The Notebook — Newsletter #3
Do: The Felix Project’s 12 Days of Christmas Virtual Challenge. A simple challenge, involving walking or running everyday for an hour, for the 12 days leading up to Christmas (13th-24th December). The money raised will stop those without enough to eat from going hungry. Choose how much to give, a donation of £10 to enter will be enough to rescue 61 meals. Find more details about the event on their website here and to read about the amazing work they do here.
Read: Raven Smith counting my blessings offline piece here.
Thank you to my lovely friend Sally for the recommendation of Elena Ferrante’s Reading List for The Bookshop — a list of forty female authors. Describing her choices as “stories of women who have two feet in the 1900s, or one in the following century.” Additionally, The Bookshop is a wonderful initiative to support local, independent bookshops. You can order online and find a specific local bookstore to support, or alternatively your order will be added to a pot to be evenly distributed among independent shops.
Listen: to Cillian Murphy's Limited Edition playlist for Radio 6 — change up your WFH tunes with Cillian Murphy's nocturnal playlist with music from all corners of his collection.
I am not alone in adoring Michaela Coel’s conversation with Louis Theroux on his podcast Grounded. It’s such an explorative episode examining fascinating topics — religion, racial fetishisation, fame, grieving the end creative projects which she describes as "post-writum depression" as well as how writing helps her process emotions. I couldn't recommend more. Listen here.
Watch: Rocks — a beautiful coming-of-age story and realistic drama portraying the intricacies of young female friendship. Set in East London, Rocks, explores the journey and relationship of a brother and sister abandoned by their mother. It's heartbreaking and gritty yet ultimately optimistic. Incredible acting from such young and untapped talent and a brilliant and unique collaboration between the director and cast. Watch on Netflix and see one of my favourite clips here.
Peanut Butter Falcon — I watched this in the summer, but was reminded of it recently after realising I'd named a playlist after one of the songs in the film. It's another beautifully acted and directed story. Joyful, tender and uplifting. Watch on Netflix.
The Poem: Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.