Let's all completely change our handwriting tonight
A list of good things from May
I imagine how one week would feel from inside a chrysalis, as a caterpillar who has otherwise only known the stimuli of sun and leaves and warmth and wetness and eating and movement. Slower, dimmer, perhaps 7 days feels as long as a month. Perhaps all of May feels as long as a year, while also feeling short as the few minutes between when the sun first peeks from behind the trees and it suddenly becomes the day.
May hasn’t let us near our Summer dreams just yet—she was cool, still, and dim. I’ve enjoyed my time in the chrysalis of slow Spring.
Call to adventure
I have many non-precious things and I have a few very precious things. One of my few very precious things is a vintage silver Tiffany fountain pen. I take it to the Tiffany’s on Bloor West once every few months to get the ink cartridge replaced and have it cleaned. It costs roughly $12 each time, and they bring you up to that wonderful special lounge for Tiffany’s clients and put it in a fresh blue bag for pickup—a chic micro-liturgy.
Right now, I’m learning calligraphy. I watched this lecture from The Met: Impact and Articulation: Calligraphy as Language and Form, and learning about the rich history of glyph-making got me on a writing-as-art-practice train. As it happens, my silver pen has much potential beyond daily journalling and note taking, and I will now use it for writing long, sloping letters to my lover with grace.
Threshold
Seeds, heirloom seeds, seed libraries, seed swaps. I pleaded for a 2x2 plot in my sister’s garden and desperately want to plant things like glass gem corn, deer tongue lettuce, black krim tomtoes, and pink cranberry beans. I’m fascinated by the rich colour palette and history of heirloom seeds, and the passion of the community surrounding seed protection and multi-generational cultivation. This month (prime seed sowing month…) I absorbed all the exciting textures of these precious natural gems and dreamt of a garden abundant with juicy colour.
Guide
I’ve been thinking critically about the norms of “networking” culture acutely, and how we expand ourselves when there are favours to ask politely for and connections to be made. God’s plan for me does not involve LinkedIn, but I have a firm handshake and I’m good at remembering faces. Enter (or rather, re-enter) the sexy, timeless, paper-that-feels-good-when-you-rub-it-between-your-thumb-and-forefinger business card. I’ve picked out a butter yellow stock for my own cards, which I’ll be handing out like candy around LES. My mother—veritable stationary expert—worked at a paperie in the 90's, so I’ll get her opinion on the toothiness before hitting print. Breezing past the obvious citation of Patrick Bateman’s eggshell vs. bone dialogue in American Psycho, I present a four-course menu of delicious calling cards.
Temptations
Last year when I did my holiday gift wrapping in a Goodnight Moon theme, I had a sneaking suspicion that the visual language of the book would soon resurface in popularity. A niche trend prediction win—USPS has released a collection of stationary adorned with the beloved striped curtains of one star bunny. Hard to resist the eternal comforts of the comb and the brush and the bowl full of mush.
Note: I noticed an incidentally strong print/paper thread in this month’s recap. I suppose I’m craving tactility for dinner and nostalgia for dessert.
Revelation
This month’s revelation is one small quote from Ingmar Bergman. I keep coming back to how full it feels for being so simple.
I make all my decisions on intuition, but then I must know why I made that decision. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.
— from Ingmar Bergman Confides in Students, New York Times, 1981
Transformation
I like to eat seasonally as much as possible, meaning that I eat what is being harvested in the Spring, in the Spring. There is another subset of eating seasonally (thematically) which refers to foods that are not tied to the current month on the farming calendar, but rather have a vivid, Spring–like quality that I enjoy. In short, foods that taste like Spring.
Matcha tastes like Spring to me. The colour pleases me even moreso than the taste. I love when it’s a creamy, rich verdant green; I find it so satisfying. I’ve tried a few but I think Matcha Dive is my favourite so far—I love that the founders live in Ontario and care a lot about quality and the production process.
Atonement
There’s a dramatic influx of religious imagery on my Twitter feed as the world mourns the passing of Pope Francis these last few weeks. Of all the headlines and quotes I skimmed, this photo of his bedroom cut through to my heart. So simple, so piteously modest, and in that, so much warmth and lightness. I no longer believe in the Heaven and Hell I hoped for and feared as a child, but, like the Pope famously said in a January 2024 interview, “I like to think of hell as empty; I hope it is”.
Return
I’m living with my little sister right now, and my older sister’s house is a short walk through the woods away from us. It’s so strange and silly to live in close quarters with your siblings in adulthood—when I left my parents’ house at 17, I grieved the loss of no longer having my sisters beside me. I feel like I’ve been given a rare gift by having this bonus time with them. Simple backyard dinners with our dog asleep in the grass nearby, bedtime gossip shared while perched on the foot of the bed, stealing each others’ best socks and perfumes. I’m 17 again, and I’m 13, and I’m 9, too.
Thanks for tucking May in with me. I hope we wake up into a bright and juicy June, butterfly wings full grown.
Until next month,
long live the sexy business card
divinely put ᵕ̈