Open-hearted joys 開開心心 № 27

Capturing the tiny details of my everyday mundane and the small moments that weave poetry to my days.

Sundaze Book Café is the home of everyday magic, joyful living and conversations likely to be had over a hot drink with a friend in your favourite café, capturing the syrup-slow feel and glow of a Sunday. I’m Michelle, and I’ll be your host today.

Happy Friday, my loves!

When the weather is nice in England, everything feels nice. When it does what it usually does for about 11 months of the year, it’s a little more difficult to seek out the joys in life. This week, we had a mix of the two and a jolly long to-do list to muddle through, as well as endless bad news across the globe. Between Israel’s despicable seizing of the Madleen – proving that it is Israel blocking aid to Gaza, and not Hamas – to the Trump administration’s deplorable treatment of immigrant citizens, I’ve truly despaired at the state of humanity. When I take a moment to step back and reflect on things, though, I realise that I’m lucky to have so many things to care about and to have many small things to hold onto amongst it all. As a daughter of immigrants here in the UK, I am right with everybody protesting for their rights in LA. I am guilty of taking a backseat in my comparatively comfortable life here. It hasn’t always been that way; I am proud that I was a voice for the British-Chinese community during the COVID-19 pandemic. I am proud to be a second-generation immigrant Chinese woman. Perhaps I’ll share finer thoughts on that circumstance someday.

There’s a lot to be said for appreciating the smaller, not necessarily finer, details of the everyday mundane. Here’s to another list of petite, open-hearted joys, the moments that’ve brought and woven poetry to my days, this week.

一. Basking in the family-wide joy of my brother’s wedding!

二. Feeling really quite nice in my beautiful wedding guest dress. I finally feel like my personal style has returned after whatever-that-was-after-lockdown. I wore this recycled satin dress from OMNES, a sustainable fashion brand based in England.

三. The homemade Anna Jones’ bright green sauce I made on Monday, which dressed a pasta that evening and then some focaccia the next day. There’s truly little that beats from-scratch cooking.

四. An evening (or three) devoted to writing some travel blog posts for Daisybutter, my long-standing lifestyle blog. My South Korea and Japan travel guides and posts will be released on Mondays and Wednesdays for the next handful of weeks!

五. The evening light in our house.

六. My morning matcha routine, using matcha we bought in Kyōto.

七. Afternoon walks to the shop with my colleagues. Fresh air feels the best in those moments, especially amidst stressful work days.

八. Getting back to the Reformer, after a month away from the studio.

九. Booking some engagement ring appointments! I’m still wearing a dummy ring from our trip abroad, and it’s so exciting to be going to get the real thing soon!

十. The sip of an emergency coffee mid-wildly-busy-week.

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Share a joy from your week in the comments, and I’ll see you again next Friday.