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ash salao

@ashsalao

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"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” by @ashsalao

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4 years ago

"How To Measure A Good Day"
an instagram caption from last summer that i liked enough to turn into something more visible. pov: you discover what contentment feels like in your body 🫴🏼🫀

text:

How To Measure A Good Day

Today, I thought, "How do you measure a good day?" because today was a very, very good day even though nothing extraordinary happened. I woke up at 5am with less hours of rest than I'd prefer. The drive to work was beautiful, but it always is. I had more work than usual to do, and I spent most of the day sweating.

So how do I measure the goodness of a day? Well, work was long, but it was a long day with coworkers I like doing a job I like. How lucky already. I also made friends with the barista at the neighboring coffee shop, so today I traded them cheesecake for coffee. I had lots of good, honest conversations. I smiled a lot. The summer sun hung in the sky like a god and beamed through my car windows — taunting and merciless while I sat in traffic. But the traffic gave me more time for more songs. It was one of those days where every song on shuffle hits perfectly, and I danced in spite of the traffic.

Eventually, I found myself past the traffic, speeding across the bridge and catching flashes of the city and river suspended in the sunlit pocket between afternoon and dusk. A roar of glinting metal and shimmering light rushing past me.

I had decided it was a good day early on, when Dove Shack's "Summertime in the LBC," came on shuffle during my morning drive, right before crossing the crescent of bridge. I thought of home. I thought of here. I played with flowers. Ate good food. Bought new books.

Today, I moved from moment to moment in the same way that spiders weave their webs or blossoms fall from trees. Languid, but assured. A forward crawl to somewhere — slow, but forward still.

So how do I measure the goodness of a day? Maybe by my ability to face it. Hands outstretched — reaching for it as much as it reaches for me. Unknowing, but forward still. taken in Portland, Oregon by @ashsalao

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4 years ago

It’s a Pisces New Moon, and everyone is saying that the curse has been broken and this cycle has finished. I feel this to be true, but there’s also just no fight left in me for anything otherwise. Sure, let the good things come easy. Sure, let the glass break and the love stay. Sure, let my skin become new skin, more tough more marked more worn with time.

Since then, I’ve learned that it doesn’t stop being uncharted. I think part of me believed that it would, but it doesn’t. We choose our landmarks and symbols, our sirens and omens. Our maps chart the realities we can understand, but we are always one foot in the ones we don’t. Wayfinding souls led by some hunger to make the unknown, known.

It’s the Pisces New Moon, the darkest night of the month under the influence of the last sign of the zodiac—our symbolic bridge between earth and ether, reality and dreams. Bound by time, I find myself here.

Sightless and spun, I’ve no need to act on my desires. This cycle, I’ll see what happens when I let them act on me.

🎐

1. Instagram caption I shared in September 2024
2. Still from Sentimental Value, dir. Joachim Trier
3. In a very wizard time of my life rn, words by @sighswoon
4. Rilke💧
5. Table of contents of Deborah Hay’s “my body, the buddhist”
6. Things I’ve saved recently taken in Los Angeles, California by @ashsalao

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7 months ago

Our first kiln haul :^) by @ashsalao

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12 days ago

Love is exactly what you hoped it would be if you’re patient enough taken in Eagle Rock by @ashsalao

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13 days ago

That summer I did exactly what I said I was going to do and it happened exactly the way I knew it was going to happen taken in Los Angeles, California by @ashsalao

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a month ago

🚴🏻‍♀️ : ) taken in LA River by @ashsalao

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2 months ago

what I’m Wearing
May - July 2026 taken in Los Angeles, California by @ashsalao

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2 months ago

Equilibrium summer baby 🎐🤍🎐 taken in Los Angeles, California by @ashsalao

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2 months ago

Accidental InDesign poetry by @_charlottebullard taken in Los Angeles, California by @ashsalao

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3 months ago

@metabolicstudio 🕸️ taken in Metabolic Studio by @ashsalao

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3 months ago

It was my birthday last month. These were the dog-eared pages between 26 and 27—a year of radical change and growing out my rite-of-passage bob 🤸🏻 taken in Los Angeles, California by @ashsalao

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3 months ago