No.260
April ending, a list:
Everything at the surface lies somewhere between quite and extremely bad
Some things are also, and consistently, very good and very beautiful
But mainly a lot of things are very bad
I do not entirely know what to do with the knowledge of bad and awful things, because the emotions which stem from the knowledge seem to reside halfway up the throat, often stuck like a kind of nauseating and loud and uncomfortably-shaped lump, and this makes thinking or talking clearly unwaveringly challenging, let alone pulling paintings out of thin air, so in some ways it is a personal miracle I could made another book during the past couple of years
I do not always know what to do with the knowledge and reality of horrific things because people are suffering uncontrollably much and it didn’t have to be that way; they say these politically violent things happen in cycles but I don’t think it should simply be accepted as how it goes
What I have so far arrived to as methods of coping are the following: Speak and write the truest things, love more than necessary, don’t give in to the narratives which focus only on endings
Also the rowan tree in the centre of the garden has gone from leafless to leafed in only a few weeks and this I suppose is reassuring
If you watch birds carefully you are liable to fall in love, have your heart broken, and also consider revolution for fervently than ever before
When hedges here are planted in a more traditional manner: After an entire seven years of growing the saplings (not really saplings anymore) are sliced through almost completely near the base and folded down flat, so that shoots grow up from them in a perpendicular way and create a better, more accomodating habitat to a wider range of creatures, as well as being more prepared for strong, namely windy, weathers
It is surprising how quickly one’s mind can move from the forced starvation of an entire population to the benefits of hedging
I keep finding carpet bugs on the windowsills in the house which look like two-millimeter long circles of black and yellow and supposedly eat natural fibres with ferocity though they never actually seem to be alive and as a solution I just drop them out of the windows
On an evening this week, over at a friend’s farm for dinner, I picked up an orange-hued chicken and an egg fell almost instantly out of its body, which was disconcerting; the shell was completely soft and pliable-looking and when placed back down the chicken proceeded to eat the contents of the strange soft egg without delay
The fact that I could at any time choose to simply lie down on the ground for an undefined period of time and, notwithstanding any actual obligations, decide when next to get back up (from In Praise of Anything)
How I told a friend the walk would likely take us an hour but actually it took two, this didn’t matter because the view the green the conversation the perambulatory ordinariness and extreme good of it and nevermind how aching the legs or the chest
The friend left a grapefruit behind when they left the following day
We saw five swallows, the very first ones of this year, wheeling silently over one of the higher fields; they have come here from South Africa which should just never, ever cease to be extraordinary
It can be worth taking inventory of the things which you make more difficult for yourself than is actually needed, and an additional inventory of the things which could in fact do with being slightly more difficult
This old building shakes a little (not imperceptibly) whenever a large truck goes past outside, which means over a fairly short period of time all of the paintings or framed things on walls move slightly off balance
“I began to forget myself in the middle of sentences.” — Margaret Atwood
THIS WEEK I FELL IN LOVE WITH:
Pieces that are drawn, carved, and then painted—with at least four layers of acrylic—directly onto woodblocks by Malaysia-born, Gadigal land (Sydney) residing artist Kean Onn See, who began painting in his mid-thirties after being gifted oil classes by his partner.
“Here it’s spring
Over and over and over again.”
— Michael Dickman, from Where We Live
Again and for however long necessary: (Actions for demanding a Free Palestine and an end to occupation.) / (Reading list for a Free Palestine.) / (Postcards for Palestine, free PDF downloads.) / (Send a physical postcard demanding an end to UK arms sales.) / (Ten free ebooks for getting free from Haymarket Books.)
Paid supporters of The Sometimes Newsletter receive one or two additional pieces each month, including things like short stories, illustrated essays, and more detailed looks into creative processes. The most recent of these being:
In Praise of Anything
There are many volumes which specifically aim to praise things to a dramatic literary degree, whether that be folly, shadows, slowness, idleness, walking, floods, boredom, missing out, the night, poetry, hands, mountains, diaries, or really any topic or theme you can additionally think of. To me most of these literal titles seem either obvious, diminishing, misleading, or a combination of all three.
I loved the thoughtful beauty of this, both the words and images. Thank you!