Unquiet
Things

Confession. I have never watched Lawnmower Man. I haven’t the slightest idea what it is meant to be about. But in my imagination, it’s a man who magically turns into a lawnmower? But less magical and more body horror? Sort of a cross between Usagi Tsukino turning into a magical girl Sailor Guardian, and Optimus Prime transforming into a semi-truck, but with more lawnmowers and directed by Takashi Miike? Don’t spoil it for me.

Anyway, I’m standing in front of the mirror, tugging on canvas overalls with cute little vegetables dancing on them, in contrast to the heavy, ugly socks already on my feet. Outside, the morning sun burns off last night’s thunderstorm, steam rising from our overgrown lawn. I’m waiting for it to dry, but truthfully, I’m stalling.

Today, I have to mow the lawn for the first time in my life.

For days, I’ve been in a fog, fixated on this looming task. The thought of pushing that snarling machine across our yard has consumed me. What if I do it wrong? What if I leave drunken paths crisscrossing the lawn, a clear beacon to our neighbors that I have no idea what I’m doing? And then there’s the machine itself – all I can picture are whirling blades waiting to catch my fingers or toes–what if I mow my hands right off?

The thermometer already reads 92 degrees. I’m going to be a sweaty, nervous wreck out there.

This isn’t just about mowing a lawn, though. It’s about how quickly life can throw you out of orbit. Adding to my anxiety is the ticking clock of our Homeowners Association, a cabal of faceless enforcers I live in constant fear of. Any day now, I expect a passive-aggressive email reminding us of our “community standards.”

As I’m suiting up, a bittersweet realization hits me: at this very moment, Yvan and I were supposed to be on a plane to Denver. Our first real vacation since 2017, a trip now canceled due to his broken foot. Strangely, I find myself less upset about the missed vacation and more anxious about the impending lawn mowing task. This realization puzzles me – shouldn’t I be more disappointed about our canceled plans?

But beneath all of this surface-level stress lies a deeper, more primal fear. Yvan, my partner-in-crime, maybe even my handler, you could say (I am very high-strung, and he is so good at calming me down) – he’s injured. Aside from our simultaneous contraction of Covid back in the autumn of 2022, for the first time since we’ve been together, I’m faced with the stark reality of his vulnerability. He can be hurt. He’s mortal. He’s gonna die. We’re all gonna die. This is the part where I start disassociating.

But life has a funny way of surprising you. As I stood there, I glanced out the window to see my neighbor’s lawn service arrive. The neighbor herself, out on her driveway, talking to the guys. She’s the sister of the woman who we bought the house from, so I am actually more afraid of her judgement than the HOA (she is actually on the HOA, too, though!) To my amazement, though, she wasn’t complaining about us; she was sending them our way! One of the crew members strolled over to our property and started edging our lawn. Soon after, a man on a riding mower appeared, making quick work of our overgrown grass jungle.

When they finished, they left their boss’s business card. With shaking hands, I passed it to Yvan. He made the call, and just like that, we were on their schedule for the next two months.

In that moment, I felt like I could finally breathe again. I could think again! The fog that had been clouding my mind began to lift, and I realized just how much this one task had been affecting me. It wasn’t just about mowing the lawn – it was about feeling overwhelmed, out of my depth, and scared of failing.

This experience has made me reflect on how we cope when life throws us curveballs. I’ve found myself thrust back into the role of caregiver – a familiar position from caring for my grandparents, who were quite old, but one I wasn’t ready to revisit so soon, especially with my partner, who is four years younger than I am! There’s a fog that descends, clouding thoughts and making even simple decisions feel overwhelming, it’s like trying to navigate through pea soup while also juggling chainsaws. The fatigue that comes with this domestic role reversal is real and pervasive.  Tasks that were once shared now fall squarely on my shoulders. I’m learning to adapt, but the stress of this rapid adjustment is palpable.

Perhaps most challenging is the discomfort of being pushed so far out of my comfort zone. I’m constantly aware that I’m operating in unfamiliar territory, reminded of how much I relied on Yvan’s knowledge and skills in these areas. I don’t know if he’s a better driver than me (I mean, probably), but he is certainly less nervous. And now I am the one driving to the grocery store, to doctor’s appointments, to family dinners. Much like the thought of having to mow the lawn is almost incapacitating, knowing that I have to drive us somewhere at the end of the day takes up every spare bit of brain space I have and leaves room for absolutely nothing else. I can’t hold a conversation or make a decision; I can barely get out of bed and get dressed in the morning–my anxiety takes up so much room.

This leads to a maddening paradox now in my daily life. For example, despite being a pretty decent cook, I’m ordering out more frequently than I’d like, which is neither good for our wallet nor our health.  Or how we’d trained ourselves to wake up at 5 am and walk for 2-3 miles several days a week, and now I just fitfully sleep in, ignoring the alarm and the only form of exercise I even like to engage in. I mean, obviously, Yvan’s not going to hobbling around the block in the pre-dawn hours with his unwieldy boot and crutches, but I’ve got no excuse! This discrepancy between what I’m capable of and what I’m actually doing has led me to a realization that both fascinates and frustrates me: the routines we build and the self-care habits we practice should, in theory, serve us best in times of stress. They should be our lifeline when life gets chaotic, a form of muscle memory kicking in to ensure we take care of ourselves when our minds are overwhelmed.

