Remembering

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

I once heard an idea that originated from a poet of a nomadic tribe in the Sahara. In my culture, he explained, “the poet’s task is to remember the waterholes. The survival of the whole group depends on remembering where the water is.”

As a poet, you must remember the waterholes in a way that ensures you and your people can find them again without betraying them to others.

I have often reflected on this idea and how it manifests so beautifully in my poet friend from Somalia, Abdi Rashid.

Throughout our friendship, he frequently shares simple proverbs.

"The shoemaker makes shoes for others but forgets to make his own," he tells me at times. "Sometimes, we are all that shoemaker."

In many ways, he has provided me with those metaphorical waterholes through his perspective on life and his ability to persist beyond so many odds.

So, when I feel a bit lost, I think of his strength, and I find a little more focus to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

In many ways, he helps me remember a very important idea - that suffering is inevitable for all of us. Yet, it is within our power to navigate through it, to choose our path amidst life's challenges.

Abdi's friendship serves as a compass, guiding me through the inevitable hardships, urging me to embrace the journey with resilience and purpose, knowing that the way we navigate through challenges shapes the very essence of our existence.

Who helps you remember the waterholes in your own life? What particular lessons do they impart upon you?

A CREATIVE TOOL

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me these days is how creative technologists learn new emerging technologies through Youtube tutorials.

There is so much free education available, and I'm in awe of the decentralized model that has emerged from this technology.

This week, I am learning how to train my own AI model using my ancestral photos.

A PIECE OF ART

“Dead Stars” by Ada Limon

originally published in The Carrying

Out here, there’s a bowing even the trees are doing.
                 Winter’s icy hand at the back of all of us.
Black bark, slick yellow leaves, a kind of stillness that feels
so mute it’s almost in another year.

I am a hearth of spiders these days: a nest of trying.

We point out the stars that make Orion as we take out
       the trash, the rolling containers a song of suburban thunder.

It’s almost romantic as we adjust the waxy blue
       recycling bin until you say, Man, we should really learn
some new constellations.

And it’s true. We keep forgetting about Antlia, Centaurus,
       Draco, Lacerta, Hydra, Lyra, Lynx.

But mostly we’re forgetting we’re dead stars too, my mouth is full
       of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising—

to lean in the spotlight of streetlight with you, toward
       what’s larger within us, toward how we were born.

Look, we are not unspectacular things.
       We’ve come this far, survived this much. What

would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?

What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, No.
 No, to the rising tides.

Stood for the many mute mouths of the sea, of the land?

What would happen if we used our bodies to bargain

for the safety of others, for earth,
                 if we declared a clean night, if we stopped being terrified,

if we launched our demands into the sky, made ourselves so big
people could point to us with the arrows they make in their minds,

rolling their trash bins out, after all of this is over?

Grateful,

Michael