✮Five Brilliant Things✮
A sporadic recommendations post, which does not contain five things
Hello,
I'm still trying to work out the right place for this - I don't want to bury it at the end of a long essay, but equally I'm not sure you all want an extra email - albeit a sporadic one, written when I have brain-space to spare. Personally, I don’t like getting too many emails, even if they’re nice. Maybe tell me how you feel in the comments.
Also, I'm still trying to work out how to stick to five things - this week, I have eight. People should stop writing compelling posts, seriously. Anyway, here they are:
Will Dowd on celestial possibilities for future burials.
“If people cry at my funeral, I don’t want it to be because flaming remnants of my body have landed in their eyes.”
Alice Kuipers on caring for her mother-in-law with Alzheimers
“When my ten-year-old tantrums, my mother-in-law looks to me or my partner for emotional clarity. We stay calm, like a flight attendant on a plane through turbulence. We are the emotional cues, so she can express her emotions safely. We regulate. She can be free.”
Josie George on the marvel of healing a wound
‘I have witnessed my body undeniably and skilfully protect me from infection and then slowly arm and busy itself with the job of knitting itself new skin to close the gap. It’s a job it has done a thousand times before in a thousand different ways and most of the time, I’ve ignored its effort entirely.’
Carson Ellis breaks all the rules of Hourly Comic Day, and the result is exquisite
‘I woke up today with a powerful urge to paint and little patience for writing by hand. It'll be a loose interpretation of comics this year, I guess.’
Paint Here shares Hayao Miyazaki’s advice for watercolour painting
‘First, make an energetic sketch with the pencil. It's not a construction sketch. This is the main piece. Draw freely without using an eraser.’
Shalon Auslander’s Prayer Upon Arriving Again At The Writing Section Of The Local Bookstore
‘…and so I pray to thee, O Lord,
let there be as many prompts
within its mostly blank exercise pages
(I don’t know how they get away with that)
as there are bits of the novel manuscript
which I fed into a shredder last night, O Lord,
for lo, I am as wretched…’
Jeffrey Streeter’s gorgeously illustrated piece on Japan’s plum blossom season
‘Some of the cultural associations with plums in Japan belong to the harvesting of the fruit itself in June during a period known as “ume shigoto” or plum work2, when plums are pickled (becoming “ume boshi”) or turned into plum wine (“ume shu”). And the rainy season, which usually occurs in June, is called 梅雨 (“tsuyu)” or “plum rain.”’
Kate Fox on the true meaning of alexithymia
‘Everybody else in the family were the designated feelers. They had very big feelings a lot. Erupted and geysered and gushed. Well, except my Mum. She was more like me. Nothing, nothing, nothing- then a sudden surprising something out of nowhere which appeared to bear no relation to any other thoughts or feelings she had previously expressed.’
Do you have a brilliant Substack to recommend? The comments below are waiting to take your call.
Take care,
Katherine
P. S. Don’t forget to pre-order your signed & dedicated UK copy of Enchantment :)
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I'll gladly accept your emails. Send them whenever the mood strikes you.
It's 2 am in Texas with a torrential thunderstorm. My dog can't sleep so neither can I, though my 90 year old mother is blissfully snoring. Your post came like a gift, making me long for "plum rain" and hopefully sending some blossoms into future dreams. Thank you, Katherine!