the writing nib

Tag: nature

  • Spring

    Spring

    It’s finally Spring! Gone are the heavy jackets and dark-colored clothing, the annoying scarves and gloves that make you want to scream each time you have to open your iPhone with Touch ID. Now it’s the season of floral mini-skirts and light stockings. The season to go on picnics and not worry about taking walks late at night because it’s not that cold or dark anymore. It is Spring, and it’s time to show off the tops and shorts we’ve been stocking up on since the Fall sales begun.

    I grew up in a tropical country where the only seasons you get are the rainy and dry seasons. Where there are hot temperatures throughout the year and winds during June and July to make us claim it’s “cold”.

    One reason why I was excited about coming to Germany is because here I can experience the four seasons distinctly. Everything turns orange at around October and leaves fall from their trees, in late December the first big snow falls and melts away by March, making way for the leaves and flowers to regrow freely and attract all the beautiful birds and bees back. It’s a beautiful time, and I’m yet to experience it fully.

    One other exciting and interesting thing about Spring is the idea of ‘love is in the air’. It’s often said and implied in all kinds of art that Spring is the season of love. What I think is that this comes with the association of birds and bees and flowers to love. Maybe it’s just a social construct but it makes sense that all that goes together with love simply because love is beautiful and in some way colorful, just like all those things.

    So take out those picnic mats, cameras and bikes and go outside. Go see the beauty that was underneath all that heavy January snow. Take those nice shots for your Instagram, because you can. Lastly, enjoy and smile, because when Winter comes again and the snow will catch you when you’re in a different continent, and not in the city you wanted to be in, with no idea whatsoever how to be calm about it and you won’t be able to smile then because it’ll be way too cold to do that.

    Photo by my friend Ally

  • The Ocean

    The Ocean

    To some people, the ocean seems like a scary place where you can die. First of all, you can die anywhere. But that’s not the point here.

    The ocean is like this magical if you think of it. I’ve dreamt of the ocean long before I first watched Sebastian sing that super catchy song ‘Under the Sea’ on The Little Mermaid. However, that particular film made me think more of it. Before I mostly thought of the beach part of it where I could play and catch some waves. But after it was about what it’s like to be part of the sea. Do the fish have some kind of kingdom that keeps them all at peace like how Disney tries to insist on all three of their Little Mermaid films? I’m curious.

    Sometimes people ask themselves whether there are different worlds out there. The way I see it, the ocean is another world that, as it happens, everyone except marine biologists and co. is not paying attention to. The sea level is an entry to another world – the same world where Nemo lives. That must mean something because some of us want to meet Nemo and not fry him (sorry?).

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    The Indian Ocean. Kigamboni, Dar es Salaam, TZ. By asuphotolog.

    The Indian Ocean, which happens to be 20 mins by foot from my home (lucky), is my favorite thing to look at. I remember the days when I had to ride the ferry boat every morning to work and the sun would rise high and its light would fall on the water. That one incident marked my mornings because I truly felt like I shared something with another world, a world I can’t live in because I don’t have gills… And this obsession with the ocean even made me visit the International Maritime Museum Hamburg the first time I went to the city. It’s basically a boat museum but the visit is truly worth it. Looking at all the boats gives you the feeling of wanting to be close with the sea world because everything in there tells you just how great the ocean is and not simply in terms of size but in history and whatever is in it and what it can do with its powerful waves etc.. I get a similar feeling when I look at these pictures by asuphotolog.

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    But, of course, as every story goes we, humans, have found lo many many ways to destroy a world that is not ours. I won’t get into that now. But save the oceans, please And take time to appreciate what is around you; the ocean, the lake, the river or even the sky because I’m certain some of us have dreamt of living in the clouds and being able to fly. I can assure you, that kind of thing doesn’t happen in this world of ours.

  • What’s On Your Mind?

    What’s On Your Mind?

    The first time I picked up a paint brush was on a Sunday afternoon about a month ago. I was in a room full of art such as paintings and potteryware and people who make these for fun and others who are professionals. It never occurred to me that I would come to love and appreciate painting as I do now. Painting was once one of those things which I didn’t understand why exactly people did them and especially how they made a living out it. At the time I was unsure what to do so I just decided to try and paint a picture of one of my favorite places in Dar es Salaam, Garden Avenue.

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    Garden Avenue, Dar es Salaam. By @son_dullah
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    A painting of Garden Avenue

    A few days later I decided to get some painting materials and try to paint myself. I got some brushes, mixing palettes, watercolor paper, a nice-looking glass jar and a set of 48 colors, which some people think is too much, but I prefer to escape the awful process of mixing hues to get the one I want.

    Now that I’ve made a couple of paintings I’ve decided this is something I’m going to be doing for a long time. Making any kind of art, I understand now, is very enjoyable since one has the power to imagine and reimagine things in their own way, like how I reimagined Garden Avenue in my first painting. One person even commented that the painting looked like a dark road in the middle of a forest which is completely different from what Garden Avenue truly is because the place is surrounded by buildings in the middle of a very busy city. But they’re probably not wrong because from the way I see it the place doesn’t scream “city” and whenever I walked there it was like I was far from all the commotion Dar es Salaam is always glad to offer. It’s not a perfect work of art but the joy in doing all of it comes from being able to free whatever is in my mind and not let it be buried with me when my time comes. It was like I tasted some addictive drug for the first time (don’t do drugs).

    So, the bottom line is that, since by now most of our new year resolutions have failed to materialize, it’s good to try something new that’s not part of a list made just after the date changed to December 1. It could be anything, even writing grammatically incorrect short stories based on whatever made up narratives you have in your mind. Let it all out of the cage!

    Here are two of the paintings I’ve done so far with the help of this amazing channel Paint Academy:

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    Autumn Scene
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    Night Scene