine21, march2022 farahzine22, april2022 farahzine23 may2022, farahzine24 june2022.

july was basically a huge swimming pool

calm wild

i want a lot of things because i am human and i exist with an ego and desires and imprinted needs and i want so so so much. but sometimes i think all i want is art. to be around it, to be it, to smell it, to feel it, to taste it…. to have it under my nails and to use as a body scrub. i want to vomit art and shit art and be locked up in a cell with paints and a death sentence unless i create something. i want to art or be killed. and then of course i remember: everything is art. i am already living my wildest dreams. i am around it, i am it, i smell it in roses i come across, i feel it when someone uses nice words around me, and i taste it every morning in my coffee and in the most bitter of foods. i am making art every single day. all my desires have been fulfilled. i have transcended my ego. i am now locked up in the cell but i am dying with or without art. i am art and i am to be killed.

lessons from a 27 year old:

me to me:

sometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometi messometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometim essometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimes sometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimesso metimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessometimessom etimessometimessometimes

- what would the 7 wonders of the ancient world be like if they had lasted over time? https://qr.ae/pv9QGo

- why do blood types have to beA, B,AB, and O? Why not justA, B, C, and D? https://qr.ae/pv9QGM

- is there a time when the majority of the world receives sunlight? https://qr.ae/pv9QtY

* quora tip: read the comments. some answers are made so much better through other people’s comments, correcting something in the answer or clarifying a point.

plaster collection

they are everywhere. i encourage you to find some this week. trust me, you will come across quite a few. i first became aware of the amount of discarded/lost plasters on the street august 2020. imagine how they were lost. not a pretty thought huh? but it happens. some months i find more than others. in july, i found around 22. don’t worry i don’t keep a clipboard with the number of plasters i found, this isn't “my strange addiction”… i just ran out of things i wanted to share this month then remembered the plaster collection in my photo gallery, and counted the number. let me know how many you find in 7 days. bonus points if you can share some!

[here are some of the plasters i found in july]