5 lovely little guys

Hello friends! Here we are again...

Since the end of the school year, I feel like time has passed too quickly, even though I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every minute. I took a two-week jewellery casting class in May, and it was truly such a joy to learn and create without the intensity of a regular semester workload. It’s reassuring to see that I actually am capable and have passion and skill for this line of work. I’ve been thinking more and more realistically about my future and owning my own jewellery business and what that would entail. It’s scary to think about but it feels grounded in a way that makes the future feel a little bit more secure. Anyway, all that to say I was quite busy in May. But now we are in the heart of summer and my class is done and I find myself with lots of time to lay around and do nothing (i am unemployed). So naturally, I’ve been falling back into poetry.

The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

I love this poem very very much. Through my depression, I’ve found that noticing something ordinary and recognizing the loveliness of it, is a good practice for living and wanting to live. I admire anything that calls to attention that everything in the world is a kind of love. I especially find the last line so evocative and moving… “and what is more generous than a window?” it’s so unbelievably tender. When I read that line I can’t think of a single thing more lovely and generous and loving than a window, simple and ordinary.

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This is not a playlist of my own creation, but i hope you will take the chance to listen to it regardless as you scroll and read all that i have in store for this newsletter!

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Food

If you haven’t already guessed, the whole theme of this newsletter will revolve around poetry. After many days of reading and reading, I’ve decided on some choice poems to share here in the food section instead of a recipe. As Mr. Darcy once said, “I thought that poetry was the food of love.” He was brutally roasted right after this line but he was onto something here. Poetry certainly feeds the soul, and what is food but another way to love?

The Raspberry Room
by Karin Gottshall

It was solid hedge, loops of bramble and thorny   
as it had to be with its berries thick as bumblebees.   
It drew blood just to get there, but I was queen   
of that place, at ten, though the berries shook like fists   
in the wind, daring anyone to come in.  I was trying   
so hard to love this world—real rooms too big and full   
of worry to comfortably inhabit—but believing I was born
to live in that cloistered green bower: the raspberry patch   
in the back acre of my grandparents’ orchard.  I was cross-   
stitched and beaded by its fat, dollmaker’s needles.  The effort   
of sliding under the heavy, spiked tangles that tore   
my clothes and smeared me with juice was rewarded   
with space, wholly mine, a kind of room out of   
the crush of the bushes with a canopy of raspberry   
dagger-leaves and a syrup of sun and birdsong.   
Hours would pass in the loud buzz of it, blood   
made it mine—the adventure of that red sting singing   
down my calves, the place the scratches brought me to:   
just space enough for a girl to lie down.   

I love the imagery of this poem. The warm sun, the raspberry bushes in the orchard, the fat berries and sharp brambles scraping our skin as we push our way to the centre of the berry bush. I feel that it will come as no surprise that I deeply love the second sentence: “It drew blood just to get there, but I was queen / of that place, at ten, though the berries shook like fists / in the wind, daring anyone to come in.” It is so incredibly evocative to me. The defiance of being a child, exploring the world and feeling on top of it all! Even through the blood and sweat! To be rewarded with a sweet treat, right from the source. I was recently on a walk with Elliott and we came across a mulberry tree. I got to share with them the sheer delight of eating the sweet and tart berries straight from the branches! At the end of our impromptu feast, our fingers were stained pink and purple with the evidence of our childlike adventure. It was so wonderful.

If our first poem was about childhood then it seemed suitable to me that the second poem should be about the present. Food can be so forgiving, and I am just a person who sometimes makes mistakes but I want to forgive myself anyway. I am slowly learning not to let myself suffer for suffering’s sake and I really feel that this poem reflects that.

I allow myself
by Dorothea Grossman

I allow myself
the luxury of breakfast
(I am no nun, for Christ’s sake).
Charmed as I am
by the sputter of bacon,
and the eye-opening properties
of eggs,
it’s the coffee
that’s really sacramental.
In the old days,
I spread fires and floods and pestilence
on my toast.
Nowadays, I’m more selective,
I only read my horoscope
by the quiet glow of the marmalade.

I am no nun for Christ’s sake! I do not need to kneel and repent for existing!!! Neither should you!! I hope this poem makes you feel like you deserve the luxury of breakfast and a quiet special morning.

My last food-related poem is about my tummy. Feels a bit silly to write down, but I used to really hate my stomach and after many years and lots of growing (and lots of love from Max haha) I now love my tummy so much.

anthem for my belly after eating too much
by Kara Jackson

i look in the mirror, and all the chips i’ve eaten
this month have accumulated
like schoolwork at the bottom of my tummy,
my belly—a country i’m trying to love.
my mouth is a lover devoted to you, my belly, my belly
the birds will string a song together
with wind for you and your army
of solids, militia of grease.
americans love excess, but we also love jeans,
and refuse to make excess comfortable in them.
i step into a fashionable prison,
my middle managed and fastened into
suffering. my gracious gut,
dutiful dome, i will wear a house for you
that you can live in, promise walls
that embrace your growing flesh,
and watch you reach toward everything possible.

I especially love the line “my belly—a country i’m trying to love” because I have a tummy! and it is a country that i am trying to love!! I love it so much actually that i have been wearing every top i own that shows off my tummy to the world! Feeling thankful to have a body that i am making peace with and that is loved in many ways and that is a vessel for all the delicious food i eat!

I will leave the food section with an absolute favourite line of mine from a wonderful poem called OUR BEAUTIFUL LIFE WHEN IT’S FILLED WITH SHRIEKS by Christopher Citro. (highly suggest you click the link and read the whole poem)

“I’m doing a balancing act with a stack of fresh fruit in my basket. I love you. I want us both to eat well.”

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Art and Archeology

It’s been very hard to choose items for this section! I have so so many cool finds I want to share and simply not enough space! Following in line with the whole poetry theme I wanted to show that everything can be a poem if you allow it to be, so here are some things that are not strictly poems but are also absolutely poems in their own right.

The Sorrowful Truth, June 2020, by artist-gogh on Tumblr

Minecraft mention for all my gamers. I genuinely think this is such a beautiful digital impressionist painting. When I first saw this I stared at it for a really really long time just soaking in the colours and feelings it evoked and wondering about the title of the piece and following the movement. It’s a really moving piece. If you’ve ever played Minecraft to the end or know anything about the end of the game, then you’ll know there is a poem when you fully complete the game. It is a wonderful wonderful poem and obviously, I have included it for you here above this awesome Minecraft painting.

Excerpt from Sunrise by Louise Glück, Illustrated by Lizzie Ormian

I do particularly love poems in the form of illustrations or comics, and this is one of my favourites! The artist Lizzie Ormian creates a soft dreamlike landscape to accompany the themes of memory and change within the poem. I really enjoy her art because it all has this very tender quality, and a lot of the art she creates incorporates poems or a written element. Very cool stuff. You can find her on tumblr here: Lizzie Ormian. The poem used in this particular little comic is so lovely and is written by Louise Glück, a very accomplished poet and essayist. She won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature (among her many other awards), and I personally haven’t met a poem of hers that I didn’t like. Her work is personal and evocative and human. Here is the full poem if you’re interested: Sunrise

Geoglyph Horses by autoneurotic

Littered throughout the British countryside are great white horses. These massive geoglyphs are carved deep into the hillside and filled with bright white chalk. For my friends who are not as archeology-passionate as me, a geoglyph is a large-scale design or pattern on the surface of the land made by arranging stones, rocks, or earth, or by removing ground cover to expose the rock or soil beneath. This artist paints beautiful beautiful paintings of real British geoglyphs! Some of these geoglyphs date back hundreds and even thousands of years (i’m pretty sure the oldest one is 3000 years old!). We only know of their existence because throughout our ever-changing history, people who lived nearby to these glyphs would maintain them. Here is a wonderful article about the history and current tradition of maintaining these geoglyphs: Against All Odds, England’s Massive Chalk Horse Has Survived 3,000 Years. Without maintenance, these huge chalk horses would be quickly grown over and consumed by the hillside. I think it’s so extraordinary that despite the meaning of these chalk horses being lost to time, we have taken care of them for 3000 years, passing down their care through the generations. There is so something so unbelievably tender about it. People long ago said “we are here” and hundreds of years later, through the preservation of their creation, we answer “we see you”. I feel like that speaks for itself.

“the sun” by Edvard Munch (1909)

No thoughts with this one, just bask in the glory of the sun. This is what summer feels like, this is what summer is. Absolutely radiant! This painting feels like this song to me: Love Birds. Unrelated thought here, but we should all listen to a lot more classical music while going on walks because the world is so compassionate and open to you if you just give it a chance! Anything that evokes feeling, to me, is a poem. So please go out into the world and find some poetry.

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Love and Loving

Summer is the season of sun… and the sun makes me feel so in love with the world. When i’m sitting outside and the sun hits my face i feel the warmth penetrate down to my bones and everything feels easy. This section is a few things that bring me immense joy… like sitting in the summer sun.

I wanted to start off with a lovely song from a lovely movie so that you could listen as you continue on to the end of the newsletter, so here you are.

Vincent van Gogh, Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, 1890, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art

One of my favourite poems and has been for years and years. The delivery of the poem is so evocative to me. Even before i knew i was queer i was drifting towards queer art and artists like Andrea Gibson.

Moments from this summer that brought me such a deep sense of fulfillment with my life. My uncle’s garden, a clay bowl i made with Ezra, holding my baby nephew (he brings me so much joy and fills me with so much love), me standing by a large sunflower after a sleepover with max (we went to pick up sandwiches for breakfast).

I love living. I’m glad I exist.

Another song that makes me feel all full and wild. I feel this song from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

I don’t quite know when it started, but my dear friends and I have adopted saying “loving you” instead of “i love you”. I have always considered love to be a choice, something you consciously decide to take part in, something you choose every day with every action and word. Something you put the work in for. By changing our phrasing, we have effectively gone from a statement to an action. We are saying i am in the process of loving you, consciously and presently and wholly. Honestly every time I read, write, or say, “loving you” it feels the same as a warm safe hug with my wonderful friends. Shoutout to Elliott and Elysse… i am loving yous guys.

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Well friends, that concludes this newsletter. I hope you are having a summer filled with warmth, laughter, fun, and most importantly, rest. I am loving you all so much.