THE FIRST SPARK ⟡₊⋆
Eureka!!!
Hello and thank you for joining me on the maiden voyage of The Morning Spark! A monthly newsletter stacked with creative kindling for you to set alight—fuelled by the clean slate of a new month, the promise of morning, and the surreal absurdity of existence (from mundane to mythical; online to IRL).
Each newsletter will feature a titillating prompt that I do with you—the spark that starts the chain reaction—written so that any artistic medium can engage with and interpret it. Let’s feel something together…! ദ്ദി˙-˙ )✧
Next, comes inspiration across many forms, including Wikipedia blue-link breadcrumb trails, poetry from the depths of my notes app (and heart), retellings of dreamsequence-esque interactions with strangers, and the most divine (+ cursed) relics from my prized collection of screenshots.
Plus, the media (songs, books, TV, movies, clip art, glitter graphics…) that’s currently resonating and occupying 96.9% of my brain—for example:
The Morning Spark is informed by morning pages—the practice of journaling three pages, stream-of-conscious style, at the start of every day. I’ve also heard it described by someone brilliant as a gentle exorcism, which I can confirm is true, and feels as good as it sounds.
So without further ado…
★ THIS MONTH’S PROMPT! ★
I still have Facebook for reasons (marketplace; the aunties that deep fry their profile pics by frame-maxxing), and because once in a blue moon I’ll get a suggestion fed to me from the algo overlords that really sparks, such as:
Sometimes the prompts write themselves—thank you, Meta-ants!
Here it is:
In whatever medium you’d like (writing, drawing, sculpting, composing, etc.), make a piece from the perspective of an ant in an ant colony. Are you a queen, a worker, a reproductive male? Regardless of your role, you’ll be cohabitating with thousands of fellow ants and operating as a cohesive unit (unless…?!)
I’ll go first (a poem about turtle/door-head ants):
Phragmosis
My head is door, life is door, corpse is door. I taste
the chemical vapours on the air and know they're not
for me. I'm a eusocial, morphologically-specialized,
plate-headed, arboreal, sterile soldier—but mostly
I'm door. My sisters glide to earth like angels, steering
and meeting trunk bark, never letting their molasses feet
get wet in the flood. I can't know this, and yet—another
chem trail on my tongue: my name was borrowed
from creatures that swim, flap; get trapped and eaten.
Vertebrates threatened and vulnerable. But me,
I'm miles wide, made of millions, and in the same
breath—just one, built in segments, closing a door. 
✶ MORE INSPO… ✶
WIKIPEDIA PAGE OF THE MONTH
LEND ME YOUR EARS
I recently launched a radio show called pitter patter and it’s got me digging for the sentimental lo-fi bangers that dominated my playlists from 2015-2018. It was an emotionally wrought but hopeful time, and this µ-Ziq track transports me back there, with a sweet pang of nostalgia that is palpable now but equally felt when I was listening to it back then, like a premonition.
ONE FROM THE CAMERA ROLL
Rest in peace my ‘bubu she got hit by a bazooka… (I was riding my bike one latelate night last month and my purse got sucked into the front tire, sending me and my keychains flying). She took the hit for me, though—I’m miraculously A-OK! My guardian angelmonster.
ONE FROM THE SCREENSHOT VAULT
On Halloween weekend #1 this year (i.e. October 23rd-25th), I was in the desperate flurry of putting too many costumes together (unfortunately a spooky bitch’s duty) and came across this otherworldly photoshop botch job. Literally what Bezos looks like to me… eerie! But the pose is a serve.
SOMETHING GOOD & NICE™
I was in the garage with the door fully open one morning this week and three little kids walked by, trailing their caregiver in spaced-out single file. The third, dawdliest one stopped on the sidewalk to see what I was up to, then slowly, without smiling, raised his tiny hand to wave in that bashful kid way. I beamed and waved back (obviously!). Faith in humankind, restored for 1 blip.
A NOTES APP POEM
A succinct two-liner written during the annual Lord of the Rings rewatch day (always after the holidays; always the extended editions). Both lines I sniped from sentences said aloud in close proximity to one another—one by a friend, one by a character whose name rhymes with peg-o’-glass…
A PARTING TRINKET
This month’s tchotchke comes from my beloved home province, Nova Scotia. More specifically, Port Mouton (as in the french word for sheep), but regionally pronounced Mah-TOON, with a gorgeous piratey drawl.
I was browsing a big thrift market with rural NS prices called Coastal Queens Place when, true to its name, a queen appeared—a woman with salt and pepper hair hanging over her face buying Christmas decor in July.
She struck up a convo with me in the check-out line, as Maritimers are wont to do. Everything I said was followed by a “what?” or a “huh?”—we were speaking in riddles but it didn’t matter; we both wanted to see the other side.
After a few exchanges about my dolphins (Where’d you get them? How much?), she told me she liked kitty cats—under her breath, like a spell. We continued working through the riddlespeak together. I wrote it down:
Me: “I love cats” Her: “I have four” Me, unsure if she's talking about figurines or the real deal: "You can never have too many" Her, with a face like, I don't know about that...: "Well, I love them all equally... I have no favouritisms"—she looks right in my eyes as she says this. Me: "Aw, I loved mine, too" Her, with the weight of the world: "I miss them" (like she knows my past pets personally, and that they're all long gone—like she's known everyone wonderful who's ever died).
This magical woman lives in the middle space where tense is fluid and we can talk about everything and nothing at the same time. We both pay for our things and I edge toward the door—I have to get to the airport. She asks, Where yous from? and I distinguish I’m from Halifax, but visiting from Toronto. She releases the gentle hold she’s had on my forearm from the cashier until now. I leave feeling like my dolphins have been blessed by her breath.
Tysm for reading the first of many Morning Sparks! I hope it leads you to all kinds of unexplored corners in that big ol’ brain (respectfully) of yours.
xx, Briana ♡
mythical encounter at coastal queens 🐈🐈🐈🐈
This read like a warm breeze on a sunny day 🍃🌞
That lovely song carried me through and ended just as I finished reading !