When you love community...
Community loves ya back.
Friends,
Hello, hello! 🐳
This month, I’ve been surrendering to dazzling currents of creativity: putting in studio time for my picture book, prepping the next letter for my Earthling series in The New York Times, and having a lot of play dates with friends.
Community has been such a rich and abundant source of nourishment, joy, and inspiration lately. While I used to mentally understand that “yeah, yeah, community is important,” now I physically feel the depth and richness of this love when I’m hanging out and collaborating with life-affirming, world-loving folks. 💓
While I look forward to catching up with my aunties and uncles at the mercado near our house, chatting with a friend over coffee, and feeding my snail friend Alface little bits of melon and getting tooootally lost in the world of slow, I also love connecting with people online!
The joy of online communities 👾
The other day, I surprised myself as I signed off from a very healing writing workshop on Zoom about developing rituals for accessing creativity. I shouted, “I love y’all!” to a group of one hundred strangers.
I KNOW. Am I embarrassing you yet? 😆
And every week, I take a virtual “bone-tapping” class near my hometown in Japan. With my fellow classmates (including my mom), I tap my bones and joints with my fingertips to create balance and release any built-up stress from my body. After each class, my mind and body feel so refreshed! And of course it’s always nice to see my classmates in Japan.
Over on Instagram, I’ve been growing some beautiful friendships with activists and artists who inspire me. Being active in this space led me to create my first GoFundMe fundraiser for a new buddy’s family in Palestine. I made a comic to illustrate his story, and when he posted it on Tumblr, the comic reached thousands of people. We’ve now raised over €7,000 for Muhammad’s evacuation and operation!
P.S. if you donated, please let me know as I would like to thank you directly.
Comic continued below. You can also read the full piece here.
All of these things I could not have done alone. I keep learning firsthand that when people come together, we can do really amazing things.
And as an added benefit, because all of these spaces, events, and moments center love and care for each other, many hearts (including mine!) are very happy!
Have recent experiences in your life or connecting with others made you feel this way too?
Soul spark ✨
What’s been inspiring me lately
Otoboke Beaver has been my go-to when I need a burst of energy. ⚡ They are a punk rock band from Kyoto whose badassery inspires me to be brave and true to myself. In this song, they are talking about not believing in their maternal instincts and not wanting kids but being alright with giving birth to a puppy.
Rock on, my friends!
Haruka
Hi Haruka, I'm here from Tumblr where I shared Muhammad's fundraiser and made a donation. I wanted to let you know that unfortunately, some people are ignorantly calling Muhammad's GFM a scam--researching to prove them wrong is what led me here. I was wondering if you have any updates from the Atallah family or anything you want to share to build confidence in this fundraiser? Thank you!
Soooo wonderful:)