My week, summed up in a photograph!
It’s been a time, hasn’t it?
But this week was an improvement on last week, which can only be a good thing. And when times are trying, it’s deeply comforting to have people who care in your corner. Thank you to those wonderful people, you know who you are!
Looking forward to
Getting in the garden this weekend, getting the beds ready for winter. Making apple butter with the giant bag of apples my Dad brought to the door.
Reading
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. I haven’t read this for years and had forgotten how lively and incandescent the writing is, and just how utterly right she is about everything. I was also glad for the reminder about John Keats and his epitaph (it’s basically “fuck the haters” though far more poetically expressed, as you’d expect!). As Woolf points out, “unfortunately, it is precisely the men or women of genius who mind most what is said of them.”
Why I Write by George Orwell. I’ve been picking away at this little book for a few months and every time I read it I am convinced these essays must have only been written last week or last year. So very little has changed. I love Orwell, and I have Rebecca Solnit’s amazing Orwell’s Roses (also highly recommended) to thank for reintroducing me to his genius.
Around the Kitchen Table by Sophie Hansen and Annie Herron. An absolute delight, as expected! I’ve been inspired to revive both my sourdough starter and my sketching.
Elusive Subjects: Biography as Gendered Metafiction by Susanna Scarparo. This is a PhD-related one but I’ve barely been able to drag myself away from it. A very interesting interpretation of how several writers have reimagined notable women who have been forgotten or excluded from history. My PhD is centred around that concept so everything she had to say was very relevant and exciting.
The Sun: The Love of My Life by Cheryl Strayed. “What does it mean to heal? To move on? To let go? Whatever it means, it is usually said and not done, and the people who talk about it the most have almost never had to do it.” And also something I know from experience: “if you lose a ring in a river, you are never going to get it back, no matter how badly you want it or how long you wait.” Oof.
Women’s Agenda: Everything you need to know about Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the US Supreme Court. This sent me down a rabbit hole of wanting to know about women, and women of colour, in the highest court of my own country. I didn’t know the current Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia is in fact a woman, Chief Justice Susan Kiefel, and it’s fairly even in terms of male/female representation - three women, four men - which is better than I expected (when I was a law student 22 years ago, the last time I was aware of the composition of the High Court, there was only one woman). But there are no people of colour, not currently nor in Australia’s High Court’s entire 120-year history. I found this fantastic AFR article that asks why. Lack of diversity perpetuates bias and as long as federal judicial appointments are solely at the government’s discretion, it won’t change. “The demography of the bench will never perfectly match the nation, but people should be able to see themselves in the faces of those chosen to dispense justice,” argues Andrew Leigh in the article. I wholeheartedly agree.
Listening to
Best Friend Therapy: Boundaries - what are they? Do we need them? How do we say no?
Broadly Speaking: Roxane Gay in conversation with Jamila Rizvi at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown on audiobook
Torch by Cheryl Strayed on audiobook
Eating
Nigella Lawson’s spaghetti with chard and chilli from Cook Eat Repeat - I followed her vegan suggestions and used olives (kalamata) and Vegemite instead of anchovies. Delicious!
Lauds Aged Cashew Cheese - made in Tassie, and absolutely lovely! I want to try everything of theirs now. I put some of the cheese on top of the Nigella spaghetti, as pictured. So good.
Vegan banana bread - again! I particularly like it spread with peanut butter as a post-run snack.
In January I pickled some cherries and had some leftover pickling liquid so I pickled six fresh apricot halves as well. I discovered these were still in the fridge a few days ago!! After a quick taste test, I confirmed they were not only still fine to eat, but delicious - sour and tangy, yet sweet. For lunch today, I grilled some halloumi and served that with the pickled apricots, alongside some mint, celery and spinach leaves from the garden. Eaten in the sunshine, it was truly ambrosial. Many memorable meals in my life have involved halloumi in some way! I am yet to eat the pickled cherries. That might end up being an Easter thing.
Picking
Ruby chard, tomatoes, the last of the beans. My beautician sent round a bag of fresh red chillies she’d grown, which was so kind! I think I will freeze most of them, as chillies can be successfully used from frozen. I also have about 10 kilograms of apples to preserve this weekend. I’m going to have to find a few podcasts to queue up!
Watching
Atlas of the Heart (Binge) - a dear friend told me she’d watched the whole season in one weekend, and Tom and I did pretty much the same. It’s like having therapy, in a good way. Highly recommended.
Jackie (iTunes) - I didn’t love it, but being a Kennedy aficionado I still enjoyed it. Oh my god, how did people used to smoke that much?!
Julia (Binge) - I was so excited about this show but I wasn’t sure what to make of the first episode. The Nora Ephron film Julie and Julia is one of my favourite films of all time, so perhaps I am just too attached to Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci as Julia and Paul Child. This show is a bit…grittier, for want of a better word. I know, I know, they were just fallible, ordinary human beings at the end of the day, but everything I’ve read about them suggests Paul Child was nothing but supportive of his wife and her late-in-life career. This show, certainly the first episode, seems to think otherwise so I’m wondering where they got that from or is it pure speculation? And what are the ethics of telling a story about someone’s real life and injecting some drama into it? Again very relevant to my PhD work. I don’t know if I’ll keep watching…but I probably won’t be able to help myself!
Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent)(Netflix) - our addiction to this fabulous show continues, and we have to ration it because we’re down to the last season now. It’s just a delight.
Wearing/applying
I treated myself to a Smitten Merino scarf which I haven’t stopped wearing, apart from today because it’s been so warm! I love the bright colour.
I ran out of my favourite shower gel so will have to replace that, stat!
I stopped using anti-perspirant deodorants in 2017 - when we moved back to Australia a year later, I found No Pong and have been a subscriber ever since. It’s the best, most effective natural deodorant I’ve found in this country. For someone who is very active (I walk to work, run at lunchtime, etc) and was really worried about odour, this stuff is seriously the bomb. In the UK, this one was my favourite (after trying pretty much every single one on the market) and I also had no BO issues! Also, no marks on black clothes with both No Pong and Neal’s Yard, which seriously used to be the bane of my life!
Favourite experiences of the week
Cooking with my two-year-old niece, who is utterly adorable, and has her own apron and little chef’s hat, which was too cute for words. She was quite fascinated by the onions and painstakingly peeled the skin off one. Her parents have joked that that’s how they’ll keep her occupied from now on! She’s a beautiful child and spending time with her truly is balm for the soul.
I also joined my university’s Shut Up and Write Zoom group this week and found that a concentrated period of time to focus on my exegesis revealed many ideas, all of which are slowly connecting like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It is quite thrilling to see it come together. Not to mention a relief!
Quote of the week
“I’m going to aim high. And why not.” - Anne Sexton
If you’d like to share your thoughts on this post with me, please do! Otherwise, same time next week? xx