Slow-Small Media for the Weekend #17

(Above: PN’s Te Manawa Museum currently has an exhibition about sunshine and light. Here I am playing with my shadow in the light box.)

Song for the week: Just George ‘Lungs’

This local tune is by my friend Abi Symes. I’m proud to have a little connection to this song, all about the overwhelming nature of grief, because Abi wrote it after we had a conversation about the physicality of grief. Abi got a bad lung infection after going through multiple griefs in quick succession and I told them that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, the lungs are an organ where grief is felt.

Abi sent me the song and I felt all tingly at the way, as creative people, we can cross-pollinate each other without even intending to. I love the song and I love Abi.

(I add one song every time I compile this digest. You can enjoy the whole playlist on Youtube here.)

Be careful, this video may turn you into a total bird nerd

I loved everything about this little clip from Gardening Australia: the birds, the Australian native plants…but mostly, the enthusiasm and nerdy citizen-science of the sweet, sweet couple who are developing the bird garden. They gave me a deep case of ‘elder couple goals’ for me and F.

Watch this and then tell me people aren’t good:

A fun spring challenge: can you find enough edible flowers to make a ‘fairy salad’?

(Above: my fairy salad – all of this was growing in the garden.)

Spring in the Manawatū is pretty horrid. Squally winds, sudden temperature drops, weather that goes from warm to icy within the same outing…leaving me in the wrong clothing…all uncomfortable and cross.

It’s been like that all week….then on Wednesday…there was a brief reprieve and the sun came out. The garden was still. I could hear the tūi. I could hear my own thoughts.

I grabbed the sun-window to play in the garden and I made a fairy salad from edible flowers.

Read all about it, including the recipe for the dressing, over on my Substack.

(btw, I’m still not sure about writing in two places. Here and Substack. I thought I’d do it for a year and then reassess. Do you have any opinions? I’d love to hear them in the comments.)

Affordable Art*: ‘Forage’ vase

(Above: image of the ‘forage’ vase from Jilly Jam Pots borrwed from Felt)

At just $48, I think this vase is such good value. Handmade, rustic, interesting, very original. The inside is glazed to hold water for the little stems you have foraged from around the place. I love it – so simple and eye-catching. The maker, jilly jam pots, has lots of other goodness in their shop, too, including this little vase that looks like a lotus pod. So good.

(*To qualify as ‘affordable art’, the item needs to be less than $50 NZD. Let me know if you’ve spotted anything around the internet you think people might enjoy and I’ll share it.)

Rest in power, Kelly Ana Morey

As a Gen-X NZ writer, I was shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Kelly Ana Morey.

Kelly is iconic among my generation of NZ writers. Punky, fierce, funny, no-bullshit, straight from the hip, generous, strong sense of justice and of course, a brilliant writer who didn’t get enough kudos and celebration.

As my FB feed filled with tributes and lamentations, I was again filled with that deep sense of life is so short and random.

Tell people you appreciate them now. If people cross your mind – get in touch and tell them you were thinking of them.

Tell a creaky, broke, vulnerable NZ artist that you love their work TODAY. Or if you can’t be bothered doing that, give them $20 via their online begging bowls or maybe, buy one their creative efforts.

It’s hard being an artist in NZ:

“This fucking stupid milk-loving piece of shit dumbass mean-spirited sale at Briscoes racist sexist 40% off deck furniture piss country.”

as Hera Lindsay Bird once tweeted. (Also iconic.)

A poem: ‘After Work’ by Gary Snyder

I love Gary Snyder. Especially this book.

This week’s poem, ‘After Work’ I thought would be a good one as we (in NZ) leave winter…

It’s simple, it’s erotic, it’s amusing.

The stew simmering on the fire is not the only thing simmering.

& it reflects his Zen-eyes.

After Work

The shack and a few trees
float in the blowing fog

I pull out your blouse,
warm my cold hands
     on your breasts.
you laugh and shudder
peeling garlic by the 
     hot iron stove.
bring in the axe, the rake,
the wood

we'll lean on the wall
against each other
stew simmering on the fire
as it grows dark
            drinking wine.

*

I think that’s all I have to share this week, friends. Soon we are driving up the Desert Road to visit my folks. I’m hoping there will be snow so we can have a snowball fight and I can take photographs of icicles.

(I have a poem which mentions the Desert Road.)

+ Happy Fathers Day to all the good Dads in the world…and may the not-good Dads be forgiven so their offspring can find peace in their hearts.

If I don’t blow away in these horrible spring blusters…I will see you here again next week.

x Helen