One of the best things about making Flow is choosing the cover quote. Sometimes we stumble upon it by chance, on Instagram for example, or in a book we’re reading. Other times we need to hunt around for it. What we like so much about quotes is that they give some direction to our lives in a very simple and direct way. For a while, ‘Trust the timing of your life’ helped shape our approach to things. It gave us a great sense of peace.
We’d be wrestling with something or other, but then we’d think of those words and it would help us accept that things sometimes just go the way they do and we shouldn’t be impatient. A bit later, we often turned to Japanese writer Haruki Murakami’s words, ‘Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting’. His words helped us manage our expectations when we experienced disappointment or frustration, so we featured it on the cover a few issues ago.
At the moment, we often remind ourselves of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s words, which grace the cover of this issue. They give us solace at a time when a lot of people around is need our help. Occasionally this creates some tension in our lives, because we also need time for ourselves and for other things, and there’s just never enough time to go around – but this thought helps us to push aside our own interests a bit more often and simply be there for our friends and family.
Sometimes in interviews, we get asked what our life motto is. We find that a difficult one to answer, because surely each stage in life needs a different motto. Isn’t that what’s so beautiful about life, that there are always new periods, with new plans and wishes, new quests and insights? Times when your needs are different than they were before. So in answer to that question we always claim that we don’t have one life motto. Instead, we have an ever-expanding collection of different ones that we can turn to in order to keep things in perspective.
- This editorial can be found in Issue 22.
Illustration Amy Blackwell
