Remember that time
When the light was golden
And the colours lost their edges
Like an old photograph
A chemical reaction in plain air
On the forward edge of thunderclouds?
Do you remember? she asked
As if that was a thing I could forget
(2022)
this is the magic of the fear-not ritual
this is why ritual is
so that when you place your hand in the box and
the pain is indescribable
when your fear says: pull away, save yourself
questioning this fear, you remember everyone before who passed this test
generation upon generation who did not pull away
who asked this question: why?
remember this like your own name: pain and fear are two separate things
distinct, divisible, neither inevitable
we mistake them for each other
the experience of one produces the other
but they are separate things
when, from pain, you experience fear
ask it: why?
some pain simply happens
or maybe all things
happen simply
what we call fear is a reflex
the animal retreat
hate is the choice to not question your fear
(July 2022)
tell me how it happened
we knew so much but this
we couldn’t know
we had such power
that to think of stopping was impossible
to speak it, death
this is what we left ourselves
this brotherhood
these stale defences
self-made
empty-handed
possessed of no inner life
partaking of no mystery
no raw internal knowings
the shapes of us proscribed
the tablets broken
the prophets’ voices stilled
our cells know nothing
born and borne in churning, soupy chaos
wisdom embodied new in every newborn mind
our cells know what we teach them
a limb, deleted
a kindness tasting more and more like fear
what’s the point of man?
what meaning in becoming so?
in mimicking the still point in this maelstrom
an embodied singularity
a fecund drop
erupting then forever calmed
what is a man?
what point
in ever
being
so?
there’s no such thing as clouds she said
I asked her to explain
she said
the clouds are just a metaphor
if you touch them
they aren’t there
dissolved by our attention
like particles avoiding a dark plate
suspended in ten thousand tons of water
depending on which technician lifts the lid
huge somethings made of nothing
the weight of mountains
mist fading from your grasp
before you even close your hand
a metaphor, she said
for water’s longing for the sea
(2022)
One of the few philosophers of the 21st Century known to the general public, Alain de Botton is renowned for his detailed explorations of the minutiae of daily life (for a given quantity of middle class white Europeans, but more on that below.) If The Art of Travel is an indication, he is also the sort of person I hate meeting on vacation.
He’s the Show Me state, arriving grumpy and rumpled from his voyage to stand before the purported spectacle he has dutifully come to observe and demand that it enthrall him, turning away spitting into the dust when the vista/church façade/thing in the guide book cannot overcome his exhaustion, his highway numbness, his sense of entitlement. All I could think was, brother, you’ve got to get out more.
De Botton’s enduring thesis appears to be that, since travel is never quite what we expect it to be, we shouldn’t do it at all. Perhaps because he draws inspiration from some of Europe’s greatest grumps. Anyone who’s travelled a lot may have noticed that no type of person is more consistently displeased by the facts of travelling than middle-aged white men, yet these are de Botton’s only voices of reference.
Men like Charles Baudelaire, who crafted many beautiful sentences in his writing, evoking our emotions with a master’s touch, but who personally was a miserable shit who despised the world and sought constantly to escape from it. Ought we really to take his word on the value of going abroad? A man who was so disgusted by a layover in the tropical isle of Mauritius that he cancelled his entire trip and went home? That’s not exactly the mark of a staggering genius.
Yes, there are moments of more interesting thought, but I was in truth too busy travelling (and enjoying the shit out of it) to read much of the rest of the book. I do know that it has confirmed my intention to never, ever go on an ocean cruise. Because if I encounter a fellow traveler of De Botton’s temperament, I want to be able to walk away.
For the past few years I have been going to bed so early it’s a problem. I’m missing time with my family, and I’m waking up at 3AM local time for no reason other than I went to bed at 8:30 the night before and I’m a person who does best on 7 hours of sleep.
Why is this interesting? Because lately I’ve been trying to stay awake longer. So after dinner I walk to a local park and ride on the swings until I can’t bear it, then walk home. this is a peculiar aim, given my tendency to get motion sickness from, like, every conveyance I’m not piloting myself. The big swings at the amusement park? Big ol’ yuck (don’t ask me about the pirate ship, me hearties.)
At any rate, there I was, walking across the park at dusk. As I neared the swings I noticed a woman with a rolling walker, doing laps around the playground with the determination of someone told by their doctor to “use it or lose it to amputation.” Someone struggling to stay active in a world that seems bent on her senescence.
