Guest AuthorAs we enter into the New Year, along comes the everlasting baggage of being one’s supposed, imagined ‘best self’ – whether that be fitness goals, career dreams, or a balanced life. The new year brings with it the old spiral into a vortex of perfectionism and routine. While the aforementioned are hardly negative, they have a certain depressing connotation – that we, as we are, are not enough (and may never be). So this year instead, we are starting off on a note of self-love and acceptance and by romanticising what you have, whilst making improvements, gradually.
This is why we have asked our readers to submit their artwork and written pieces on the idea of the art of everyday life and how mundaneness and easy rituals give our lives meaning and structure. We are grateful for your brilliant submissions and hope you’ll enjoy this little selection of our favourite pieces.
A Normal Day by Clare Diston
2004
Wake feeling like I could sleep forever. Bleary breakfast. Bus stop, bus, fret about the scars on my knees. School, six hours. Bus stop, bus, fret about what she said, what he thought of me. Home, MSN, did u c her hair lol. Simpsons, dinner, TV, bed. Wonder what life will be like when I’m older.
2010
Don’t get up until the time starts with 11. Wait for the bathroom. Dress, pack, walk to campus. Lecture, mocha, lecture. Library, read, remember why I love this. Walk home, housemates already there. Talk about doing our essays, plan tomorrow night, don’t go to bed until the time starts with 1.
2017
Wake when he gets out of bed, milky coffee, read. Hear the others leaving. Commute to the living room, work. Think about writing, don’t. When he’s home, cook dinner. Gather each housemate as they arrive. What shall we do this weekend?
2021
Wake, I guess. Breakfast, work, Zoom. Lunch, work, Zoom. Move to the sofa next to the desk. Listen to the telly, swipe yay or nay. Think about cooking, don’t. Remember what it felt like to touch. A text: Fancy a chat? Zoom, bed, dream about Zoom.
2024
Wake, black coffee, read. Feed the cat, answer emails, work. Think about writing, do. Wash up, feed the cat, cook. A text: Harbour loop? Coat on, down the hill, walk hand-in-hand in darkness. Yours for a tea? Yes, always. Wonder what life will be like when we’re older.
Routines as Rituals by Dorottya Bőhm
Artifacts by María Cuéllar
Creating became a way of survival to me.
Every time I postpone it, or pause it for too long, because I’m too busy with work, or simply tired, then I feel like a plant has stopped being watered and I start to dry out. I find myself breaking off my regular train of thought, reflecting on how everything’s fading away so fast around me.
Time’s passing. No mercy, right? What can I do in my fragile humanity to make something out of it? What’s the raw material?
Well, I keep discovering that it can be anything, really, if I document it. This is how I’ve been getting even more aware – and maybe a bit obsessed – over concepts related to archives. The sunset walking out of the metro station, the steps I make in the ponds of water while it rains, the bus stop sign with the lights reflected on it, or just the fabric from my grandma’s skirt that I brought with me crossing the whole Atlantic Ocean.
But what is transitioning from intangible to tangible if everything’s moving so fast? The answer is artifacts. Little historic artifacts/trinkets, fading away already in their own proportions and coloring, but still touchable and present: materialized beyond the futile moment. These wandering of ideas in my mind directed me to my own deliberation: can the receipt of my most recent train trip be my today’s artifact?
Sometimes I reflect on how fascinating is that we can take pictures and find little historical tangible pieces from our own life, or other people’s lives, and puzzle them together, even if they have no previous link other than the one that we’re just constructing.
For example, to celebrate my 4th anniversary in Hungary, I started to create a very raw kind of collage with a segment of my grandma’s skirt, while sewing it with a section of a Hungarian newspaper. I wanted to, somehow, unite my realities, tie them together, physically, as I cannot exist in only one place. I asked myself: “If I exist here and there, how can I connect my Andi-Caribbean roots with my Eastern European home from the past years?”.
Through unmatching languages and matching textures, perhaps. One strange to the other, but both connected to me. I felt like I was introducing them to each other in their symbolism, transforming their invisible thread in a tangible one.
Something I can touch. Feeling each fragment’s process of union into one another is healing. In the absence of a historical direct interrelation, I’m creating an artisanal one, while tying what makes me human and fluctuating, my own present time, to what made her – my grandmother – a fluctuating human too, with a piece of her clothes being tethered to foreign words of new horizons that she always dreamed to explore, but never could.
It’s through the dissection of a web of elements in the contemplative form of that little newborn hand-crafted object, that I also feel less alone while thinking of those who left their homes for different reasons. How we are all, in a variety of shapes and colors, those small pieces creating a new artifact wherever we are. Providing form to the symbolism and embracing the phenomenology of it all, is what has given more purpose to my journey in my own small routine.
María’s collages.
“I Swear, I Really Wanted to…” Write a Short Essay This Time, But the Words Keep Forming a Poem by Villő Geszler
Among the saved open calls, there’s also this one.
I thought maybe I’m done with applications for a while,
no external validation, this shall be the season of quiet reflections and letting ideas swim up to the surface at their own pace…
Such declarations…
as if I could be that still.
every morning and night
the floorboards creak too loud
back and forth steps
indicating I’m anything but
at peace
January, the month of order?
today’s weather report said “light cloud and a gentle breeze”
where is that place?
signaling these 31 days were meant for contemplations…
I prefer my compulsions
the world will end
but if I just move this shelf
and run one more errand
on the floor, I’m still left with strands of hair…
With my friend, who’s brilliant, we’ve seen the warmest light of the year up in the attic.
(24.01.2025)
Routines as Rituals by Adrienn Lestyán
What if you could ritualize anything you do? Would you write down your dreams as soon as you wake? Would you prepare your meals lovingly? Would you pour your intention for the day into your cup of coffee? Would you honor your body by listening to its needs?
Everything that you do becomes a ritual with focused attention. Its expression is allowed to be mundane. It’s your permission to make your rituals simple and unfancy. You don’t have to light colorful candles, burn incense, or offer flowers on an altar—but you’re welcome to. You’re allowed to be as ceremonial as conventional.
The word ritus is thought to be related to the Sanskrit रीति (rītí) including motion, stream, and custom among its meanings. Stream is a reminder that rituals are about bringing you in the here and now, letting a river wash through you. They focus the mind, calm the nervous system, relax the body, and create spaciousness to meditate on what is meaningful to you.
Rituals transcend time and space, allowing you to be present with what is and nourishing you holistically through their resonance on the physical and emotional body, the mind, and the spirit. By pausing, reflecting, and allowing, the body holds itself against the numbing world of colonial capitalism. Rituals become acts of resistance where you invite yourself to feel deeply and connect wholly.
When you tend to your spirit with such care, you cannot be deceived easily.
Thank you to everyone who has submitted their creative work. Make sure to follow our Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter to never miss a content call!
Cover artwork by Chimène Ludolphy.