Monday Matter: Paint-by-numbers, Rapunzel and magical thinking

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 keeping my spirits high this week 🎨

Progress of a paint-by-numbers kit from Hebe Studio

Good morning, Foreign Bodies readers. It’s been two weeks since I published a roundup and to be frank, I’m typing this up at 6 a.m. this Monday morning because I couldn’t get myself to even flip my laptop open all weekend. Last week, I rushed home after cancelling my holiday party upon hearing news that my family dog’s organs were rapidly failing—and, as my friend and I were making the one-hour trek to my parents, we got some other unrelated bad news involving my mom that terrified my family to the bones (all good now, but phew!) All of this on top of the surge of new Covid cases, the general mental lethargy around another foggy holiday season of grief, a stark reminder of how incredibly warm winters have gotten in the last few years and, well, I’m not really okay! What’s keeping my spirits up right now:

• my brother’s back in town and we just binged an incredible comedy/mental health drama called This Way Up on Hulu and I am recommending it to everyone I know

• my family dog seems to be having more good days than bad despite his poor prognosis

• funds from the Asian American Journalists Association are helping me pay for therapy in early 2022

• my friends are lovely and I’m grateful for voice notes and mini group chats

• paint-by-numbers kits are helping me get back into painting every day (see progress above!)

• finally joined a new book club after all the early pandemic ones fell through

• my new job doesn’t start until January and I’m privileged to have some time “off”

• new stationery for letter-writing

• the fried eggplant from my favorite Sichuan/Hunan restaurant ever (Masterpiece on Buford Highway)

• Prozac

• long, long walks… (I miss my trainer!)

A musical start to your Mondays 🎧

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

This week’s pick, pulled from my brother’s birthday mixtape to me, is “Milágrima” by Itamar Assumpção, a Brazilian songwriter and composer who hailed from Tietê in São Paulo. Assumpção was considered “an unconventional composer” renowned for fusing Brazilian music with funk, reggae, and rock music. His lyrics were often corrosive and involved satiric commentary on social issues. According to his Apple Music profile, Assumpção’s last album, Pretobras, was released in 1998 and found him “as politically cutting as ever” with a title that cleverly confronted the oil industry in Brazil.

Resource(s) of the week

Something helpful and interesting and cool (*storytelling opportunity)

• 285 South: A weekly newsletter from Sophia Qureshi bringing you the stories of immigrant communities in metro Atlanta