No.263

May ending, a list:

1. We buried a swift under the Japanese maple

2. (Looking after the neighbour-cats for a week and one evening going over to feed them, finding the lifeless, eye-less winged body under a window in the living room, behind chairs—I didn’t notice it for perhaps twenty minutes, but sometimes the animal shape of us can sense a thing out of proper place before the brain catches up)

3. This made me think about other burials

4. There is a lot of hypocrisy

5. I discovered the local fabric store sells Eucalan, in two sizes no less, which I kept seeing mentioned in delicate wool washing contexts and which I now understand the fierce enthusiasm for—a sweater currently dries on the grass outside

6. The birthday of a friend happened with rosemary chocolate cake and revolutionary discourse and with watching The Mask in a completely empty cinema

7. The white alliums flowered, the tulips died, the magnolia flowered, I planted camomile and calendula and toothache plant and all of my kale was stripped near-perfectly clean by a pigeon

8. Was brought back two postcards from South Korea:

7. Read books and then promptly wished I’d read other books, the only natural conclusion being to continue this cycle Ad infinitum until there are absolutely no books left

8. Later, I ignore myself on purpose, which takes practice. — Danielle Dutton, Sprawl

9. I found half of a bloodied robin egg in the garden, which was pale speckled blue and weightless and silenced all thoughts

10. I put it on my bookshelf

11. Celebrated the marriage of friends; a poplar hawk-moth remained large and motionless on a branch above their heads during the woodland ceremony while willow seeds floated snow-like through the komorebi canopy

12. Endless, endless experiments in sensitivity

13. Leaping goblin-like about the house catching the relationship between light and dark:

13. First things should come first, but I no longer know what they are. (Old sentence from an old newsletter but nevertheless one I think about regularly)

14. Think: If you can’t know the first things then what are the second things?

15. “I believe that through all of this we have learned to fight with joy, even though it gets very hard and painful. We must know that we don’t have a back-up planet, we only have one. Our mother earth, militarised, fenced in, poisoned, a place where basic human rights are being systematically violated, demands that we take action.” — Berta Cáceres, indigenous Lenca leader and environmentalist who was shot dead in her Honduras home in 2016

16. Felt enraged by injustices and probably by the Portuguese red wine while eating a pasta dish and insisted to the table that it is in fact very shockingly basic—that it should be the most, most basic thing in the entire world to treat people, any and all people, with respect, and without harm, no matter whether you look like them or not, whether you speak like them or not, whether you understand that speaking or not, and I believe to be enraged in this way is, in the present moment, to be sane and mad at once

17. Wondering whether people are being honest about how often you have to clean the lenses of your glasses i.e. it seems every two minutes on average

18. Long month, long light, shorter feelings

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THIS WEEK I FELL IN LOVE WITH:

The fatigued women of Ramon Casas (1866-1932)—women were visibly tired in the late 1800s and they’re even more tired now.

“In the springtime it’s like this. Suddenly we know we will survive.”

— Danielle Dutton, Sprawl

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.)

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