It”s been a while. As we all expected, me more than anyone else, this second letter in your inbox comes with a delay. The weeks in winter feel so elastic that January goes on forever,February is over before you even notice.
And now it is the last weekend of March. My new year started with the fool, a tarot card I drew from my girlfriends pasta deck that I gifted her for Christmas. As with most new age spiritual things I side with the Spanish saying 'Yo no creo en las brujas pero de que las hay las hay" (I don’t believe in witches but they exist) and fortunately for me this card is the symbol of potential, newness and opportunity.
I start this first few tender weeks in Brazil, a country that feels like home and many many years ago was my home. The fool is with me as I go back to a place that once represented my most fearless dream of living on the other side of the world as a 16 year old…without knowing a single soul or speaking the language. I encounter this version of me many times walking through streets where nothing changed, talking to my friends and family (of heart) in a tongue that now is forever imprinted in my brain. It”s a funny thing to have a part of your youth compartmentalised in a single spot in a separate language.
As I come back to the UK one of my new years resolutions is to take the fool and my 16 year old self on a ride with me on my last year of being in my twenties. This soft spot between foolishness and courage is something to keep a little bit longer, only afterwards we can tell the story of which of these two categories our craziest ideas belong to and it is the in-between that keeps us/me going.
There is something that stressed me about this newsletter project because its another thing on my never ending to do list. Writing doesn't come easy to me. Writing in a foreign language even less. I decided to start treating it in a more relaxed but continuous form of experimentation. So it will be monthly but imperfect.
The result of having been offline at the start of the year I got to read many great books. Maybe some of them will bring you joy.
As a last act of kindness for this newsletter from me to you, I decided to draw a tarot card for you to guide you on this day, the new month, whatever time frame you need and to my surprise from all this cards the one that I blindly picked was: the fool. So here she is again, may she bring you joy.
BOOKS
Deborah Levy - Real Estate
I deep dived into the trilogy of Deborah Levy’s life memoirs, a recommendation by my dear friend Ana. While all of them are very touching, honest and easy to read, Real Estate stayed with me the most. Maybe it is the dreaming of a place of stability, the longing to belong somewhere or the realisation that there is room for that in the work we create and the relationships we form through out lives.
When I read a book I usually read the last sentence first (how many people do this, I need to know!). Here is the last phrase of Real Estate that I loved reading before having read the actual book and felt so familiar with to encounter again by the end
In this sense, my books are my real estate. They are not private property. There are no fierce dogs or security guards at the gate and there are no signs forbidding anyone to dive, splash, kiss, fail, feel fury or fear or be tender or tearful, to fall in love with the wrong person, go mad, become famous or play on the grass.
Viktor Frankl - A Mans search for meaning
Probably not much has to be said from my side about this classic. I am gonna leave you with this quote from this book full of wisdom.
“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognise that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
Natasha Lunn - Conversations on Love
I mostly read this with my girlfriend in bed before going to sleep..which she is a great companion for this book and its an easy read before drifting off. Lunn dives into the several joys and hardships life in love holds and how different people deal with them. In this endeavour she talks to new lovers, brothers who lost their sister, raising children and growing a relationship decades into the future.
PODCAST
First Person - The Teenager Leading the Smartphone Liberation Movement
On Being - Dacher Keltner/The Thrilling New Science of Awe
I think listen to all of these episode one after another for a great mix of future techno eco angst and joy <3
FOOD
My quickest and easiest Pasta fix might also be the best one
50 gr of butter
2 cloves of garlic
30gr tomato paste
120ml double cream
half a lemon
quite a bit of parmesan
some pasta water to consistency taste
bunch of parsley finely chopped
Brown some butter..and with some I mean a lot, probably around 50gr. Once it is browned, add some garlic..maybe 2 cloves. Wait 30 seconds. Add 30gr tomato paste. Wait a little to caramelise. Now you add about 120ml of cream, let it cook for a bit. In the end add half a lemon, some parmesan cheese,potentially some pasta water and parlsey. Done! Its actually finished before the pasta cooks and tastes like cream comfort in a bowl.