Hello everyone! It has been a while — a year, to be exact.
I started this blog at the height of the pandemic, where writing was the lifeboat that brought me to the shore of security. But, even though life looks so different from when I first posted "Coronacation and how I'm keeping busy," one thing remains the same, I love to write, express myself, and have a platform where I can just be me. So, I am coming back to Sanai's Slice of Life, excited and inspired to document this year coming ahead through stories, articles, poetry, and whatever I see fit.
During the past three weeks, I was away in Providence, Rhode Island, for a pre-college program at Brown University. With it being my first significant time away from home, I was scared of feeling homesick and missing my friends and my room, but I found that while I did miss those things, I found so many new friends, experiences, and memories to treasure while I was away. In the new environment that surrounded me, encouraged by my professor in Creative Nonfiction, I took every chance I could to explore, observe, and appreciate the unfamiliarity of the world surrounding me. From hanging out with new friends in the lounge of my dorm to talking to postcard collectors at the local Flea Market, each day brought on a unique chance to immerse myself in the new life and celebrate the opportunity to get outside myself for the time being.
I found that there were so many things I was experiencing, little moments that I wanted to document, but I had no place to put them. Simply taking a photo wasn't enough. I wanted to capture the feelings of these events in something worthwhile, so I could hold onto them even when I came back to New York. Since I could only bring but so many items when I moved into my dorm room, I didn't have my usual array of notebooks, pens, and pencils from home to journal with in Providence. If I'm being honest, since school ended in June, I hadn't done much journaling or writing at all. However, the constant feeling of having so many thoughts and ideas but nowhere to write them gnawed away at me. After having a conversation with my friend Linden who also had the same so many thoughts but nowhere to put it dilemma, I decided to go to the Brown bookstore and purchase a journal.
And there she was.
A candy apple red Moleskin.
(Linden has the same one.)
I only bought it five days ago, but it has never left my side since then. Previously, I had the mindset that if I was to journal, it had to be about something important. In addition, I couldn't write my to-do lists and daily memoirs in the same notebook, each sector of my life needed its book, or it would get too messy. Yet, as soon as I bought this journal, I knew it would be the only book I would need for a while.
Pages recalling my dreams sit next to lists about what colleges I still need to tour. Every sector of my brain is allowed to roam free in my journal, and it is so freeing to have a space just for me, in a notebook always by my side. No thought is too small, nor dream too big for my journal.
So while this notebook is just for me, a private encapsulation of my mind, there are some thoughts I write that make me sigh. "This is a good idea. I should publish it somewhere," I think. And then it hit me! I have a blog that I totally forgot about!
Many apologies, but oh, how I am happy that I remembered.
They say blogs are a public diary, and from now on, I will embrace some of those qualities that a journal offers — honesty, transparency, relief — and implement it into this blog. Going forward, Sanai's Slice of Life is centering Sanai again.
As you can see, I changed the color of the header of the website Sanai’s Slice of Life to turquoise blue, the color of my aura, and also changed the font of the site to EB Garamond, the font of my aura. I’m having fun with this site and oh how I love it.
I think I stopped blogging so frequently because blogging began to feel like a chore, something to keep up with, even if it meant posting things I did not have the energy to care about. From now on, I'm ready to post articles, essays, and poems that bring me joy. Even though I'd love to keep a schedule, like posting every Monday, that might not be the case. I don't want to force what isn't there. But I do know that I love having this space and a platform to share with those I care about, all of you.
I don't know what is next, but I do know that I am excited for whatever the future of this blog holds.
See ya soon. (Probably this Sunday ;))