Listen. Do It For The Aesthetic. If You Want To Fill An Entire 20 Dollar Sketchbook With Anatomy Drawings

AUGUST: THE TRUE ENDING OF A YEAR

unknown / @nobodysflower / paul d'amato / mary oliver / @gaycommunist / justine kurland / @sioltach / alida nugent / raymond carver

I was hit by a wave of grief for the first time in a while today, and the weather was very polite in reflecting my mood as it was grey and rainy on my daily walk. I told the wind and rain about everything I was feeling, and let myself feel the anger I had been afraid of. I think it's important to share your emotions so that they aren't stuck inside. If you're not ready to open up to other people, tell the wind and the rain. They'll always listen.

Let’s say your matrilineal line is fairly consistent and everyone has their daughter at 25. So four women in your matrilineal line are born every hundred years. In a thousand years, that’s only 40 women. Like the math is so simple and yet ? You don’t think about it. So in 2000 years, 80 women. So basically, 0 AD started roughly about 80 mothers ago. That’s it.

I searched for your pieces in every soul I came across, I craved you like the stars crave the night, I searched for pieces of you in all, in the valleys, streets, empty houses, flowers, and in me, it was then I realised I was searching the pieces of me, that was left in you................

*pieces of my heart*

postcards from Orkney

“She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.”

— Neil Gaiman, Stardust (via surqrised)

“i don’t like writing about my day, but i want to keep a journal”:

quotes and copywork. when reading, if you find something you enjoy, just copy it into the notebook. you can copy a whole chapter if you wish, highlighting what caught your attention the most.

definitions. look up on a dictionary and copy it. you could write your own dictionary as well, making up definitions for words.

lists. a classic, write movies to watch, books to read, the playlist of the month or just the groceries you have to buy.

maps. when going somewhere, you could draw the route you took or just a map of the place itself. just look up the place on google maps and copy it. you can draw a little map of all the places you have lived or the schools you have attended as well.

photos

take “notes” as you watch movies / documentaries. write down phrases that caught your attention or doodle.

illustrations and clippings. if you see an image or piece of art that you liked, put it in your journal. if it’s from a book or from a magazine I would recommend scanning it, tho’. it will serve as a record of what kind of art you enjoy through the years.

newspaper clippings from the day.

tickets and pamphlets. from movies, museums, transportation.

postcards

records. you could record for a month what the temperature was when you woke up and when you went to sleep. if you do that for a year, it gives you a better notion of the passing of seasons. you could record rainfall and other seasonal changes as well. you could choose something (an animal, a plant, an item or object) and write down every time you see it.

rubbings of leaves, coins, landmarks.

count. there’s a scene in the movie Coraline (2009) where Coraline’s dad tells her to go count the windows. you could do the same type of counting game if you are bored and write down.

mindmaps/sketchnotes + timelines of books, movies, music albums.

collages

pressed leafs and flowers

your collections. if you collect anything you could write down an inventory or maybe try to draw the items.

recipes. write down recipes and give it a score every time you try it. you could do the same for drinks you try out.

stickers

comic strips. you can find a bunch of it online, glue your favorites in your notebook.

the complete works: the diary, virginia woolf // erasure, zoë lianne // dandelion wine, ray bradbury // the unabridged journals of sylvia plath, sylvia plath // the women, kim addonizio // august, mary oliver // incision, yves olade // high bridge park, carlie hoffman.

That second paragraph is.... something alright

it isn’t that i ache, but the swell in my chest when i tilt up to look at the top of ferris wheels isn’t fear anymore. it isn’t that i ache but instead that while you and i were drunk on your living room rug and you said you’ll find love i didn’t tell you otherwise because i liked the way the words looked in the air between us. i feel no lacking, but the night is a blue that is knifeish, all silver keen like the imagined collar of my future. it isn’t that i want a specific thing, but i am wanting, the soft call of a horizon that peeks out sunsets too far to touch no matter how fast i run. 

where am i going. why am i not home here, where it is easy, and where i could build a life unseasonably sad but bearable. i could stop feeling stuck and instead teach myself this is what it means to be planted. i could say that the strange pull in me is only the desire of entropy, to unseam what should be held together.

it isn’t that i yearn, but i picture the blues of oceans and ask - is this the color that belongs to her? when i find her, will i be a better person? i fill my mouth with tongues and chocolate and good times but i cannot pin her down. maybe one day i will step through the mirror and she will be there, easily, hungry for her same ache and want of me.

home, i mean. home. 

hir·aeth

/‘hir,āeth/

noun a homesickness for a home you can not return to or a home that never was.