DOGDAYS- Nosferatu and Otis

t’s been a while since I shared a prominent pet appreciation post.
Time to squeeze in a brief celebration of Nosferatu the dachshund and Otis, a Basset Fauve de Bretagne...the lucky dogs that share a perfectly pink Brighton house with Nick and Susie Cave.

In one of his treasured letters from the simply magical Red Hand Files, Nick Cave shares:
”[…]we have two family dogs.
A gentle moony dog with sad eyes and cancer called Otis and a psychotic little dachshund called Nosferatu, whose one great enterprise in life is to bite me.
I think it is safe to say that I love these dogs considerably more than they love me. They are devoted to my wife and guard her from me with their lives.”

⁣He later adds lovingly:
”A final note on the dogs – my wife, Susie, is devoted to them and it would be fair to say she shows more understanding and empathy for the animal world than she does for the human world.
Susie can look into the berserk eyes of Nosferatu and just melt him. She is a dog-whisper.
She has the same effect on me.
She is a husband-whisperer.”

-RHF issue # 2, September 2018

Hmmm, I think one could say that Nick Cave is a bit of Esther-whisperer, because this just made me melt as well.
xez

* All photography from @susiecaveofficial Instagram, except photo nr. 3, a wonderful picture by @davidtibet_current93 🙏

ON YAYOI KUSAMA's BIRTHDAY

Excerpt from the 1968 film ‘Kusama’s self-obliteration’ by Jud Yalkut, paired with music from Takashi Kokubo⁣.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the infinitely beautiful and inspiring Yayoi Kusama!⁣

Interview Footage from the ‘Advice to Young’ series by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in 2015.⁣ Camera by Yudai Maruyama Produced and edited by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen⁣.

⁣🔴 ADVICE:
Young people receive advice and guidance from others.⁣
I believe that advice shouldn’t come from others but that each person should gain a direction for oneself- by overcoming difficulty and a true direction will come from overcoming adversity.⁣
Everyone, think deeply, fight harder and obtain splendid direction for your life.⁣ I wish for you to gain guidance from your deep thinking and spread your ideas all over the world in order to establish a wonderful life and world.⁣
I think that it is very important.⁣
Let’s fight together for it.⁣
It is my strongest wish as an Artist.”⁣

Interview from the 2018 Kusama Infinity Movie, directed by Heather Lenz. Combined with photography of Yayoi Kusama at the age of ten in 1939, on the base of ‘My Flower Bed’ in 1965 and surrounded by sunflowers in 2000 for ‘Flower Obsession’

⁣🔴 FLOWERS:
“ It’s just like when I see the flowers, I see the flowers everywhere…and there are so many and I feel panicked and become so overwhelmed that I want to eat them all.”

Interview from the Kusama Infinity Movie, dir. by Heather Lenz in 2018 combined with footage from ‘Kusama’s self-obliteration’.

⁣🔴 ENERGY:
“The universe is full of nothing, ever-expanding and ever-destroying itself⁣.
Just like a drop that falls in water, I completely disappear in the universe.⁣
I seek the energy of life and I turn it into Art.”


Thank you, Miss Yayoi Kusama…
xez

I Am Somebody

It’s forty-nine years ago, in February of 1972, that Reverend Jesse Jackson recited this poem with a group of kids on the stoop of 123 Sesame Street.
Its message about the individuality and significance of ALL people however, has not aged since:

⁣I may be Young
but I am
Somebody.
I may be on Welfare
but I am
Somebody.
I may be on Small
but I am
Somebody.
I may make a Mistake
but I am
Somebody!
My clothes are different,
My face is different,
My hair is different,
but I am
Somebody.
I am black, brown, white.
I speak a different language.
But I must be respected,
protected,
never rejected.
I am God’s child.
⁣I am
Somebody!”

Sesame Street Footage from Episode 0402, aired May 1972

‘I Am - Somebody’ was written in the 1950s by Reverend William Holmes Borders Sr., an African American minister and civil rights leader.⁣
It was popularised and adapted by Reverend Jackson and kept evolving over the years.⁣

Set photos of Rev. Jesse Jackson, EP Jon Stone and the group of children- ©Children's Television Workshop/Everett Collection

xez

Basquiat on my Mind

‘I am what I am what I am.’
Basquiat has been on my mind.

