Poetry. LINK FOR STORIES
Here’s Shel Silverstein’s “Melinda Mae.” Life can only really be taken one small bite at a time.
Journeying
I had written something for you today. I had written it, and written it, and written it. And I could not make it work. I found myself trying to perform the writing version of standing on my head while contorting myself into a pretzel shape. Impossible. I quit.
I still have a poem for you, Shel Silverstein. I still have gardening and making and mending. And I have something I’ve never done at A Thin Space (or not that I can remember). I have a digital scavenger hunt. At least, that’s what I’m calling this list of links to what I have noticed and found interesting. I love reading other’s collected lists. They always send me down the most curious rabbit holes, where I discover what I would never come across any other way.
Enough said. Here we go!
- a fellow Montanan and writer of the informative and soulful On the Commons posted a link to the Aeon article “The rewards of ruin: Societal downfalls loom large in history and popular culture but, for the 99 per cent, collapse often had its upsides.” I thanked her for “always linking to things I would not locate otherwise.” I found the article a helpful addition to other works (The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow, Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell, and Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz’s An Indigenous People’s History of the U.S. are three) that question the accuracy of history recorded by those in power, the one percent. Luke Kemp, the article’s author, is a senior research fellow at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. Does a Center for the Study of Existential Dread exist? Are they hiring?
From existential risk to blueberries with honey on toast, if you do not know
and her newsletter The Gusset, here’s your introduction. Sarah took a vacation from her newsletter in July. Now, she’s back. If you’re interested in fiber, you will enjoy Sarah’s adventures in all things thread, yarn, and wool. Even if you know nothing about weaving, knitting, or spinning, Sarah’s words, comics, and her adventures with her sidekick Beryl make wise and delightful company.Are you familiar with the “interstitium”? Are you an interstitionary person? I can’t remember how I found Jennifer Brandel’s Orion article “Invisible Landscapes,” probably by clicking a link on a list like this one. Brandel describes scientists’ work with a newly discovered bodily system, a fluid filled network that lives between and around cells, tissues, and organs, the interstitium. For Brandel, this new system provides a powerful metaphor for those who “are bridging, connecting and serving as conduits, keeping systems in communication, operable, healthy.” If you’d like to keep up with Brandel’s work with interstitionaries, you can complete her short survey at the end of the article.
What would a link list be without book recommendations: I picked up Jane Bowles Two Serious Ladies at the library this week and got halfway through it before I realized that I had read a biography of the author several years ago. Her life is not boring, and neither are the lives of these serious ladies. I’ve begun
‘s new Mobius Book. Lacey has structured the book like, yes, a mobius strip, so that it contains no real beginning or end. You can begin reading from what we English speaking readers would consider the ”front” of the book, or you can turn the book over and start reading from the “back.” I decided to read twenty or so pages from the front and then read a similar amount from the back. The book is a trickster. It’s also tender and very relatable.Lastly, a painting and a painter, Andrea Kowch. I came across her “Night Watch,” several years ago and have kept its “tab” open on my phone ever since. I can’t find a print, postcard, or other less expensive option for owning the image, hence the tab. The woman’s face, the sky, the wind, the lighthouse are all well-known to me. I am a night watcher. Kowch paints wild haired women in circumstances both domestic and surreal. Her work is familiar, uncomfortable, and arresting.
You’ve reached the end of the list but by no means the end of possibilities for exploration. Lists like these provide a peek into the mind of their maker. I invite you to engage your interstitionary-ness in the comments and include your own links of interest. Thank you for sharing a bit of yourself with us.
Gardening and Making/Mending
The volunteer pumpkin vine has produced one sherbert colored fruit before succumbing to squash vine bore. I believe this pumpkin, or winter squash, is a Galeux d’Eysines, although it lacks the lumps and bumps of a mature fruit. If you know the name of this mystery pumpkin, let me know! A twenty-foot mystery sunflower, a volunteer from last year, towers over its compatriots in the front flower bed. It has three branches, each several inches thick, and has just begun producing sunflowers that, due to their height, only the birds get to appreciate. Speaking of sunflowers, my daughter spotted two orioles feeding from volunteer sunflowers that sprang up in a pot next to a Habanero pepper plant. The pepper is spindly and has only produced a few fruit, but the sunflowers thrive. I bought a bright orange oriole feeder last year after the yellow and black birds began to frequent the yard. Evidently, the color orange, oranges, and grape jelly attract them. One of my neighbors left several lawn bags full of grass clippings at the end of the driveway for pick-up by the sanitation workers. I grabbed the bags before they could. Grass clippings make excellent mulch. I left them in the car overnight with the windows closed. When I got into the car the next morning, I found the inside of the windows completely covered in condensation as if several people had slept, inhaling and exhaling all night, in the car. When I reached into the bags, the grass was hot to touch, already at work becoming something else.
My daughter’s vest is complete. I pulled out my great-grandmother’s button tin that still contains many of her buttons, some so old that they have crumbled to dust in the bottom. My daughter selected four different metal buttons to go on the vest. She’s not sure what order she’d like them in yet. I’m waiting for her final decision. Then the vest will be ready to accompany her to college in a few weeks. The mittens will be ready too. I’m working on them, while I wait to hear about the buttons. Then what? A sweater for me I think and perhaps a pair of pants (sewn, not knitted).
Coming Up and New
“Home Stories”
I started a new daily (except for weekends and vacations) series on Notes last week, where I tell stories about objects in my home. The series started as a way for me to interact on notes, and I’m really enjoying it. I hope you will as well.
Here’s the latest note:
Threshold is on vacation until September 8th
and I will be back with our weekly lives beginning in September. We’ll also have more information about a new invitation to be in community as we explore these topics in more depth.Contemplative Reading
Our next Contemplative Reading gathering is Saturday, August 16 from 10-11am CT. Paid subscribers will receive a link to join the Friday before. If you are not a paid subscriber and would like to join, please go here to pay the small fee and receive the Zoom link.
I had to laugh at "Does a Center for the Study of Existential Dread exist? Are they hiring?" I think that, by definition, that kind of center would never get formed! As for the painting: do you think she intentionally has her hair blowing to the right, but the curtain to the left?
Emily, I’m so enchanted with how you began this list, not only because I am a long fan of Shel Silverstein, but you zeroed in on just the right preface to this and all lists. Like Mark, I laughed at: “does the Center for the Study of Existential Dread exist? Are they hiring?” Well now, all of this might just linger in the interstitium between us. Your complication of images is stunning, and I am ever-grateful to you for sharing about the forthcoming “Awakening to the Heart” course. Thank you, dear Friend.