No.145

Lately I find myself astonished that I’ve continued, however consistently or inconsistently, with this newsletter throughout the last unthinkable year. Yes, it has become more letter and less news, although I cannot do away with that part altogether—how else could I justify spending multiple unpaid but charming hours writing and unwriting and then writing again these half-shaped thoughts about gritty unremarkable moments simple because I would like to. A commentary for one, for some, for those who like listening to quiet things.

I think it would be fair to say that for many people, the beginning of this year has been accompanied by a sort of twilight-like fatigue, perhaps even small rain clouds that refuse to drift from your tired shoulders and leave everything feeling slightly dampened: spirits, breakfasts, interactions, ideas. There are naturally many opinions floating around in January, and plenty suggest the best way to deal with these weeks and months of restriction and isolation is to do, or become, or practice jazz flute seventeen hours a day, or learn how to grow banana plants in the midst of northern hemisphere winter, to seek proficiency in any vast number of tasks, projects, assistances. Maybe this is working for you, and maybe you will be joining a jazz quartet at the first suggestion of freedom-like-before, or maybe this is not you and the mere knowledge of stairs in the house causes you to shed a few tears, simply because stairs require energy and your reserves have all been used up by now. There is no correct way to respond, no right way to feel. Those who have a person or more loving them are lucky, those who can love everything with the same blinding power and determination as ‘before’ are sights to behold, and those who feel like they have been lost stumbling in the dark since the middle of last year are not being listened to enough.

As January peels itself to an end, and as I use up the only remaining pencil eraser, I’m finding it need-to-stay-sane-necessary to pay even more attention to moments and conversations than would be considered usual. As if the speed of everything has been slowed slightly and an accompanying music is playing, something orchestral or operatic—actual rather than imagined dramatic music works significantly better here. Apparently mundane things, such as peeling and eating a clementine, unloading clean washing, sharpening pencils, chopping a demanding vegetable, or even putting on socks can become entirely new occasions, lustrous and intriguing, small fragments of a beautiful, wordless, arguably pointless film.

I don’t know whether this is useful to anybody else, and perhaps I’ll feel less of a need to flirt with this charade when spring announces itself and the trees turn a million shades of green. For now though, the good, wishful fool that I am, I’m determined to languidly sharpen my pencils to the sound of the bassoon, or similar.

WORK-RELATED NEWS:

Yesterday, on the nice, shiny world of Instagram, I posted a piece of a series I’ve been working on—a series for anyone who needs it. This idea found me before falling asleep, and unlike almost all of my night ideas, it was still there the next morning (thinking to-me-they-are-interesting things at night and then forgetting them in dreams infuriates me, and while I’m lying half-asleep my terrible rate of remembering leaves me agitated to the point of then not falling asleep for a long time—I know, I know, I should get up and write the damn things down).

I’ll let the illustrations explain, for they will do a better job of it than me, but briefly in other mentionable news: the translations for the Russian edition of Eating the Sun arrived to me and I will begin their lettering soon; I was going to be part of a BBC2 programme and then I wasn’t; I’ve researched book printers in the context of potentially self-publishing-self-arranging a couple of small volumes; I finished some work with the delightfully lovely I can’t talk about her or I’ll get too impassioned Jodi Ettenberg; I started to feel serious about one or two long-put-off plans.

About below, I will just say that these are four of about twenty (if you have any ideas for others please let me know by leaving a comment, or emailing), and that as of right now I’m very undecided on the colour of the main, large lettering—hence black.

THIS WEEK I FELL IN LOVE WITH:

The personal work of Kim Hye Rim, entirely thanks to Dhruvi. (I’m not certain yet why I like these so much, perhaps the space of them, perhaps the painted proportions of them, perhaps the people of them.)

Certainly the longest letter in while, uncertain now of how to leave you. With Carol Shields, certainly:

“She worked hard to keep the toads from leaping out of her mouth.”

— Carol Shields, Dressing Up for the Carnival

The end.