# 33 || it's you & me, amplified

I can't quite describe my affinity, fascination and curiosity for life and the billions of other living souls who exist in harmony with me every single day. While it isn't always written all over my face, it is written all over my fingertips and the forefront of my mind as I move from place to place. Do you too, feel the indescribable (and inevitable) connection with others? I want to stand on top of the world and set it on fire while I scream, "Dear universe, I know how you feel, and I care from the deepest darkest bottom of my fucking heart! Love, Afifa."

Monotony is a wicked figment of your imagination, so employ your mind to keep dreaming while you're half-awake, and remember what you're lucky enough to love. Despair is a temptation that I am forever too proud to admit that I surrender to, every other hour it seems. Intention is everything, keep it pure white gold and earn respect despite anything and everything. Love what you love and be judgemental. Keep your time precious for those who you believe deserve your love and your understanding. Curb your expectations and convert them into ambition, but above all don't forget for a moment that your life is a storybook worth sharing.

My hands and heart shake with tiny tremors from the imminent earthquake of excitement that the coming years will contain, I just know it. When I forget for a minute how much promise prevails in every second, when I start to get squirrelly, I listen to some of these songs. I hope you love them as much as I do. (PS. The title of my novel-on-the-horizon is hidden somewhere in this playlist below, hip hip hooray!)

you & me, amplified

With so much love,

A. xo

# 32 || un enfant de la lune

( listen, if you like )

I.
Two worlds collide when the sky turns white and I exhale smoke with or without a cigarette between my fingers. When the weather can't decide between l'été or l'hiver, it falls into l'automne and the leaves look like a sunrise, je l'adore. But I would be lying if I said the last few weeks haven't been unsettling, you know when your heart coaxes you into so many different headspaces, until you feel like you're about to p0p?!

At the bottom of everything, we are only fragile minds in a - somewhat -  rugged shell. A thousand thoughts at once but you can only ever speak one idea at a time, and on this occasion often you don't even think about what it is you're uttering - take that notion and try to comprehend the world in its majesty and detail and make an effort to exercise some compassion and understanding.


II.
Have you ever felt limitless? Like your happiness and sadness have no boundaries and you could keep flying and falling forever and ever and ever? It's hard to illustrate the word in the depth that it distresses me. Limitless is insatiable, it's wolfish, it's uncontrollable and you're forever starving for something that doesn't even exist. Limitless thieves all acclaim, it stomps over the magic and your heart turns to rubber - everything reflects with little impression. Logic fails the limitless, it bewilders a person to everything necessitating gratitude and gives you itchy feet and cabin fever and an achy breaky heart.




III.
"Darling, you seem restless."
Oui chérie, can you see my hands that won't stay still? Everything needs to be simulated so it is as daydreamlike as possible, or else. Or else things like missing the train and being late for work and feeling sad in the morning or the nighttime or the afternoon won't be as romantic if I don't feel like I'm somewhere else all the time. It's mania in its most dreary form, but what is anything without nostalgia, imagination and a little curiosity? What is the present when I need plans prospect to calm me down?

It's when you seek normality like other people seek thrills. Take a step back and see that your life is a foreign film to at least one of the 7 billion souls walking the earth au même temps que vous. Once upon a time when I didn't feel inexhaustible, I was late to class ( POLS2100 Genocide - Post 1945 ) and feeling both breathless and unprepared, skimmed a passage by Annie Dillard that would later change everything about the way I wanted to live. 

"There are 1,198,500,000 people alive now in China. To get a feel for what that means, simply take yourself - in all your singularity, importance, complexity, and love - and multiply it by 1,198,500,000. See? Nothing to it." -- Annie Dillard

Open your minds, open your hearts. I believe, avec tout mon cœur, that kindness will be what rescues me and then we'll live happily ever after.

x