a rainy sunday afternoon

it's raining at last, after an entire month of sunshine. we've never had an entire month of sunshine in a row, so it was very welcome, but so is the rain. the rain has made me slow down - i can't be in the garden, picking strawberries or weeding or mowing or hoeing, so i'm in the plant-filled front entry with a cup of creamy coffee, a book, my journal, my camera and the kittens. i must admit it's bliss and precisely what i needed. i've been reading some more of knausgaard's small autumn essays. it's a book i've had on the nightstand for some time - you can just pick it up, read one or two as you wish, and then put it down again for some weeks. it lends itself to this slow way of reading it; each essay is shining, deep and luminous and i must get the rest of the seasons to savour as well (as you might guess, there are four volumes in all). they are small musing on single words - words like badger, war, labia - very diverse - written by knausgaard to his unborn daughter, as they awaited her. they're not exactly micro-memoirs, which i've also been pondering since hearing about them on the bittersweet life podcast, more like little perfect essayistic musings on being human. in looking for more small, perfect essays, i came across brevity, an online magazine filled with them. check it out if you're looking for something to read on a rainy sunday afternoon.

#fivethingsfriday

1. why didn’t i write a book to my child from when she was born? of course, it wouldn’t have been this luminous, beautiful thing that knausgaard wrote. but it would have been my beautiful thing. for my beautiful child.

2. this dark, dreary, rainy part of the year is hard to get through. but candles and comfy socks and cats make it more bearable. all seasons have their time.

3. jane the virgin. what a series! so charming and full of hope amidst the drama. and we need hope amidst the drama these days.

4. life can change in an instant. hold on for the ride. so tight.

5. other people can never really understand your life. no one is in it like you are. this is both terrifying and beautiful.

* * *

these seem much longer on instagram.

you own the copyright on your life

a scene much more serene than i feel on the inside

"you own the copyright on your life." what a powerful thought that is. i just read it here. i'm not familiar with ntozake shange otherwise, but that thought is precisely what i needed to hear. i think it resonates with me in the same way that elizabeth gilbert's "own your shit" did some time ago. it gives me a dose of courage that i've been lacking, making me think that all of the multitude of things i've been holding back from writing about should be allowed to come out, because i own them - they are me and my life and my story and even my copyright, with the emphasis on the latter syllable. but at the same time, i have to wonder how interesting they would be to anyone else. maybe it doesn't matter, i am, as always, blogging first and foremost for myself, to work out what i think and feel about things (it's cheaper than therapy after all). and with the state of blogs these days, perhaps it doesn't matter much what anyone else thinks as no one is reading anyway (i'm much less bitter about that than it may sound). but it is also daunting and it feels impossible to truly write something that encompasses all of the minutiae that make up the complexity of a life, even if i did attempt to write it all out.

i say this because i have, of late, fallen in love with norwegian writer karl ove knausgaard's writing and recently tried to read volume 1 of his six volume autobiographical novel-esque opus, my struggle. i say tried because i just couldn't finish it, despite really and truly loving his writing. it's a bit proustian in its level of detail and i never could finish proust either. but i just read a review of volume 4 in the new york review of books and i think i'll have to give that volume a whirl. he is fearless in his truth telling, and in his examination of the minutiae of life and when he began, he was nobody, so why shouldn't i be equally fearless?

there are many good reasons i've held back. no one wants to read a bunch of sad whining. i don't want to hang anyone out to dry (well maybe a little). i don't want to hurt anyone's feelings (and the fact is that sometimes the truth hurts). it might get in the way of whatever is next. writing it out will make it all that much more real. life is painful and hard at times and getting older is no fun, but who wants to hear that? and who wants to admit it? this all makes it sound like something much bigger than the regular disappointments and sorrows that life throws our way and it's not that. but sometimes when those small sorrows and disappointments accumulate, it can seem like too much. and so i've put off and put off writing about them. and i suppose that's why i don't feel particularly light-hearted and funny in this space anymore.

i think it's time to start owning the copyright on my life. i recently saw a quote on pinterest that went something like, "you own everything that happened to you. tell your stories. if people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better."