Hi Friends,
Welcome to the first issue of the thirty3. A sort of public facing journal I want to have with you all whom I consider my community, and anyone else who wishes to hear from me. Today is also my birthday. I am turning 33 years old. In christianity, this is a symbolic number given that it was the age Jesus was when he died to please his father and sacrifice on behalf of humanity, and then proceeded to resuscitate a few days after that to join his dad in Heaven. Therefore it is an age associated with wisdom. But what kind of wisdom? I think Jesus would've benefitted from some therapy sessions but that was not available at his time. I like the story of Princess Kaguya instead. A very old folk story from Japan. Kaguya is a princess from the Moon who is discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. After she grows, her beauty attracts five suitors seeking her hand in marriage, whom she turns away by challenging them each with an impossible task because she's like "why do I need to get married!? I am perfectly ok as I am", but her earth father wouldn't listen. She later attracts the affection of the Emperor of Japan, who kinda gets obsessed with her since she turned him down too. The alien princess just wanted to experience human life but got trapped in social contracts and adulthood. At the end of the tale, she reveals her celestial origins and is forced to return to the moon by none other than Buddha himself who comes to pick her up in a float filled with moonies and live music. It's pretty trippy. I would suggest watching the Studio Ghibli version of this story . Anyway, she had some real boundary setting I would like to channel in my own life (don't tell me what to do with my body). In terms of children-chastised-by-their-parents-stories, I lean towards the latter.
Wow, ok, that was a huge detour. So why is this called the thirty3? The number 3 happens to be my favorite number. Aside from being the actual day of my birthday, I have always felt connected to it. As a kid, I remember counting things in multiples of three: 3... 6... 9...12...15...18... 21... etc. And I still do it to this day. Since I didn't have a choice on how to celebrate my 3rd birthday, I decided to make a big deal about my 33rd birthday, which I have control of. And so, the thirty3 is born today out of the need to connect with people outside of social media, but more on that later.
Before you email me back saying do you know your numerology number?, the answer is yes, it is the number 8, which I'd like to think of it as two 3's hugging each other. So the number is still present in my life.
Another connection I have with this number is actually through the Arabic language. As you may know, I am half Lebanese. My last name Madi means "past" in Arabic. I don't yet speak fluent Arabic but I can feel in Arabic without necessarily speaking it. There are tender moments with the language like when my grandma lovingly shouted To'borni whenever she hugged me. Or when I heard my dad say the word A'akrut or Sharmuta whenever he angrily referred to Venezuelan politicians. the more pronounced connection I have is actually through food. I have fond memories of my grandma setting a mezze table every time we visited her as children and knowing the names of all the dishes. To this day, Shish Barak remains my favorite dish from her. I also recalled my dad teaching me to count from one to ten in Arabic while we made hummus or babaganoush.
The Arabic language also has a very peculiar letter called Ayn. Peculiar because you have to make a sound that comes all the way from the back of your throat in order to pronounce it, also known as a gutteral/pharyngeal sound. Here's a 9-minute lesson on how to pronounce it. This letter is actually heading this journal entry. Doesn't it look like the number 3? Well that's also the symbol used to spell the letter ayn in transliterated Arabic. I have an affinity to the beautiful strangeness of this letter.
It wouldn't also be Arab of me if I didn't remind you that the numbers we use today come from the Arabs. K I'm done.
Ok, FOCUS, FRANCIS, FOCUS. Why are you here today? Two months ago, I accidentally deleted my instagram app on my phone and haven't added it back ever since. The account is still open so it looks like l'm still there but I haven't been checking it. If you have been trying to reach me there now you know why I haven't responded. Prior to deleting the app, I noticed that my attention spam and retention of information was deteriorating. My mom and my partner, and even my friends were getting frustrated with me because I wasn't really capturing what they were saying to me. I was getting scared for myself. I know i'm getting older but not to the point where I can't focus on menial tasks. I am aware that, like many of us, I have information overload these days. But I also was starting to doom scroll and my time was going towards that. I had to choose where my attention goes, and unfortunately the 'gram had to go. I am mildly sad I am not keeping up with meme culture the way I used to but my attention spam has improved. However, because of this change, I started spending more time reading my emails. Some of these emails are newsletters like this one, from writers or institutions, that I had signed up for throughout the years but never seemed to find the time to read them. The idea of a journal-type of letter grew on me and I decided to give it a try. And so here I am, 1016 words later, as to why
the thirty3 exists today. I am a writer, after all.
With the thirty3, I want to offer you a little bit of me every month:
1. What's on my mind?A section where I can share what's been on my mind the past month
2. What's cooking? A section to share a recipe of a meal I am cooking this month, in honor of my abuelas.
3. What's the vibe? A section to share what I think is the best stuff I have found online lately
