caramel suede

Pt. 1

Alright, sweeties! A bit of a different post from me today! I have been meaning to make this for awhile, since I haven’t seen anyone organize their grimoire the way I do, I thought this could certainly be helpful for someone!

First, let’s talk about the book itself! I don’t use a blank book or a notebook. I wanted a graph paper notebook this size, but just couldn’t find one! So, after watching this video, I was SO inspired, I could just MAKE the whole thing! So, we went out and bought a used book, a pack of graph paper and a glue stick. This was SO freeing because I make pages before I put them in, I write in pencil, then I go over it in fine Sharpie pen, erase pencil marks, and then glue the page in when I’m finished. That way, I don’t have this fear of “messing it up” (even though I think messing up things is part of the fun sometimes!).

So if you like to be organized, I might be stressing you out. I understand. Organization is something I love and need in my life. I’ve seen so many folks using binders for their grimoires, but it wasn’t my style. I wanted it to all be sort of chronological, but also organized??? My answer to this– COLOR CODING. Ever section (energy, astrology, spells, candles/incense, etc) has a different color that I make on the side facing outwards, along with the category written on the side. This way, if I’m looking for something in particular, I can flip through and find it, no problem!

Secondly, I use ENVELOPES. Alright, I love astrology. Astrology is something I want to have a lot about in my book, but also I don’t want to take it up my entire book with this. So envelopes were my answer for this! I water-colored each envelope in a color suit that felt fitting to each of the elements, and drew on the constellation, glued those bad boys in, and BAM, I have WAY more room to add things about signs because I can just stick ‘em in their designated envelopes. 

In addition, I like using/decorating with things from the internet, magazines, etc. This is YOUR book, your documentation of learning, your personal reference. Don’t be afraid to go off the ‘traditional’ leather bound, calligraphy written, beautiful grimoires if that isn’t your style! It doesn’t make it ANY less witchy or magical to use highlighters, friends! Don’t be afraid, no one can tell you what is right or wrong when it comes to YOUR grimoire!

Also, I would LOVE to see your grimoires, so tag me in your photos!! 

I remember when I had pneumonia I was so sick and exhausted and in pain that I couldn’t get out of bed for *days* — I eventually pushed myself to walk across campus to the doctor’s office (it took me literally 45 minutes to walk there bc I had to walk so slow) and when I got there…the doctor made it seem I was only trying to get out of writing an exam lol. I was too embarrassed to tell her that I was going to be withdrawing from the class anyway bc I hadn’t had the energy to get to lectures at all that semester. She lectured me about how she sees students do this all the time and she can’t take a risk in trusting me when the only thing that was wrong with me was exhaustion. “We all have off days” is what she said lolol. 

I was so humiliated at her insinuation that I eventually just nodded when she said it “didn’t seem like I had any issues” and went back home. It wasn’t until I fainted walking down the hallway like 4 feet outside my apartment that I started panicking and called someone to take me to the hospital. When I got there even the receptionists looked genuinely pale to see how hard it was for me to walk and how much it hurt to breathe or talk.

It would take *6* different antibiotics for the really advanced pneumonia to finally die out, the last of which was delivered intravenously in my arm for 10 continuous days — I still have the scar where the initial IV was and I have another mark on my wrist. I *literally* couldn’t walk or lay on my back for 8-9 weeks. I would sleep sitting up with pillows on a chair and when my breath would involuntarily deepen as I started to fall asleep I would jerk awake bc of the sharp pain my lung where the pneumonia was.

That same doctor who thought I was lying about being sick would then call me like 34 times in a row when my blood test results came to her office and the hospital sent her my chest x rays lolol, obviously worried about looking bad and having called me a liar and sending me home when I had such a serious bout of pneumonia.

In the 3rd year of my premed degree I would learn that doctors in North America — and specifically white women in nursing lol — often see south Asian women as malingerers who exaggerate their pain. In a UK study there were neonatal nurses who went so far as to say that south Asian women also lack maternal instincts, care more about their pain meds than their child and “can’t handle” child birth.

Yosif al Hasnawi — an Iraqi Canadian teen — died at the hands of two paramedics who did not believe he had been shot and claimed he was “acting” when he was actually internally bleeding. They made him walk to the ambulance with a bullet in his stomach, from which he would later die after not being transported to the hospital for 38 minutes.

Just yesterday My cousin, totally healthy, just died of a brain hemorrhage and often complained about ongoing migraines that could’ve been telltale signs of hypertension that were totally ignored by her doctor for years.

and just a day before that Kim porter who was otherwise healthy just died of pneumonia while having expressed her symptoms and pain to doctors for days — I would say that I’m shocked by this but the implications faced by brown people and racism in the healthcare system is 10x worse for black women who are often seen as liars and in it for the meds as a result of historical anti blackness and systemic rejection of black patients’ pain.

my anxiety: ur coming off needy. isolate urself and handle it. all u need is U!

art by heezey