September-ending-October-beginning, a list:
“Tell me something meaningful or let me move on.” —it was decided early in September between myself and another coffee establishment-goer that this sentence was possibly all one needed to move through the world in its current state of disrepair
Single-handedly (read: madly) removing every scrap of wallpaper from a large stairway before painting it three times over, made possible with the a very tall extendable ladder which I certainly used in all the ways one is not supposed to use a ladder i.e. alone, balancing, reaching, picturing one’s own catastrophic fall down onto the wooden stairs etc.
We are given three more days of a summer which wasn’t really there to begin with—we live in Scotland and so I think at intervals yes but what about being warm
“Humans can adapt to endure almost anything, but in doing so, they sometimes perpetuate incredible evil. The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.” —Hannah Arendt, The Banality of Evil
I read eight books while in the south of Europe but it is still impossible to forget the horrors happening to people
Rescuing i.e. relocating: a large toad using a saucepan, a praying mantis using a sandal (the praying mantis being a colour that I cannot at all describe but it was grey-purple-sorrowful-grape-matte-iridescent-soil)
I asked if you felt as one long continuous ‘self’ before going south to warmth, while south, and upon return to the cold, and you said no, and I said ah yes I feel the same I wonder why this is
In Swedish ‘to exist’ also means ‘to find’ which I suppose suggests something doesn’t exist all that much unless there is searching involved
The leaves this year, as they wait to fall, look sad, while on the ground appear resigned and knowing and golden
Looking after the cats next door, this very (dreadful) morning walking over to find feathers and remnants of a bird strewn across three rooms of the house and angrily declaring to no one while cleaning bloodied floors cats are a very large problem for wildlife
Overheard a woman shouting this at her dog and noted down but now I don’t remember where: DON’T SNIFF THE EGGPLANTS TARQUINA!
N.B. I realise this list ends with two scenes of shouting, but I think this perhaps because anger is a useful emotion when it comes to both finishing tasks and keeping warm
WORK-RELATED NEWS:
The fresh autumn issue of Orion greeted me upon my return home after two weeks away, marking my second-ever outing as designer for the magazine, now in its 41st year of publication. A poem from Margaret Atwood, an essay from Ross Gay, a cover featuring a dipped painting work by Oliver Jeffers—the list of excellent things within this issue is long.
The issue is a ‘super-saturated celebration of green, looking back at a colour that once sustained us in the hopes that we won’t let it disappear.’ It is true, there is green on every single page, much of it, and I know this because I put it all there.
This outing of my column ‘Root Catalog’ is held together by the Japanese word komorebi, which I have been considering for ten whole years since its initial inclusion in my first book, Lost in Translation.
(For readers of the newsletter: You can use the code BOOKSHIP to receive free standard shipping on any book orders placed through my website.)
THIS WEEK I FELL IN LOVE WITH:
Older works by the painter James Riches—there is something extra reassuring lately about being able to perceive handmade marks on paper, on canvas, on surfaces that are intended to hold things as opposed to
Tchaikovsky, in a letter from the spring of 1870:
“I am sitting at the open window (at four a.m.) and breathing the lovely air of a spring morning… Life is still good, [and] it is worth living on a May morning… I assert that life is beautiful in spite of everything! This “everything” includes the following items: 1. Illness; I am getting much too stout, and my nerves are all to pieces. 2. The Conservatoire oppresses me to extinction; I am more and more convinced that I am absolutely unfitted to teach the theory of music. 3. My pecuniary situation is very bad. 4. I am very doubtful if Undine will be performed. I have heard that they are likely to throw me over.”
Again and for however long necessary, for a Free Palestine: (Actions for demanding a ceasefire in Palestine.) / (Report Palestinian censorship in publishing.) / (Reading list for a Free Palestine.) / (Send postcards to demand freedom for Palestine and an end to arms sales.)
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 an illustrated three-part essay, Bird Flying, I’m Walking:
