May 2016 // Favourites

Book(s)

• Looking for Alaska by John Green - the 21 year old me understands why the 17 year old me loved this book. I cried, ok
• Dark Places by Gillian Flinn. Been wanting to read this since I read Gone Girl and I FINALLY got my hands on them. 

Movie(s) 

• The Boy (horror/thriller)
• Ratter (thriller)
• Suffragette (herstory/ biography)

Podcast(s)

• Lavendaire 

She's one of my favourite youtubers and she started her own podcast show and I have nothing but love and admiration for it. Each episode is only about 30 minutes long. She also has a series of called Words of Wisdom on youtube and its around 5 minutes each episode!

Article(s)

• Hoor al Ayn by Salafi Feminist
• A Woman of War - Mehreen Kasana
• The Danger of Hypocrisy
• Difference between Major and Minor hypocrisy
• Making up missed fasts 
• Consulting a woman in Islaam (please please please read!) 
• Ruqayyah and Umm Kalthum
• Wisdom of the Wives of the Prophet

Poem(s)

• Robert Frost - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
• Robert Frost - Road Not Taken

Artwork(s)

Yellow, a series by Van Gogh. Yellow is such a bright and cheerful colour, and these artworks lightens my heart when it feels heavy. I hope it does to yours too.

A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, 1889

Long Grass with Butterflies. 1890

Sunflowers, 1888

That's it for this month. Hasta la vista, baby.

A collection of stacked masks.

We are never truly, fully ourselves. We will probably never be. No one will truly know us, no matter how much of our thoughts we try to document, no matter how many pictures we try to take, no matter how much we try to show people who we are through the books we read, things we watch and the sounds we listen to. These things show who we are to a certain extent but they aren't who we truly are. 

Who are we? 

We are a mess and we are constantly changing and evolving. We are wrecks and we are magical. We are masterpieces with hearts that twist and turn. 

We are not constant. We contain layers. Rudy Francisco wrote, "some days I am the mess, some days I am the broom, on the hardest days, I am both." 

We are complicated and wonderful beings, not worth to be reduced to anything less than that.