Stories for the end of term

Stories. Exhibitions. Books, books, books

A rain cloud raining over the sunset. No reason, just liked it

Every summer, my husband is involved with the school adventure camp, and this year, as my son is the correct age to attend, so I found myself completely alone for the whole week*.

When I am presented with a large period of time alone I tend to fall into the trap of thinking it would be a great opportunity to get caught up on things. Three days in I began to understand that getting caught up on things is some kind of capitalist trap; I was exhausted and there was still an infinite amount of things I could do. There’s always an infinite amount of things to do.

The belief we must always be using time productively is capitalist. I am not designed for all this up and doing. I am designed for mooching about, dithering, pottering and noodling. So I spent the last few days pondering, and I felt much better for it.

Ponderings

Sometimes I still think about the people, even people that passed through my life briefly. This week, I thought about my third year housemate at Oxford, a boy with questionable toilet habits who once believed me when I jokingly told him it was bad to eat seedless grapes because their natural right to reproduce had been stolen. He was concerned with things like that; animal rights, the environment, improving society. He ran as a candidate for the Green Party.

He also wouldn’t empty the bins. When faced with a full bin, he would simply start stacking rubbish on top of the over flowing bin. Once, everyone in the house but him was away, and I returned to a bin that was several times taller than usual. He wanted to change the world for the better, but he wouldn’t change a bin bag or clean up his mess in the toilet. I still think about that paradox from time to time.  Anyway, the moral of the story is its easier to empty a bin than pick week old banana peel out of your sheets at midnight when you’re tired because the housemate you mistook for a cleaner is done with your shit and dumped the whole damn thing into your bed.

Sometimes I think of the lady that gave me a tissue when I was 19 and sitting on a bench crying. She didn’t know what was wrong and I can’t remember but she told me it’d be ok. Just a random kindness, I’m sure you’ve got one you keep stashed away to remind yourself not all humans are awful, or to remind yourself to be someone else’s random kindness.

Journal entry about the yellow tree

For instance, one autumn when my boy was about three, we were killing time near the park. There was a tree, probably a Japanese maple I guess, and it had the best yellow leaves. The leaves at the bottom went yellow first, and then the yellow worked slowly upwards until the whole tree was so yellow it seemed to glow in the urban grey as if it had sucked the colour out of everything else. I was standing in the middle of the pavement, and he was picking up yellow leaves and we were happy, and in the way.

I apologised to a passerby and explained why this tree was our favourite and I remember her under that golden canopy tearfully thanking us for being so kind, because everyone else had been horrible to her that morning and she’d run out of hope for humanity. We really hadn’t done anything at all except step out of her way and offer her a yellow leaf, but for some reason at that moment that was the most important thing anyone could do. I think about her, and I hope she’d doing well. I hope people are kind to her today.

I think about this quote from Kurt Vonnegut:

I think about the Buddhist monk that gave a talk that started ‘everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom do the washing up’

We all want to save the world, but the real saving comes with the minutiae of life. Taking the rubbish out. How we act. Inspiring people is small ways. Being present. Trying your best. We want to save the world, but if we all helped with the cleaning up, would the world need saving?

Workings

When I moved to Oxfordshire, my mum died and then covid happened and galleries shut down somewhere along the way I stopped exhibiting. I used to exhibit in Southampton, but not exhibiting was a lot less stress. It can also be a lot cheaper, after all the framing and shipping, and if you don’t sell, the return shipping. There’s no actual guarantee you’re going to make money. One hopes so, but it’s not a given.  So I sort of stopped exhibiting.

Anyway, for some reason I entered the ironbridge printmakers exhibition because I like what they do and I didn’t mind giving the entrance fee to them. Maybe it’s because people look at me like I have two heads if I say I don’t exhibit. The raven piece I was working on (and still haven’t listed) was too big, and I wasn’t confident, so I decided to enter two pieces to hedge my bets.

The apple tree because it’s still a favourite, and randomly, the dragon under Oxford. I didn’t think anyone would take the dragon seriously, because dragons are fantasy I suppose, but I wanted to choose work that summed me up best. An apple tree and a dragon. Why not.

Shockingly, both got in and I was delighted. I do have to buy shipping and framing for both these now, and it would be a good time for me to ask you for money, but I’ve cleverly turned the shop off so I can have a little rest. Do buy something next week though. Or bung me a quid on kofi . No one has ever bought me a coffee there, so I don’t even know if that donation thing works. I wish Substack had a tip jar though, because a monthly subscription seems too much to ask, especially as I won’t be writing every week throughout the summer. The next two months will be strictly sporadic and limited to when I have drawn something really good, or spotted a really exciting bat.

Findings

I think I found a new bat at the lake. I’ve been hearing them for a while, I think, but with so many pips and daubs it’s really quite loud, and easy to think there’s a slightly odd sounding pipistrelle or perhaps daubenton’s bats sound a bit different over land. On Tuesday I saw a bat at 9.30 before the pips and daubs were up and chased it round gracelessly. It’s much harder to figure out the peak frequency when there’s only one bat, but from my best guess and the sound of it I think it might be a Brandt’s bat. I don’t know how likely that is, hopefully I will get to harass it again.

I also got my holiday reading order in from postscript books. Don’t tell me I have a lot of books to read and don’t need more, because if there are discount books available, I definitely need more. Looking forward to reading Villager by Tom Cox because that’s what all the cool substack kids are reading (by which I mean Cathy).

There’s also Deorhord because I enjoyed Wordhord so much, and the new John Wright book because well, it matches the one I have already and who doesn’t love a hedgerow?

They sent me a discount code for my friends. I have no idea if I’m allowed to call my substack readers friends (I think you are) but if you want to try the code for 20% off is HERE

I’ve used them a couple of times and have not had any bad experiences though they were a little slower on the postage times that they quoted this time. They say they are independent, I guess that makes them less evil than Amazon. Anyway, have a good weekend.

* It was meant to be a whole week, but there was a broken finger and a drowned phone (it rained. A LOT) and they came home a day early in a very bad mood (arranging hospital appointments and even buying a new phone has a new level of complexity if a phone is broken. Inevitably someone doesn’t have a phone, and isn’t contactable when they need to be. We have become entirely dependent on technology).