small good things from november

a month filled to the brim with huge amazing things

This month has actually been bursting with small good things AND ALSO bursting with HUGE AMAZING THINGS. How cool. I’m so lucky. This is a long list but I will not dishonour my joy by editing this list down.

Here’s what was small (actually huge) and good (unbelievably impactful) or just in november:

• seeing my friend’s beautiful engagement ring

• celebrating peter turning 29

• this message:

• hash browns

• a day painting in the sun with my sisters

• filming with Voices of Hope for their upcoming campaign on mental health awareness and this email sign off:

• the mango tango freeze mocktail at hideout in wellington

• the season’s first ocean swim

• fresh hair dye

• my niece turned three and at her party she put on a temporary tattoo that happened to match my actual tattoo:

• “nobody wants this” on netflix

• dayanitha handed in her PhD

• new tattoos

• Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, the many hilariously clever signs people had there and my homemade toitū te tiriti jacket:

• getting my nails done for the first time in a long time and feeling invincible as a result

• cam from modern family

• this conversation:

• the Melbourne “treemail” story – in which the Melbourne city council set up email addresses for individual tress in the hope residents would email if/when the tree’s limbs were dropping or it needed attention. Instead, the trees received about 3,000 love letters from all over the world.

• my friend TJ received his ancestral markings (Filipino Batok) and I’ve been witness to the sacredness of it and the healing, comfort and joy it has brought him

• this message:

  

• the alto part in Maryanne Muglia Smith’s arrangement of The Parting Glass

• pizza

• a woman in the airport stopped me to say “I love your whole aesthetic”

• watching ratatouille with friends

• this message:

  

• verb readers and writers festival and litcrawl – the litcrawl event I was in was the second biggest of the 22 events that night, which is huge given it was a “niche” event about disability

• brioche french toast from la cloche in wellington

• This photo of the tino rangatiratanga flag covering the beehive (the SYMBOLISM):

  

This month has been packed with out of the ordinary events for me and that is SO cool AND ALSO there is joy everywhere, especially in the ordinary, when we look for it and seek it out and thank it for stopping by.

What brought you joy or made you laugh recently? What was small and good for you in november? Or huge and impactful? I really actually truly genuinely want to know. I want to sit in it with you.