“Suppose I say summer,
write the word “hummingbird,”
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much
just how much, I love you.”
— Raymond Carver, “Hummingbird” from All of Us: The Collected Poems
May ending and June beginning, a list:
There were men playing golf at 8:43am in the morning, as I drove into Norwich—there are displaced people being bombed in tents, I thought, and you’re playing golf? Just how exactly is anyone doing anything at this time other than shouting for it to end? But especially playing golf?
I watched a woodlouse—there are fossils of these tiniest blob-things from the cretaceous period—move around on its many legs for twenty-five minutes within the square boundary of a single floor tile; it looked busy yet didn’t seem to be doing anything in particular, which is I suppose a lot of us
Away from home, but you told me that the house martins had started building a nest right above the front door and this is the closest thing to a blessing I can think of right now
On the road I passed a coach, and in the digital sign on the front, where it usually lists its destination—town, city—this one said Nowhere in particular and I’m unsure whether I simply imagined it or not
In my absence the garden grew the most green it has yet, plums and apples and medlars beginning, a himalayan blue poppy flowering, aliums, lupine, flag irises, currants, the grass areas turning themselves long and meadowy and incurring an enquiring comment from our neighbour along the lines of so are you planning on doing anything with your grass
It later becomes clear that there are three separate pairs of house martins building their nests of mud, saliva and feathers on the house, under the old peeling-paint wooden eaves, and it is gapingly amazingly to see—the amount each pair can add in a single day, the way you can see the mud layers drying out. We live a few hundred meters from a river, so perhaps they are comfortable with the proximity, ensuring mud, the lack of which along with drier, hotter summers means their numbers decline, and decline more (they are a highest level of concern for conservation)
The two or so weeks I spent on the coast provided me, each day, with a view of people walking along what looked like the edge of the world (as above)
“I read that in Scandinavia, dusk was a time to pause—too dark to continue with work either indoors or out, but too early to justify the cost of burning a candle or lamp. It was called the “twilight rest,” a time for rest, prayer, conversation. Candle-lighting time was only arrived at when it became truly too dark to see—with layers of color and gradations of dusk that are doubtless unknown to us now. Burning a candle too early was referred to as ‘burning daylight', a wasteful exercise.” —
Ideas for book titles: Trees and Other Stories, Experiments in Sensitivity, Mostly It's Just Shopping Lists
Words to consider:
circumlocutory
abjuring
concatenation
palimpsest
annealed
inimical
arrogate
desirous
introject
louche
corpulent
salient
pullulating
reticence
delectation
caustic
insensate
imperious
truculence
attenuated
indexical
brumous
parabolae
beguiling
argillaceous
heuristic
coincident
desirous
plangent
intimations
“As for himself, he doesn’t have enough words yet, he knows that. Not nearly enough.’ — Carol Shields, Larry’s Party
WORK FEATURE:
Summer!* My first issue as designer of Orion Magazine has been a joy—the people working there and the truths and stories the publication has offered for over 40 years have been a balm these past months.
If you are looking for new perspectives, for nuanced story, for real science and fragile nature and thoughtful people, Orion is the place for you. My illustrated ‘Root Catalog’ column continues on in addition to these new responsibilities, holding its usual quiet painted space on page 96.
The summer issue’s column is about la madrugada, which in both Spanish and Portuguese refers to the period between midnight and sunrise, early morning.
“For two years I've lived in a river valley, and I suppose I'm likely to live here for twenty more, or at least I want to, for as long as the ancient rookery remains. The birds could have nested here for well over a hundred years. Each morning and evening, at the beginning and end of la madrugada—in both Spanish and Portuguese, the period between midnight and earliest morning—perhaps a thousand or more birds croak and dance in half-light, mystical, ignored or unseen by most. It is silencing to watch—their unexplainable rhythms, the seemingly arbitrary but dramatic changes in altitude, and the way they will decide in the split of a second to sink down into the trees and land, as if being vacuumed by the forest.”
* Here in Scotland, we are still firmly in spring
SIGNED BOOKS & ORIGINAL ARTWORKS:
To peruse if of interest, the currently available collection of original drawings and paintings on my website:
Also available are the various foreign language editions of my books, available as signed or unsigned copies, with varying stock levels of French, Korean, Vietnamese, Italian, Russian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, and Brazilian Portuguese language copies, along with the UK and US versions too.
THIS WEEK I FELL IN LOVE WITH:
Photographs of Palestine by Greg C. Holland. He said of the 2022 summer, which he spent living and taking images in the country:
“This was my first time in Palestine and my first time in the Middle East. When we got off the bus in Ramallah on day one, the first thing we heard was “welcome!” – a word we would hear every single day throughout our trip. The welcome we received was overwhelming. Neighbours would pass food over the garden wall, people would stop by the work site where we were building to give us baclava, ice cold water, Arabic coffee and freshly squeezed lemonade. The beauty and strength of the Palestinians runs deep and every – and I mean every – single person we encountered was warm, welcoming, inspiring, hospitable. They are givers, all day, every day, they give and give – food, water, love, kindness.
Palestinian kindness and generosity is all the more poignant when you are aware of what they have been subjected to. When the sweet old lady next door passed over a plate of stuffed zucchini, this wasn’t leftovers; this was hours of work, years of tradition, a lifetime of resistance and all that in one gesture.”
“Eighty years old.
Handsome, calm, like a heart walking on two legs.”
— Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (translation Ibrahim Muhawi)
Related:
Paid supporters of The Sometimes Newsletter receive several additional posts each month, including things like short stories, illustrated essays, and more detailed looks into creative processes. The most recent of these is a illustrated essay-list, Thirteen Objects of Affection:
Always filled with joy when I see a new sometimes newsletter!
Thank you for sharing “a beautiful read” on Arab Trans History on Masoud El Amaratly. It’s so important to know about gender and sexual diversity throughout history and to keep ourselves educated, open minded , and non judging. 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
The photographs of Palestine by Greg C Holland, and what he had to say about the welcoming and kindness he received while there warmed my heart, yet broke it at the same time. FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸❤️
This is so beautiful and I always look forward to your posts--and then to see my writing be part of what you've enjoyed of late means the world. :) Thanks for all that you shared--Orion, Palestine. Beautiful and necessary.