Hi, Hello and How Are You - 27/06/2025

Well, hello there! Some days, self-care doesn’t look like yoga retreats or green smoothies. It looks like mowing the lawn, making tomato relish, or losing track of time reading in a quiet café. These simple, ordinary tasks—mundane as they seem—have recently been my way of staying afloat. Work has been tough. Not just busy, but emotionally heavy.

I discovered these mundane activities when a young person I was working, with took his own life. He was smart, charismatic, and good-looking—one of those teens you could see as a future leader in his community. He spoke with purpose, and even as he shared experiences of racism on the soccer field, there was still a light in him. There were no obvious signs that he was struggling. I feel like I missed something. Yet it happened and I had to shake off this dark cloud of disappointment for a life cut short.

Despair has a strange way of landing. It didn’t hit me in a dramatic collapse. It landed quietly—in the middle of stirring tomatoes on the stove, watching the mixture thicken into something warm and whole. The process of making relish—simple, practical, purposeful—helped. It anchored me. And when it was done, I’d finished something. That meant more than I realised.

In a job where so many things are left unfinished, waiting on systems or decisions outside my control, these tiny acts of completion are healing. They remind me I can still move forward, even if just one small step at a time.

To anyone carrying invisible weight: don’t underestimate the power of peeling a tomato, reading a chapter, or mowing a lawn. Sometimes, it’s in those quiet acts that we find peace.

Until next time,

Daz James.

P.S: Don't forget to check out the latest Patty Love update below. Perhaps it will be your answer to self-care.

Daz James

I grew up in a small country town in Australia where being different wasn't celebrated. I was made to feel like an alien on my own planet because I was feeling and thinking differently to my peers.

I looked for escapism through the world of books searching for where I belonged. They were my respite from the real world. Yet still didn't find people like me.

I started to write to express myself and hopefully wonder provide an imaginative world for someone else to escape. This became a struggle as LGBTIQA+ books were not in favor by publishers until recent years, so I suffered the pain of rejection letters until I had my first short story published in a short story anthology series.

This was the boost that I needed to keep writing, to never give up, and never give in. Now, here I am promoting my first novel called Earth Boy.

Earth Boy - Daz James

Alfie runs away from his father, who bullies him because he won't take off his new rainbow socks or his mother's nightie - it is all he has left of her. His desperation to escape leads him to a desolate train station and a Kate Bush wannabe called Daphne.

She drags him onto a train that shouldn't be there, transporting them to an unearthly destination, The Caravansary, a pit-stop to the wider universe. He is stranded in a strange world where inhabitants want to enslave, possess and even fatten him up.

His only saviour is a bewitching hottie called Charisma Junt who looks good in everything he wears.

Alfie soon becomes embroiled in a fiendish plot that could have dire consequences for humanity. How can an underachieving daydreamer, who spends far too much time in his own head, stop environmental terrorists and a psychotic real estate agent?

If this is your cup of tea, please follow these links to get a copy:

Olympia Publishers | Earth Boy by Daz James

Earth Boy by Daz James, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®

Earth Boy by Daz James | WHSmith

https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Earth-Boy/Daz-James/9781800748378

https://www.amazon.com.au/Earth-Boy-Daz-James/dp/180074837X

https://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Earth-Boy-Daz-James/9781800748378

https://www.waterstones.com/book/earth-boy/daz-james/9781800748378

https://www.harvard.com/book/9781800748378

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