A small lockdown dispatch
Hello hello, and how are you? I am writing this from home, where we have been in lockdown now for about six weeks. I could not say I am exactly happy, because it has reached the stage where I am sick of the sight of every one of my possessions — but I have had a good three months, and before they slip away, I would like to write about them.
Somehow, I have found a full-time writing job, spinning words for two New Zealand magazines: dish (a food title) and Good (a women’s sustainable living title). I remain convinced I got the job by accident — I applied, was turned down, came to the office to discuss freelancing, was mistakenly interviewed for the job, and went with it — but who cares! I am happily ensconced in a life of interviewing many interesting people about things they really want to talk about, writing A Lot, and eventually proofreading both magazines cover to cover to weed out stray commas and dangling modifiers, a long-established hobby of mine anyway. Once every two months, I get to hold two magazines in my hands, literally hot off the press downstairs, which is maybe the best feeling in the world. I also have the regular joy of sampling free artisan ricotta/gourmet chocolate/the newest Fix & Fogg, not to mention all the food brought in after photoshoots. It is a ridiculous and wonderful job, even if it leaves me no time to do anything else.
About two months ago, we also moVED HOUSE and left behind a miserable flat for a beautiful central city apartment. Admittedly, we are still missing some crucial furniture, there is no heating whatsoever, and the bathroom vents have not been cleaned for perhaps sixty years, but the ceilings are high and the wooden floors are precisely the colour of a croissant. We live alone here, and the art gallery clock tolls all the quarter-hours of the day, which makes it feel a little less as if we’ve left London.
It has been three months of making: a pair of corduroy dungarees I will maybe never take off, an evening dress for no occasion, many loaves of challah, a perfect brownie, two summer dresses while it poured. I also had some more writing published, which I suppose I’m supposed to publicise: a piece about the joys of sewing, a baby article about jian dui/煎堆/sesame balls in this v cute zine, and an essay about taking my grandma to the supermarket. I would be so tickled if you read one.
The past few months have contained a stretch of excellent reading. One highlight was reading two novels by people I used to be at uni with — and while it’s really very rude of them to write novels at their age, I enjoyed both books. Jo Hamya’s Three Rooms was excitingly intellectual, if bleak, while Rebecca K. Reilly’s Greta & Valdin was one of the funniest books I’ve read in years.
If you don’t like fiction (although, why not?), the essays in Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning stopped me in my tracks — essential reading not only for anyone interested in contemporary race relations but also those who want to read more writing where the language itself is beautiful. Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking, a series of food essays on topics like ‘that random semi-disgusting eggplant dish you make just for yourself but would never serve to anyone else’ and ‘the joys of clotted cream’, was just as charming as you’d hope. And I loved several single essays too: this shockingly perfect one by Marsha Pomerantz; maybe my favourite ever Grub Street Diet, with journalist Leon Neyfakh; this one about wanting to be beautiful by Haley Nahman.
Most importantly, it’s been two months of remembering how much I love poetry and wish there were more of it in my life. Maybe you do too, in which case, you might like these: a poem about climate change, this paragraph from an academic essay that is not a poem but may as well be, two poems that are not about either dinosaurs or nothing, an old poem I love, and this and this and this (Soph, if you are reading this, they are some of my favourite you have ever written).
I hope your week, wherever you are, is full of ordinary joy.