No.221
October ending, a list:
We wonder aloud to each other will it ever stop raining, and it doesn’t, so I check the weather forecast and it says it will continue raining for the next nine days without even so much as a pause
Anne Carson, from Plainwater, 1995 The oranges and reds of fallen leaves provide a soft padding along the edges of the pavements here, the sweet-rot smell of them meaning you cannot even go for a small walk without being reminded of at least fifteen childhood nostalgias
Existing in a somewhat state of limbo all month, admin upon admin waiting to find out whether or not it’s going to be possible to buy a half of a house here, one that used to be a hospital for infectious disease in the late 1800s-early 1900s; this would be the front door:
Bless the dead things on the roads which you drive/walk/bypass in any way, either aloud or silently; two days ago I placed a couple of verge-side flower sprigs of yarrow next to a cold rabbit which had seemingly been hit by a car halfway up the small road which winds along the hills to the loch
I learn a great number of exceedingly interesting facts and then forget them
The recent large flooding and consequent subsiding of water here has left the golf course looking more like a beach; sand on what was previously a dirt path, scattered piles of driftwood across the entire green space
Sitting at the local coffee roaster, a postman rain-damp and collapsed after his mail round on the sofa, with a drink, with his eyes closed, his orange high-vis coat next to him the same colour as the fire burning a few feet away
Most of what I’m reading right now, amidst the knowledge of genocide happening in Palestine, is from Jewish Currents, and I would highly recommend this as a source of information and perspective
I made crackers and then proceeded to leave them in the oven for a whole 57 minutes too long, surprisingly they not only survived becoming a charcoal creation but were edible
Eva Watson-Schütze, Jane Whitehead and Lily, 1905 We talk about the Southern Hemisphere and the magnetic pull of things; he says life as we know it, I say life as we don’t
It’s like repeating a sentence until you are sure you cannot forget, low visibility when driving, you having fallen asleep on my shoulder, seasons that just won’t stop; motion sickness and sleeping until noon. You can’t ever end things neatly, can’t ever put them back quite the way you found them, and this fact will consume you repeatedly
WORK-RELATED NEWS:
Some original works are now up on my website! I’m still in the process of adding these, so if there is a particular piece you’ve seen and would love to give it a home let me know and I can scoot to the top of the priority list.
For the next two weeks*, readers of The Sometimes Newsletter can use the code ‘NEWSLETTER’ to receive complimentary tracked shipping on paintings.
In the coming weeks I’ll be making some more original pen and ink works available, as well as a small selection of original paintings from my books Eating the Sun, and Everything, Beautiful. This is the first time in ten years that I’m selling original work! Very happy to be letting them out into the wider world; it has felt like the right time to let things go.
The works available were mostly made between 2019 and 2023, a five-year window of colour and thought and place, and it’s highly strange to think about the beginning of that window containing all 51 of the illustrated works for Eating the Sun, followed by living in three different countries, and both beginning and ending Everything, Beautiful, which was the most highly-hand-painted of my books to date (arguably to a ludicrous degree).
*Available until 11:59pm on November 11th
THIS WEEK I FELL IN LOVE WITH:
Paintings by Taiwan-born, Eindhoven-based Jaron Su.
Paid supporters receive several additional posts each month, including short stories, previously unpublished work, essays, and more detailed looks into creative processes. Seven Landscapes is the latest of these paid posts, and an excerpt is readable below:
Seven Landscapes
1/7 Struck, I suppose, by the up-close emptiness of the landscapes around me. From a distance, or perhaps while driving through at speed, it’s possible to pretend, or imagine, that the few straggled leftovers of forest are alive with life; supportive and rich systems, providing homes to the winged and the crawling. In fact, the non-native origin of many tree species here means that they haven’t evolved to bear witness to a huge number of these tiny lives—even the sycamore, which to many of us would seem at home, is not native, and can only support a fraction of the species compared to a native oak, which can benefit over 2,000 different types of plant, insect, and animal during it’s long span of breath.
Thank you for your words about Palestine. I feel like humanity has failed a very important test... People I love dearly made it clear that they believe this isn't their fight, and mourning/fighting alone is tough. Feel free to email me if you'd like to read Ghassan Kanafani, Edward Said, Ilan Pappé, I can send you all my ebooks!
This was a beautiful read and call to different types of attention, often overlooked. Grateful to have read it this week. 💜