i think this is the beginning of something

It feels like a stranger has visited my studio in the thick of the night and left a new sense of purpose on my doorstep. They left it in a box wrapped in paper, with a note that says This is what you’re going to live for now. There is no other way to describe it. It is an unexpected life force and I must take care of it.

The art of taking care is in the art of making.

And so I have been making: knitted garments, bobbins of yarn, chutneys, sauces, dyes. And zines.

Today it is raining and I am burning candles and eating Weetbix with stewed fruit I foraged for in the Central West with my mother. I am writing this at a wooden table I picked up at the local second-hand junk shop. A dying blue hydrangea sits in a vase and framed photos of friends are nestled in with five kilograms of beeswax blocks purchased from a beekeeper across the road from my office. There are two jars of lichen fermenting in ammonia at my feet. The internet tells me that the liquid will turn purple, and will be good enough to dye with in just six weeks. I will be able to adjust the shade with lemon juice or vinegar.

On the floor sleeps my little grey kitten, Ponyo. She has been the most wonderful addition to my life. She often climbs onto my chest when I am on the couch, lost in the internet, wedging her face between the screen and my face. Last week, she lay on my back while I had a nap and pressed her paw against the back of my jaw. I slept with it rested there for an entire hour and didn’t clench once.

When I told my therapists that I was getting a kitten they nodded enthusiastically and applauded the decision. They both used ‘healthy attachment bonds’ in a sentence and I nodded and said that was why I decided that I needed her.

Truthfully, I didn’t entirely know what they meant but I think I’m getting close. Both in the moments when she crawls all over me and I decide I’ve had enough, and when I’m lying in bed in desperate need of something soft and warm and alive to hold onto.

A zine I have been unknowingly chipping away at for the best part of a decade has just been sent to print. A little test run. It is a collection of words I’ve shared here, on Instagram, and in my journals. Once it arrives and I have seen it with my own hands, I will make a big song and dance about it and tell people they can pre-order a copy. And then in April, I will send the order to print and they will arrive, bound in nice paper, and I will push them into the post box.

I always wanted to publish a book. A Real Book with a Real Publisher. After spending the last few months pitching a book to various agents, who responded encouragingly, but with vague comments about what ‘the market’ is looking for, I realised that I didn’t need to make art for any market. I could just make it for me. Nobody had to like it. Nobody had to buy it. But I could have something tangible that I could put on my shelf and it would be mine and it would be an extension of me.

I desperately want the people who love me to read it. But they are also, sometimes, the people most uninterested in doing so. There are things that I write that are violently personal, and I know that it can feel blinding to those who live too close. It is also much easier to hide my hypocrisies when I share my writing with a stranger. They don’t see me fumbling in the world, making a mess of things.

I have listed it on my website here. It is technically available for pre-order already. If you’ve made it this far, and you’re interested, feel free to pre-order one. I will shout a bit louder about it in a week or so. I am aiming to have the order in with the printers by the end of March, if not earlier, so it will be a little while yet. I can ship internationally.

Thank you, as always, for supporting this digital patch of grass and the items I choose to spread out on it.

Ruby x