I cannot wait for you to read Romantic Comedy - it is so, so, so good. I haven't read Enchantment yet, but truly must dive into it. I've been thinking about teaching myself how to sketch, even just a little, this summer. I am not naturally artistic, but I think I would enjoy drawing, even badly. If that makes sense?
There’s also this: Drawing as seeing with your hands, where it’s the seeing that happens while drawing. There’s an end result, but it feels like a fossil compared to the experience itself. So it doesn’t even matter if we like it or not.
Matilyn, I know I've told you this before but I'll say it again - you are a beautiful writer. I feel so honored every time you share your grief and the way it's inlaid with joy and sorrow equally. I am so glad you and your brothers have one another. That feels like a gift from your mom too. I wish I could try her ice cream roll cake. All my love, always.
I just read What Looks Like Bravery by Laurel Braitman (memoir) and it absolutely wrecked me but also taught me so much about grief. If you’re in the mood for that, definitely add this to your list!
I am listening to Richard Ayoade's "Ayoade on Top" on Audible. It is delightful and truly hilarious -- a deep-dive for no reason in particular into the 2003 low-budget Gwyneth Paltrow movie "View from the Top" (viewing not necessary). One line I loved today: "If a man cannot serve two masters, to which Coen brother should I direct my comments?"
OH MY GOSH. I keep meaning to read this. But of course I should listen to it in his voice. We watch his show Travel Man on repeat in this house. I wish he was still making it!
I also have State Farm (been with them for ALOT of years), but have never had to make a claim, YET. I'm scared now, after reading this!!! I thought they were supposed to protect you from Mayhem (and according to the commercials, that could be anything and everything)?!
“The Aztecs, who were enthusiastic farmers, used more than a dozen words for green; the Mursi cattleherders of Ethiopia have 11 colour terms for cows, and none for anything else.”
I am almost finished with Enchantment by Katherine May and can’t recommend it highly enough! After a difficult postpartum year of very little sleep, I am finally starting to sleep through the night again and feel like a human again. In the deepest depths of my postpartum depression, I listened to Wintering (also by Katherine May) and her words were actual medicine for my psyche.
This idea from Enchantment has been haunting me in the best way all week:
“The skills of deep play took far longer to learn than anything I’d studied before. They meant asserting the awkward right to time, space, and solitude; making a shameful claim on my own creativity. They meant learning to trust my long-forgotten gut instinct and to feel a yearning for my own work. They meant putting aside time to do things that seem pointless to the outside world. They meant confronting my stultifying terror of failure and learning to enjoy eviscerating mediocre, mistake-ridden work.”
Also, earlier this week Joy Sullivan offered some ideas on how to write in her newsletter that have stayed with me all week as well. She said, “It is not the poet’s job to offer advice. Rather it is the poet’s job to aptly name the ache.”
Here’s to more observing, naming, listening, and tolerating my own bad attempts at art and mothering this week!
I just started White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link ("Seven ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with startling consequences in the modern world") and it is that perfect mix of uncanny and luminous so far, (like everything she writes, omg.)
I cannot wait for you to read Romantic Comedy - it is so, so, so good. I haven't read Enchantment yet, but truly must dive into it. I've been thinking about teaching myself how to sketch, even just a little, this summer. I am not naturally artistic, but I think I would enjoy drawing, even badly. If that makes sense?
There’s also this: Drawing as seeing with your hands, where it’s the seeing that happens while drawing. There’s an end result, but it feels like a fossil compared to the experience itself. So it doesn’t even matter if we like it or not.
Matilyn, I know I've told you this before but I'll say it again - you are a beautiful writer. I feel so honored every time you share your grief and the way it's inlaid with joy and sorrow equally. I am so glad you and your brothers have one another. That feels like a gift from your mom too. I wish I could try her ice cream roll cake. All my love, always.
I just read What Looks Like Bravery by Laurel Braitman (memoir) and it absolutely wrecked me but also taught me so much about grief. If you’re in the mood for that, definitely add this to your list!
I am totally in the mood to be absolutely wrecked. Thank you so much for the rec!
I've had better luck with Farmer's than you have had with State Farm. YMMV.
Checking it out! Thank you!
I am listening to Richard Ayoade's "Ayoade on Top" on Audible. It is delightful and truly hilarious -- a deep-dive for no reason in particular into the 2003 low-budget Gwyneth Paltrow movie "View from the Top" (viewing not necessary). One line I loved today: "If a man cannot serve two masters, to which Coen brother should I direct my comments?"
And I'm also going to make the cobbler Ruby Tandoh (my GBBO fav) writes, gorgeously, about here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/kitchen-notes/the-studied-carelessness-of-great-dessert
OH MY GOSH. I keep meaning to read this. But of course I should listen to it in his voice. We watch his show Travel Man on repeat in this house. I wish he was still making it!
I also have State Farm (been with them for ALOT of years), but have never had to make a claim, YET. I'm scared now, after reading this!!! I thought they were supposed to protect you from Mayhem (and according to the commercials, that could be anything and everything)?!
All mayhem EXCEPT (insert here).
Yikes! That's what I'm afraid of now!!! :'(
“The Aztecs, who were enthusiastic farmers, used more than a dozen words for green; the Mursi cattleherders of Ethiopia have 11 colour terms for cows, and none for anything else.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/08/the-big-idea-why-colour-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder
Looking at the Japanese book illustrations at 50 Watts, discovered via Daniel Benneworth-Gray’s newsletter.
https://50watts.com/
People seeing the people they love who died before them, a day within dying themselves.
https://www.science.org/content/article/burst-brain-activity-during-dying-could-explain-life-passing-your-eyes
OH MY GOSH EMILY THIS IS ALL PERFECT. You are the best. I cannot wait to dive into every single link.
I am almost finished with Enchantment by Katherine May and can’t recommend it highly enough! After a difficult postpartum year of very little sleep, I am finally starting to sleep through the night again and feel like a human again. In the deepest depths of my postpartum depression, I listened to Wintering (also by Katherine May) and her words were actual medicine for my psyche.
This idea from Enchantment has been haunting me in the best way all week:
“The skills of deep play took far longer to learn than anything I’d studied before. They meant asserting the awkward right to time, space, and solitude; making a shameful claim on my own creativity. They meant learning to trust my long-forgotten gut instinct and to feel a yearning for my own work. They meant putting aside time to do things that seem pointless to the outside world. They meant confronting my stultifying terror of failure and learning to enjoy eviscerating mediocre, mistake-ridden work.”
Also, earlier this week Joy Sullivan offered some ideas on how to write in her newsletter that have stayed with me all week as well. She said, “It is not the poet’s job to offer advice. Rather it is the poet’s job to aptly name the ache.”
Here’s to more observing, naming, listening, and tolerating my own bad attempts at art and mothering this week!
https://open.substack.com/pub/joysullivan/p/my-best-writing-advice?r=2pj04&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I just started White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link ("Seven ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with startling consequences in the modern world") and it is that perfect mix of uncanny and luminous so far, (like everything she writes, omg.)