Meaningful Mud's Monthly Mu - May 2025
"every heart is a package tangled up in knots someone else tied"
Hey there,
And welcome to Meaningful Mud’s Monthly Mu May edition.
This past month saw my holding many a contemplative conversation with the garment gods.
We shall start at the beginning…
The other evening, when returning home and taking off my shoes (#smallvictories), to my wonder and wide eyes, I realized I had gone a whole Tuesday wearing two different socks.
Both were black.
Both were the same length.
Both hugged my feet with the same secured snugness.
Yet neither was the other's rightful partner.
Leaving me feeling rather perturbed and unsettled, this distressing discovery automatically activated my sock antenna frequencies. In the days that followed, each spotting of a black sock was accompanied by a beating heart and buoyant hope that this might be my time to shine, my chance to set matters straight and unite each sock with its significant other, dispelling the lingering worries and mental turbulences disrupting by short-lived morning shivasanas.
Yet, what began as hope swiftly turned into disillusionment and despair, despite the radiant Spring weather outside. Whilst changing my duvet sheets this past week, which entails a series of energetic wafts in the air, humbling reminding me that my shoulder strength is nothing to envy, a pair of socks magically rolled out. Eagerly unfolding this pair with equal parts bated breath and arrogant assuredness, I discovered, and I suggest you take a seat, that one of the socks was indeed the missing partner of my earlier mismatched pair. However, and I recommend you stay seated, the two remaining socks left in my possession were not cut from the same cloth, metaphorically and literally speaking.
‘Life is not a walk in the park,’ I could hear my Dad exclaiming.
Forlornly perched on this precipice, pensively holding a rightly paired pair of socks in one hand and two lone straddlers in the other, it struck me that I was being summoned to recognize a deeper veiled truth (with both a big and small t) beyond the notoriously enigmatic and dexterous disappearing habits at the core of the sock cosmos:
One incorrectly bundled pair of socks does not mean that there is only one incorrectly bundled pair of socks yet draws back the curtain on the many pairs of socks in cupboards and duvet sheets around the world locked together in mismatched awkward embraces; that this babushka doll mechanism undergirding the sock world is the same one that directs and shapes and sculpts and molds the pathways of kindness.
A friendly smile
The that-much-longer holding open of an elevator door
A nod of the heart
The teeniest-tiniest slightly turning-up the corners of your mouth to a passerby
A tip of the hat (who is still doing this???)
The generous allowing of a car to merge in rush hour traffic
These infinite multitudes, which our frantically fasted paced lives, palpable pressures, three minute reels and four hour new cycles determinedly nudges out of us, not only affects the direct recipient but branches out in ways and weaves and webs that can never be comprehensively mapped or fully known.
Yes you Debbie Downers - not all of the time - but a lot of the time. And I am inclined to believe that your world will indeed be richer if you believe it to be true most of the time.
And yes, you are right - the order is indeed tall.
But the day is young, our time here short and we are in it together, if we decide it so.
So as we choose our outfits for the hours and days that lie before us, may this month be one of matching socks and matching shoes (if you mismatch your shoes you’re on your own).
May it be a month of no socks slipping off in shoes (oh the sorrow of injustice knows no bounds - what the world doesn’t see).
And may it be a month of slowing down and speeding up and listening in and opening outwards in the ways we all desperately want and need.
I thank you all once again for your being here.
Take good care out there and inside.
And lastly, may we always be stuck in Meaningful Mud!
Tyler
Poem
By Charles Simic
Every morning I forget how it is.
I watch the smoke mount
In great strides above the city.
I belong to no one.
Then I remember my shoes,
How I have to put them on,
How bending over to tie them up
I will look into the earth.
“…I just wanna hold you
Take you by your hand
And tell you that you're good enough
And tell you that it's gonna be tough…”
-The End, Kings of Leon
The menu ain’t the meal but give it a bash anyway
Sharing with you all a recipe for a light and tasty Marinated Za’atar Bean Salad.
Sami - may this recipe come of assistance when, for not the first time, dinner is not going to make itself and you find yourself holding a can of beans.
What you’ll need
1 can of chickpeas
1 can of butter beans
Jarred pitted green olives of your choice
Jarred artichoke hearts
Red onion
1 lemon - for both zest and juice
Fresh parsley and fresh mint
Olive oil
A couple of garlic cloves
Generous amounts of za’atar, ground cumin and sumac
Instructions
For the salad:
Thinly slice your onions and throw into a large bowl. Sprinkle with some salt and add in the zest and juice from your lemon.
After draining and rinsing your beans and chickpeas, roughly chop your olives and artichokes, mince your parsley and fresh mint, and toss it into your bowl to join the lemony onions.
For the marinade:
Add olive oil and your chopped up garlic to a pan and sauté until brown and delicious looking.
Remove from the heat and generously sprinkle your za’atar, sumac and cumin.
Assembly Time
Pour the marinade over the salad and toss together until all is coated. Adjust the seasoning as per your taste buds and let it all sit and marinade together for a little while.
Serve over some toasted bread (toast) and feel free to add in some ricotta or wet mozzarella balls (I imagine both of those being rather delicious additions).
Thank your divine and enjoy!
Photo by Tamanna Rumee on Unsplash
Home
By Jarod K. Anderson
An ant crosses your carpet.
A spider weaves a pattern older than mammals beneath your stairs.
Just nod,
breathe,
and think,
Good.
It’s all still here.
The forest, the mountains, the desert.
At home in my home.
The sterile white box is the stranger.
Not the ant.
Not the spider.
Sonic Suggestions
An epic musical combination - nearly as wonderous as crumpets and yellow cheese.
Gosh Nanna - how I miss you!
I hope you all enjoy the tunes.
“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Thank you once again for stopping on by. It is not taken for granted!
Please also consider forwarding this little offering to a loved one, friend or stranger and feel free to reach out should you wish to share any comments, critiques or suggestions. I would love to hear from you all.
Wishing you all a memorable and merry May!