There is so little existing interview material of the brilliant, beautiful Jean-Michel Basquiat and the footage I did see, moved and frustrated me…

His silence following questions that are impossible to answer, the physical reaction to being misunderstood and also, the warmth, joy and sensitivity in his eyes when talking to a beloved friend.

From a 1985 interview with Geoff Dunlop andSandy Nairne for the UK Television series ‘State of the Art’.

Footage from a 1981 interview by Marc H. Miller for ‘ART/new york’ in Basquiat’s SOHO studio on Crosby street.

A 1986 conversation with Jean-Michel’s friend Tamra Davis, from her documentary ‘The Radiant Child’.

It’s the words we don’t hear which are the ones that  seem to linger most and this reminded me of what Basqiat once said about his art:
“I cross out words so you will see them more; the fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them.” 

In 1993, Sara Jane Boyers created a children’s book by pairing an empowering poem by Dr. Maya Angelou with Basquiat’s art.
The poem “Life doesn’t Frighten Me” was written “for all children who whistle in the dark and who refuse to admit that they’re frightened out of their wits” .
I have combined imagery of the book with original audio of Maya Angelou reading her own words here:

Thank you Dr. Maya Angelou, for the wisdom you left us with and oh how I wish, wish that you would have had a magic charm, Jean-Michel.

xez

David Lynch and the Woodies

In a 2017 interview with the UK Telegraph, ⁣David Lynch shared, how he once rescued five Woody Woodpecker dolls from a petrol station in 1981:
"I screech on the brakes, I do a U-turn, go back and I buy them and I save their lives.
I named them Chucko, Buster, Pete, Bob and Dan and they were my boys and they were in my office.
They were my dear friends for a while but certain traits started coming out and they became not so nice."
Then, looking straight ahead, he added with a grim finality:
“They are not in my life anymore."

The Woodies were still in Lynch’s life when an Eraserhead trailer was made for the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles in ‘82, during which Lynch expressed their wisdom as following:⁣
⁣“These guys arent just a bunch of goofballs, they know that there is plenty of suffering in the world.
They spent many years with little iron hooks in their backs up on Sunset Boulevard.
But they tell me, that there’s this all pervading happiness underneath everything- and the more time I spend with them, the more I believe it”.

Trailer produced in 1982 by Douglas Brian Martin and Steven M. Martin, cinematography by Frederick Elmes.

Most likely, we will never know what happened to break up this extraordinary friendship...but I think about it often.⁣

A very happy birthday to the wonderful Mister David Lynch!⁣

Photography:
Lynch, with a few of his boys in the background, photographer unknown
David Lynch at Universal Studios in 1981, photographer unknown
xez

Happy New Year - The Music Crept By us

THE MUSIC CREPT BY US

I would like to remind
the management
that the drinks are watered
and the hat-check girl
has syphilis
and the band is composed
of former SS monsters
However since it is
New Year’s Eve
and I have lip cancer
I will place my
paper hat on my
concussion and dance
- Leonard Cohen
from ‘Flowers For Hitler’

Happy New Year, here’s to more dancing in 2021.
Because, to quote the wonderful Gregory Orr:
If we're not supposed to dance, why all this music?
xez

DOGDAYS- Chia, Bo, Jingo and Inca

Bo and Chia are maybe my best friends here- I enjoy them very much- 
The male lies on my window seat now with his legs stretched straight out behind him- looking like a fine big cattapillar. 
They sleep in my room at night and in the day time are always just outside the door”.
-
Georgia O’Keeffe in a letter to a friend

Three years after permanently moving to New Mexico, Georgia O’Keeffe received a Christmas present that would change her world; two ‘blue’ Chow Chow puppies.
It was the beginning of a love for the breed that lasted a lifetime and she went on to raise a total of six Chow companions, first Bo and Chia, later Inca, Bo II and Chia II and finally Jingo. All of them big and beautiful beasts, that she lovingly called her "little people".

Miss O’Keeffe’s New Mexico life was very much centered around the dogs and their loving care. When it got very hot one summer, she stopped going out on painting trips in her car, as the heat was too much for the dogs and she couldn’t bear to leave them.
Another time, she told an interviewer that it wasn’t possible to install a new heater at the ranch, because the only place that heater would fit, was her dog’s favourite sleeping spot.
Even the hair they shed in spring was saved once, to have it woven into a warm shawl.
And when her eyesight began to fail in the 1970s, she had white carpet laid in her Abiquiu studio, just so she could see the dark haired dogs better.

C.S. Merrill wrote about the special bond in her book ‘Weekends with O’Keeffe’, revealing Georgia O’Keeffe’s humorous side in doing so:
“She reached out and patted Jingo. The dog and Miss O’Keeffe had quite a rapport between them.
Miss O'Keeffe was telling little jokes about her, like she's so huge that she would run up to you and affectionately jump on you and knock you over, and she would walk halfway around the house in the morning just to avoid her, because she's so huge.
She said to her, “Jingo, you know the most beautiful thing about you is your tail.”

O’Keeffe made sketches and photographs of the Chows and often, she wrote about them and how they made her feel.
In a note to a friend, she shared: 
“Bo and Chia astonish and amuse me, they seem to belong to adobe- a snowy world”

And when travelling away from Abiquiú in the autumn of 1960, in a letter to her sister Claudia:
“I have thought often of the dogs- wondered if they slept in your room or if they bothered you and were put out. 
I have gotten so that I like having them in the room at night even if it sometimes is a little trouble – I probably miss them more than any other part of the house.”

The Chows seemed to be on her mind constantly, even after their passing. When Bo, her absolute favourite, tragically died after being hit by a truck, she buried him beneath a cedar tree at the White Place and wrote: 
“I like to think that probably he goes running and leaping through the White Hills alone in the night." 

They say the breed specific characteristics of the Chow Chow are being fiercely loyal, devoted and protective, with a proud and independent spirit. This literally sounds like a perfect match for Georgia O’Keeffe, who in her later life mentioned in an interview:
"It seems to be my mission in life to wait on a dog."

…now I just like to think, that instead of waiting, they’re walking, all together through their beloved White Hills.

xez

* Photographs sourced from various locations, please click to enlarge and hover to see photographer credits.

CATURDAYS - MADELEINE AND KAROUN

“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”⁣
- Jean Cocteau⁣

I love Jean Cocteau’s art and he loved cats.⁣
During his lifetime he did not only create a vast amount of illustrations, sculptures and murals of happy cats…Cocteau was also an active member of  the Parisian ‘Cat Friends Club’.
He designed a wonderful membership pin for them and eventually even got voted as their Club President.!

⁣Jean Cocteau shared his life with many cats and was quoted to have said:
“I prefer cats over dogs because police cats don’t exist”.⁣
But his most beloved were perhaps a mighty blue Persian named Karoun and a stunning Siamese that went by the name of Madeleine.⁣

⁣Photographer Jane Bown took two portraits of Madeleine and Jean Cocteau at their Paris home.
After returning to London, she sent the prints to Cocteau and he wrote back on December 12th, 1950:
Rare are they who think of those whose images they carry away.
And so I am very grateful to you.
All the proofs are magnificent.
Madeleine is in ecstasy over the Siamese cat.
All the household embraces you.”⁣

A copy of the original letter that Cocteau sent to Jane Bown.

A copy of the original letter that Cocteau sent to Jane Bown.

Karoun was lovingly called ‘the King of Cats’ by Cocteau and he even dedicated his book Drôle de Ménage to him. ⁣
You can see Faroun pictured together here with Japanese artist Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita at a Cat Friends Club event in November of 1950.⁣

⁣In 1959, Jean Cocteau decorated the tiny chapel near his house in Milly-la-Forêt with a beautiful fresco.⁣
It was there, that he wished to be buried and if you would visit it now, you could notice that he made sure to be watched over by a friendly feline even after his passing.⁣

You were an inspiration, Madeleine and Karoun!
xez

* Click photographs to enlarge.

A song to start the day and a suggestion about the seasons

The other day, I was reading the 1978 commencement speech that Kurt Vonnegut gave at Fredonia College in New York.
In addition to great advice on how to make money, win love and treat your ears, Vonnegut offers a gentle suggestion for a perspective change regarding the seasons:

“One sort of optional thing you might do is to realize that there are six seasons instead of four.
The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet, and this may explain why we are so depressed so much of the time. I mean, spring doesn’t feel like spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong for autumn, and so on.
Here is the truth about the seasons: Spring is May and June.
What could be springier than May and June?
Summer is July and August. Really hot, right?
Autumn is September and October. See the pumpkins? Smell those burning leaves?
Next comes the season called Locking. November and December aren’t winter. They’re Locking.
Next comes winter, January and February. Boy! Are they ever cold!
What comes next? Not spring. ‘Unlocking’ comes next. What else could cruel March and only slightly less cruel April be?
March and April are not spring. They’re Unlocking.”
- Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut’s words resonated deeply and felt so true for my part of the world, as well as with my current state of mind, which feels a little…well, “stuck” to say the least.

In addition to Vonnegut’s words from the past, last week also brought me Jason Kottke’s thoughts, which offered a clear and hopeful advice in the secret to enjoying a long winter.

I will aim to combine these voices from past and present and will try to consciously work towards enjoying instead of enduring.
For now, let’s stop the waiting and start the day- with this little gem by Future Islands:

Photograph of the Winter Lofoten by Sergey Lukankin

xez

p.s: You can read Vonnegut’s wonderful Fredonia speech in its entirety here.
A collection of nine of his best commencement addresses , along with personal drawings and thought are combined in If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?: Advice to the Young.

Where they worked - Jan, Marianne and Annabert Yoors

Jan Yoors- a childhood wanderer, that left his parents’ home in Antwerp at the early age of 12 to join a group (‘kumpania') of Roma, who he travelled on and off with for ten years, and was eventually adopted by.
A life, that he wrote several books about and documented with timeless and brilliant black and white photographs.
Jan Yoors- an active member of the World War II underground, managing to escape from Gestapo capture and torture.
Jan Yoors- a polyamorous New York based artist, that reinvented the world of tapestry and hung around with Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning.
Jan Yoors- who had a relatively short life but continued to live on, in the epic designs he left behind. Extraordinary tapestries that were being created until years after his passing...woven on giant looms, by the two wives that survived and revered him.

At this point it’s hard to tell exactly how much of the details of his incredible story are true.
Jan himself once spoke the following words:
Tapestry is by definition a mural art and as such can, and must, be of epic scale and heroic dimensions.
And perhaps, he really lived a life that measured up to the exact same criteria as his art.

What I do know for sure though, is that he left a stunning legacy of paintings, drawings, designs, sculptures, books, photographs and tapestries. And for this post, I’d like to show a little more of the latter and about how and where they were created.

Design Process
After being inspired by an exhibition about French tapestries, Jan built a loom and together with his wives Annabert and Marianne, through trial and error, discovered the techniques of weaving.

Then, after a decade of exploring vibrant figurative designs, often depicting biblical and mythical subjects, Yoors began designing abstract tapestries in the late 1950s. The abstract journey led him towards an increasing fascination with capturing the ephemeral and many of the tapestries from the late 1960s onward, recall geographic and natural forms, as well as more ephemeral concepts such as language.

“He would take a picture of a torn poster, a shadow or some graffiti—something that’ll be gone in a second—and then turn it into a design for tapestry, which would take ages to weave!”
- Kore Yoors about his father Jan.

This captivation with the ephemeral- and transforming its fleetingness through the permanence of an ancient art form as tapestry- is, where the timeless magic of Yoors’ designs springs from.
Surroundings became opportunities and inspiration became boundless- Jan, Marianne and Annabert all participated in this process and there was a constant dialogue and experimentation between them.

Through photography, the art form that already guided him on his journeys as a teenager and young adult, Jan could capture ephemeral elements such as patina and imperfections in urban landscape- like torn posters or dripping paint. 
He would then rotate, crop and enlarge parts of the abstract photographs, and turn them into vibrant gouache designs.
The gouache image was traced and gridded, to enable translation to a large scale that was transferable to their giant, hand built loom.
These full scale paintings were often hung behind the loom, for guidance while weaving and the warp threads themselves were painted on to mark changes in colour.

Process steps of designs based on photographs of landscape and of the residue of torn posters (click to enlarge):

Process steps of the tapestry “As Clouds to Moon”, based on Newspaper Cutouts:

Photographs of torn posters and Gouache designs:

Process steps of designs based on Shadow Studies:
Yoors designed The Tantra series from cropped contact prints that he made of leaves and their shadows.

Process steps of designs based on Texture and Pattern:

Weaving Process

If three to four people weave eight hours each day, a 2.5 by 3 metre tapestry, would usually take four or five months to complete.
When this sinks in, one can imagine that the lives of the Yoors family were inseparable from their work.

Annabert and Marianne wove together for fifty years, sometimes for days without a break.
Using an age-old method, they threaded their giant 4.5 metre loom and carefully transposed Jan’s original full-scale design onto the threads with a paintbrush.
They wove one colour at a time, beating each individual Persian thread down with a screwdriver. Marianne has said that they wove as one person, which is proven by the tapestries’ flawless surfaces.
The final product was hemmed and pressed, all by hand.

“When you spend six, eight, ten months weaving a tapestry,  you weave a foot or so and roll it up. 
You cannot make a mistake because it cannot be fixed.” 
-
Marianne Yoors

From each design, only one single tapestry was woven.
We make one single tapestry from each design, as opposed to the current trend of producing editions or series of reproductions.
In an age marked by either anonymous mass production or, in its very opposite, what I consider, excessive egocentrism and interpersonal distrust, the team work, demanded by the making of tapestries as we practice it, is one of the purest forms of romance and personal fulfilment.”
- Jan Yoors

The tapestries were always signed, “Jan Yoors.” 
In answer to the question why she and Annabert didn’t sign the weavings, Marianne has simply stated: “we signed with every stitch.”


96 Fifth Avenue
The Yoors’ moved to 96 Fifth Avenue in New York in 1950.
With tapestry not yet being recognised as a fine-arts form, plus it taking them six to nine months to weave one tapestry, they were completely broke.

“We had no money at all. We were living in a loft building we were not allowed to live. We had no kitchen, no bathroom... But all that mattered to Jan was having space to do his work.
The three of us worked every single day, even weekends, until midnight.” 
- Marianne Yoors

329 East 47th Street
Their dedication however persisted and commissions started coming in, which then allowed them to move to a larger (and amazing!) studio on 47th street.

108 Waverly Place
Finally, in 1967, the Yoors Family ended up in Greenwich Village.
Jan and Annabert already had two children together (Vanya and Lyuba) and after Marianne became pregnant with Kore, they decided to divorce.
This was a formality, which enabled Jan to now marry Marianne and become Kore’s official father.

“I didn’t care about this at all, but Jan insisted!
We didn’t even have a celebration. We just went to City Hall, and that was it. I can’t even remember the date!” 
- Marianne Yoors.

Apartment Kore and Marianne
Jan passed away in 1977, he was 55 years old and suffered a heart attack at home.

Annabert and Marianne continued weaving his remaining unwoven designs for many years, until the landlord decided to sell their studio.
In 1998, after 35 years, they had to leave Waverly Place for a much smaller apartment, where it became almost impossible to continue the weaving.
When asked the question by the New York Times if moving would be like disassembling a shrine, Marianne answered:
''That is the wrong word. A shrine is to something that is no longer alive.''

In the same interview, the ladies spoke about each other:
''She talks so beautiful,'' said Annabert of Marianne,
''She goes everywhere, she is afraid of nothing'' Marianne said of Annabert.

Annabert passed away in 2010.

Marianne and Kore still live in the smaller but beautiful apartment.
The space is unique and full of love and art, in the living room a coffee table made out of their first loom, throughout the house Mariannes wonderful ceramics an Jan’s timeless photography, life sized sculpture and vibrant designs.

Work
Jan, Annabert and Marianne Yoors created dozens  of handwoven tapestries between 1945 and 1977, the year that Jan died.
The actual number is now closer to 200,  seven of which have a length over 6 metres. The designs and colours are as brilliant and unique today as when they were first dyed and created.

But instead of speaking further about his art, let’s finish up with Jan’s own words:

“If I am reticent to speak about the sources, the drive to make, or the meaning of my tapestries, it is because I strongly feel that were I able to do so, articulately and coherently, I would be a writer on art rather than an artist.”

xez


*Photographs sourced from various locations, but mainly through the Yoors Family Partnership, please click pictures to enlarge.
Kore and Marianne’s apartment photographed by Leslie Williamson.

Where they worked - Georgia O'Keeffe

Her incredible art, her battle against gender bias, her vivid and inspiring correspondence, her fierce and sensual beauty and her impeccable, understated taste in wardrobe...there's a lot that one could talk about when it comes to Georgia O'Keeffe.

Well, she was a lover and a loner and New Mexico stole her heart.
And it was there, in the North of New Mexico that she spent the last forty years of her life, in quiet but creative isolation and in two incredibly beautiful houses, of which I’m sharing a few images of today.


Rancho de los Burros at Ghost Ranch

To me it is the best place in the world,” O’Keeffe said of Ghost Ranch, of which she first purchased a very small piece of land in 1940.
It has always been secluded and solitary. When I first went there, it was only one house with one room—which had a ghost living in it.
As soon as I saw it, I knew I must have it”

But Rancho de los Burros was barren and a place for summer, so in 1945 Georgia bought a second piece of land in the village of Abiquiú.
Three acres, including a crumbling adobe home and the possibility of planting a garden.
She spent three years remodelling and rebuilding the house and after her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, passed away, O’Keeffe left New York to make Abiquiú her permanent home.


Abiquiú house- Outside

"When I got to New Mexico, that was mine. As soon as I saw it, that was my country.
I’d never seen anything like it before, but it fitted to me exactly.
It’s something that’s in the air, it’s just different.
The sky is different, the stars are different, the wind is different. 
I feel at home here – I feel quiet – my skin feels close to the earth when I walk out into the red hills …"


Abiquiú house- Patio and Atelier

Abiquiú house- Studio

After fully moving here, Georgia would sign her letters to the people she loved with “from the faraway nearby”, a beautiful oxymoron, enveloping physical distance as well as emotional closeness.
One can be inspired by the absolute beauty of the distance and yet remain close to the ones we love, in our hearts and minds.

Abiquiú house- Living Room

Abiquiú house- Dining Room

Abiquiú house- Kitchen and Pantry

Abiquiú house- Bedroom
O'Keeffe did not bring antiques to Santa Fe, she worked with what she had and mixed modern and adobe with found objects.
The patent-leather blackout curtains in her bedroom however, are a flash of her New York days.

I love the detail of the Buddha hand in Abhaya mudrā pose ( right hand held upright, with the palm  facing outwards) a gesture of fearlessness.
It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes by Georgia O’Keeffe:
“I’ve always been absolutely terrified every single moment of my life and I’ve never let it stop me from doing a single thing I wanted to do”

In her paintings, Georgia O’Keeffe immortalised the dramatic landscape surrounding her homes, in all its shifting colours and moods
In her houses, she managed to create an extraordinary calm.
And in her words, she left us with wise thoughts to delve into:
"I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.”
“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing.
Making your unknown known is the important thing—and keeping the unknown always beyond you…”

May we all have the courage to explore our personal and unique unknown, while also having a safe haven from which we can admire our surroundings.
xez

 


*Photographs by Tony Vaccaro, Yousuf Karsh, Balthazar Korab, Herbert Lotz, Todd Webb, John Loengard, Brittany Ambridge, Arnold Newman and Laura Gilpin.
Sourced from various locations, please click to enlarge.

One of Maurice Sendak’s best compliments

I absolutely adore this story by the late, great and lovely Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are:

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it.
I answer all my children’s letters—sometimes very hastily—but this one I lingered over.
I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it.
I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.”
Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.”
That to me was one of the highest compliments I've ever received.
He didn't care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything.
He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

Sendak_Studio.JPEG

xez

Don't you dare

Caitlin Moran is  a very wise and extremely funny human being.
I had read the following words over and again in particular times of need, before I found out that they are actually part of a larger and touching Times article.
However, the fierce and loving hopefulness of this particular excerpt, still remain the core message to me:

"At 19, I’d read a sentence that had re-terraformed my head: “The level of matter in the universe has been constant since the Big Bang.”

In all the aeons we have lost nothing, we have gained nothing – not a speck, not a grain, not a breath. The universe is simply a sealed, twisting kaleidoscope that has reordered itself a trillion trillion trillion times over.

Each baby, then, is a unique collision – a cocktail, a remix – of all that has come before: made from molecules of Napoleon and stardust and comets and whale tooth; colloidal mercury and Cleopatra’s breath: and with the same darkness that is between the stars between, and inside, our own atoms.

When you know this, you suddenly see the crowded top deck of the bus, in the rain, as a miracle: this collection of people is by way of a starburst constellation. Families are bright, irregular-shaped nebulae. Finding a person you love is like galaxies colliding. We are all peculiar, unrepeatable, perambulating micro-universes – we have never been before, and we will never be again.
Oh God, the sheer exuberant, unlikely fact of our existences.
The honour of being alive.
They will never be able to make you again.
Don’t you dare waste a second of it thinking something better will happen when it ends.
Don’t you dare."

Picture by Carol Jerrems

Picture by Carol Jerrems

Read the full article here and visit Caitlin’s website over here .

xez