Lisa Ray Instagram – Thank you @theboxwalla for all the moments of happiness and solace you’ve given me over the past two months. Thoughtfully curated boxes of literary discoveries (for me) like Norwegian writer Kell Askildensen who ‘gets to the essence of things in just a few pages’ arrived in the April box along with a newly released Clarice Lispector translation, one of the ‘hidden geniuses of the twentieth century’. To complement, a lovely bijou notebook by @obviousstate. (I almost wrote ‘envious state’) Their arrival gives me a focal point away from despair and the toxic news cycle. The beauty box, well, swipe through to see some of the standout discoveries (hello @twelvebeauty, hello @africanbotanics) that I’ve incorporated into my daily regime. And the film box made me gasp : it not only contained the Apu trilogy but also my favourite surrealist, Bunuel. Seeing ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise’ tossed me to a time when I grasped at the greats, read and watched to enrich my soul. I lost some of that hunger along the way, but now thanks to @theboxwalla I’m time-travelling back to my parents’ sofa, where I spent long hours reading and measuring my delight not in achievement but through the level of immersion in stories and ideas – which formed the foundation for my personal path. Perhaps our lives should not be measured in fixed years but in the time we spend in exploration and wonder, in the discovery of words to express our grief, our fear and our love. I have found refuge in small pleasures that ponder the unsolvable, such as when Clarice asks in ‘An apprenticeship’ or ‘The Book of Pleasure’ ‘how does one even try to bridge the gap between people?’ You can subscribe to your own boxes of enriching prose and bewitching beauty products by jumping on @theboxwalla #boxwalla @theboxwalla @archipelagobooks @ndpublishing