Time feels like it’s moving through me very fast now, and all I can do is let it. Just be, I remind myself. Time like water; fast flowing and smooth, there’s nothing much to grab on to. The moments come and I struggle to cup them, trying to drink and feel them into my body as they simultaneously slip through my fingers.
Everything non essential has been dropped. Instead I’m trying to let it all wash over me, be in these moments with the people I love.
Long ass car journeys, deep conversation and a wild moon who we invite in and sees us home. Towering Henry Moore sculptures in the midst of flowers which haven’t seen rain in months. The fast moving view of England from train windows - the greens fading to golden yellow against a backdrop of unclouded blue, over and over and over again until I start to feel a little landlocked and long for the sea. What do we do with so much beauty? Nights under canvas with friends, walking to the pub and sheltering from rain, slowness and space to be amongst the trees and camp fire scented air. A book of essays on art and life and the pencil marks where I underline sentence after sentence. There are countless hours of looking with undivided attention - faces and flora, place and butterflies. Touching a friend I have only ever known on the internet, like I’m checking she is real. She is real! Making photos, even when my eyes feel like they are done with looking but I just can’t help but see it all. Beds that aren’t mine with pillows that make me realise I’m probably of an age where I should just take my own everywhere now. Give it up babes, middle age is here. In the moments we are home there is the never-ending washing of clothes soaked with sweat from these days of never-ending sunshine. Late night nakedness and talking about this life we are so lucky to live, and the inevitable loss that is hurtling towards us as we try to sketch out a map for the unknown terrain ahead. It sounds romantic because what else could it be?
…
This week we went to say goodbye to my mother in laws house. In the garden stands an enormous willow - so beautiful I won’t even try to describe her. I’ve always wondered how old it is and after a quick Google we worked out how to age a tree without cutting it down. We measured the trunk and found she is approx 32 years old. No-one was invested in this exercise but me. And whilst this detail is useless, it also meant so much ? Something small I could hold in my mouth, even if the numbers are ultimately meaningless. Does it matter how many years she has been there, or just that she was there at all? Anyway now I know her species and age and where she is rooted, and due to life being played out as it is want to do, soon I will never see her again.
I stand underneath the tree, over and over again like a pilgramage.
I take another photograph.
…
Shares:
Read
Incredibly relevant - #108: In fear of forgetting
“Avi didn’t take to the pouch. Whenever we swam, he left his phone wrapped in a t-shirt on the beach, or on the bedside table of our bed & breakfast. I had a stronger constitution, prepared in case we saw something beautiful, or looked beautiful ourselves, or something special happened and we needed proof. The proof part was important. Throughout the trip, the imperative to capture what I saw, and especially what I loved, was almost subconscious, as if my memory had slipped out of my brain and into my hand.”
I’d never heard of artist Anne Truitt before reading this piece, and promptly bought and devoured her journal Daybook. I could quote so much of the article but really, go read if you have any interest in women making art. The bit about her daughter in the bath made me realise how grateful I am to see the world that way, too
I’ve no idea how I stumbled across I Am for an Art: Claes Oldenburg on His 1961 “Ode to Possibilities”. But I’m glad I did.
“I am for all art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.”
I have a borderline obsession for reading about art and artists and the lives they live. Whilst I’ve never been a moomin fan, I loved The Summer House and after reading Mason Currey’s latest substack I bought Fair Play within minutes. Hashtag influenced.
Listen
Treated myself to Surrender on vinyl, and this track!
I actually listened to some podcasts - super interested in the idea of dream incubation discussed here, loved and lolled at the talk around the complexity of male friendships here, a completely voyeuristic listen from Busy and look I can’t say I really *liked* this lol, but it was interesting and left me really feeling a bit aggy and wanting the women involved to look a bit deeper at everything discussed.
Look: