Green tea and heavy journaling
May 30, 2026
I feel on the verge of burnout as I write this. I am finishing a bachelor in design and the past few weeks have been draining whatever life I had left in me. Don't get me wrong: I love my course. Love it! But I am also a workaholic and anything ending in "-holic" is a pattern that needs to be broken. I am (was) reaching a concerning state where I can't stop working. Well, no more. An achievable goal for next week. Turn to the micro and mundane. Engaging with the details never fails to amaze me.
I've been noticing a pattern, too: things I didn't like before but do now. Ballet flats, green tea, tulips. For someone whose routines are more or less established, it's interesting to witness these tiny changes happening unintentionally. It's not like I have made a conscious effort to start liking green tea. I just happened to order it under pressure while doing design work at a café and it was surprisingly better than I recalled. This is not that big of an event, either. But it tastes new.
Meanwhile, in a few days, I will have to decide to either cancel or renew my Squarespace subscription. Renewal is a charged term. Powerful one. This due date is marking the time for me to redesign a business plan that serves my desires and needs. The life I am building is no longer the life in which I founded Magu Cerâmica, but I believe in the business adapting to the life. So what does that mean in practice? First, that the pieces I should be making are to serve and support certain rituals. My morning meditation, pages and coffee are sacred to me. How do ceramics tap into that, and what new energy do they bring compared to other materials? Then, there’s the dissonance of me talking and writing loads about the concept and potential of these “clay objects for daily rituals” and not actually putting in the work. One thing I always say is “faz-se fazendo” — a silly translation would be “it is done by doing”. Less talking, more making! I love the work I am doing at the Clay Club, particularly in the Journal, but it shouldn’t be the core of my brand. I need to get intimate with clay again, despite not being ready to sell my work again yet.
I could install weekly clay plays again, until I no longer have to put it on my schedule in order to remember. But very soon I’ll land in Barcelona, where I don’t own a kiln at home or any home space to play with clay at. Moving can be unsettling, too, so I can’t put too much pressure on myself during that transition. I might find a shared studio to continue crafting and summon community. Only time will tell.
What if for a little while, while I settle in, my content is mostly me documenting my everyday rituals over and over again? Just meditation, morning pages and buckets of coffee. My truest self. I see this becoming a thing, like a cherished new routine for me, and possibly even an enjoyed piece of content among my attentive followers.
How lovely it is to know so little. To have plenty of space to plan (or not plan) and to sit with the curiosity of what-does-the-universe-have-in-store-for-me. From my Portuguese journal, "tenho um pressentimento injustificado de que vai tudo correr bem". Have a soft weekend and an even softer week ahead.