With a smile I passed her to claim a swing, where I sat facing the sunset, pumping my legs, riding aloft on a drum and bass playlist that never fails to energize me. I don’t count it a good go on the swings unless I see over the crossbar. One of my characters whose book has yet to be published wrote a poem about swings. In it he writes:
One day you will let go
At the top of the arch of the swing
In spite of the lake and the cliffs and the sky and the steel
You will let go and she will be there
To catch you
I always swing until I see the sky above the crossbar. It was no different tonight, as I leaned into each swoop of the parabola, kicking my legs to arc higher, squinting into the cotton candy summer sunset. Wanting the wind in my hair, I tossed aside my hat, and as the woman with the walker bent to retrieve it I told her to leave it be, that I didn’t mind, that I’d come back to it.
She circled me again, two or three times, before she brought her walker over to the handicapped swing. Then got on the swing and swung along with me.
Was this something she did all the time? Or did my swinging somehow give her permission? I couldn’t have asked. My heart was too full. From her complexion I might guess she wasn’t born in my country, but to say a word about what we were doing felt wholly unnecessary. We swung, me kicking myself as high as I dared, her reclined in a seat made for comfort, made for those to whom swinging might otherwise be a luxury, an impossibility.
When she’d had her fill of the swing, she resumed her circuit round me. When she reached my fallen hat, she bent to pick it up, then tossed it to me.
I just about caught it.
When I die
I should like it to be
as a rhododendron choked
by wild strawberry
(2022)
you
will
never
forget
what
they
have
done
to
you
and
they
are
still
doing
it
(2022)
I went on a trip the end of April with the serious intent of reading some light fiction. I write it, so keeping up with what other writers are doing is kind of a job requirement, but I sometimes just don’t read at all. Unfortunate but you know how it goes, *insert modern life* and all your plans are suddenly negotiable. Regardless, I did do a fair bit of reading while away. I’m not including buy links, just look ‘em up yourself. You got the internet on that thing, right?
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
A nice book about how to die well. I contemplate own mortality with more frequency than most people (don’t applaud, it’s maybe a bad thing) so nothing in here stunned me, but its gentle solace is a perfect fit for these grieving times.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Did Not Finish at 40%. I might have finished it if it was the only book at a beach cottage when the weather was bad. I’m not big on murder mysteries and we’ll leave it at that, because I have Many Feelings about this book, its plot, its characters, and other books like it which I don’t want to voice. Inevitably, there’s a movie now.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
A brave little novel that tries really hard to not be a Cancer Story by being a book about books, yet is still inescapably a Cancer Story. But good, though I found the dialogue a bit forced. Yes, the characters are well-read for their age, but my own 19th Century aristocrats barely talk that high falutin’. The author character was a nice touch, but again, another book I only read because it was on the shelf at the vacation rental.
Glitterland by Alexis Hall
I have no logical response to Alexis Hall ‘s romance novels. They’re all amazing IF you like his style, which is exuberant and passionate and unapologetically queer and very “head-space” with lots of ruminations by the main character. I will resist the urge to discourse on the historical antecedents of this sort of novel, but rest assured Hall does it on purpose.
What we end up with is a scorching POV of a man with serious mental illness and his star-crossed lover from Essex which is evidently the UK equivalent of the Jersey Shore. I told Hall himself that I hadn’t read a finer regional accent in prose since Irvine Welsh, and I now call everyone a ‘donut’ when they mess up but adorably. Ten million stars. It’s about to get reissued with (ahhh!!!!) bonus content and for the first time ever I am going to buy a book I already own.
His Lordship’s Secret by Samantha SoRelle
Born in poverty, ascended to wealth, Alfie hires his long lost friend Domenic to protect him from whomever is trying to kill him. Events Ensue in a twisty and quite macabre Regency-era plot with interesting class commentary and solid period detail. I love a “dress you up” trope, which I didn’t expect to encounter but which aligned perfectly with our historical fashion-themed vacation. All in all, a nifty self-published novel in the growing canon of Queer Historical Romance
The Middle of Somewhere by Roan Parrish
Barely news (there’s a pun in there) to anyone who reads MM Contemporary Romance, but I am a decade behind thanks to an extended reading drought. Aaaaaaaanyway, I don’t typically like present tense in novels, but I grit my teeth and kept on with this one, because what else do you do on the plane? I was rewarded with good, gritty characters and a strong love story that hits a lot of comforting tropes without being too stereotypical. And the sex scenes are lit.
Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater
An author who is finally getting the acclaim she deserves. Like her prior Regency fairy tale Half A Soul, this was a joy to read, with wonderful, complex female leads and a heart-breaking yet ultimately redeeming love story driven by genuine personal growth on everyone’s part. I adore her rendering of the realm of Faerie, 10/10 would visit but very cautiously. This story also aligned with our fashion-themed vacation, being mainly to do with magical embroidery e.g. the ten thousand stitches of the title. Bravo Ms Atwater!
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