Monday Matter: Grieving in translation, your friends and Arvin

Your weekly Foreign Bodies roundup

Every Monday, we send subscribers and gift recipients of immigrant mental health and storytelling newsletter Foreign Bodies stories we recently inhaled and adored. This is also a chance to do some housekeeping and give shout-outs and all that jazz. Roundups are usually written by Fiza and edited by Farah.

First things first

A little housekeeping

What’s been on my mind

Good morning and Happy Valentine’s (and Galentine’s and Palentine’s…) to all who celebrate or not! I hope you show yourself some love today and every day, but don’t forget to take advantage of these discount floral bouquets and chocolates tonight and tomorrow—you know I will! 💐 I’ve been loving the sunshine in Atlanta recently and am so looking forward to Spring and watching vibrancy emerge on the bare trees and bushes around me. Here’s a snippet of what’s been keeping me joyful and grateful these days:

• You and this newsletter! Every now and then, I get overwhelmed by work and everything it takes to pay the bills. It is a blessing to be able to slow down, to read beautiful stories and then be able to share them with people who care through Foreign Bodies. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here.

• weekday lunch dates

• my girlfriends

• delta-8 THC gummies

• the fact that the furniture I ordered last year finally showed up #supplychainproblems

• my trainer and how he cancelled our sessions using (very convincing) photos of his newborn baby

• a clean house

• street art fair finds

• this chocolate pudding pie from a local baker

• daily written affirmations

• the fresh-cut mango my Dada and Dadi sent me home with

• rest

• waking up on a Monday morning to sunshine peeking through the blinds

A musical start to your Mondays 🎧

One song to groove to, cry to, drive to and share

Like many South Asian families out there, my folks were hit hard after the recent death of Bollywood’s most beloved voice, Lata Mangeshkar. I plucked out my favorite of my dad’s playlist to remember the late icon. From her New York Times obituary: “Ms. Mangeshkar was known for her range — she could sing in four octaves — and her gift for singing in character, tailoring her voice and emotions to the actress she was voicing onscreen… ‘If we play her songs one by one, we could hear her for a month and never hear the same song again,’” actress Kajol said. “Prolific and profound.”

Resource(s) of the week

Something helpful and interesting and cool (*storytelling opportunity)