Yet, I’m finding the opposite to be true. These habits, so easy to maintain when life flows smoothly, seem to crumble at the first sign of turbulence. It’s as if the neural pathways I’ve carefully constructed for self-care short-circuit under pressure. Why is it that precisely when I need these routines most, they feel the hardest to maintain?

There’s a cruel irony in how effortlessly I can stick to my habits when life is easy, only to watch them dissolve when the going gets tough. It’s like I’ve been training for a marathon on a treadmill, only to find myself stumbling on the actual, uneven terrain of life’s challenges. This disconnect between intention and action, between what I know I should do and what I actually do in times of stress, is disheartening.

I can’t help but wonder: am I failing my habits, or are my habits failing me? Perhaps the way we approach building these routines is flawed. Maybe we need to design our self-care strategies not for the calm days, but for the storms. Because it’s in these moments of crisis, when all sense of self-preservation seems to go out the window, that we need our good habits the most. And yet, it’s precisely then that they feel the most elusive.

As the day winds down, I realize something that’s been lurking beneath the surface all week: today marks the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. The realization hits me with a vicious pinch, and suddenly, all the stress and anxiety of the past few days takes on a new dimension. Had this been simmering in my subconscious all along, adding to my sense of unease and displacement? I had a hard time grieving my dad because we didn’t have much of a relationship, but the connection between my current struggles and this anniversary isn’t lost on me. Perhaps my fixation on the lawn, the driving, and the mundane tasks of daily life was a way of avoiding the complicated feelings that this day brings. It’s easier, after all, to worry about grass and left-hand turns than to confront the permanent absence of a father-daughter relationship I now will never have a chance to repair.

This realization brings a new layer of complexity to my emotional landscape. It reminds me that our reactions to life’s challenges are often influenced by factors we’re not even consciously aware of. The fact that I was more anxious about mowing the lawn than disappointed about our canceled trip suddenly makes more sense – in the face of grief and mortality, everyday tasks can become both a distraction and a lifeline.

As I sit here, rereading what I’ve written, I find myself wondering about the purpose of this exercise. Why did I feel compelled to put these thoughts to paper? Perhaps it’s an attempt to make sense of the chaos, to find patterns in the seemingly random series of events that have upended my life. Or maybe it’s simpler than that – a need to externalize the swirling thoughts and emotions that have been consuming me.

I don’t know if these experiences have official names or if psychologists have studied them, but putting words to these feelings—maybe “Routine Disruption Syndrome,” “Caregiver’s Fog,” “Adaptive Stress Overload,” “Domestic Role Reversal Fatigue,” or “Comfort Zone Exodus Syndrome”—makes me feel less alone and less crazy. Maybe by naming these experiences, I can start to understand them better and, in understanding, find some measure of peace.
I don’t have any profound conclusions to draw, no neat resolutions to offer. The lawn is mowed, but my anxiety lingers. Yvan’s foot will heal, but the reminder of our fragility remains. The anniversary of my father’s death has passed, but the weird emotions it stirs up aren’t so easily tidied away.

What I’m left with is a messy, scarily honest snapshot of a middle-aged life. It’s not pretty or inspirational, but it’s real. And maybe that’s the point – to acknowledge the struggle, to give voice to the discomfort of change and loss, without trying to sugarcoat it or wrap it up in a bow. It’s not about finding answers, but about sitting with the questions, allowing myself to feel the full weight of this moment. It’s uncomfortable, yes, but also so very, very human. And you have no idea how often I have to remind myself that I am actually human, or how comforting it is to believe.

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As a writer, blogger, and (most importantly) a voracious reader, I’ve long been beguiled by the weird, wonderful threads that stitch seemingly random experiences together. These uncanny echoes, what Carl Jung called synchronicities, are like tiny magic tricks the universe performs for the observant soul. They have been a constant companion in my literary journeys, often leaving me breathless with wonder and pondering the hidden mechanics of our universe.

A recent example, and the thing that actually inspired this blog post, happened just this morning. Within the span of five minutes, I encountered two strikingly similar instances in completely unrelated texts. In Calling a Wolf a Wolf, a book of poetry by Kaveh Akbar, I came across the line, “…hobble back to your hovel like a knight moving in Ls.” The vivid imagery of a chess piece’s movement stuck with me as I set the book aside. Moments later, I picked up Spiritus Mundi, an anthology by contemporary creatives inspired by occult writing prompts. There, in a description of a dream, I read of a bed “hovering, darting over the floor like a chess piece in L-shapes.”

The parallel was unmistakable – two distinct authors, in two entirely different contexts, conjuring the same unusual image of L-shaped movement. What are the odds? And yet, in the world of synchronicities, such occurrences seem to happen with surprising frequency.

These literary echoes aren’t confined to the realm of fiction and poetry. Often, they bridge the gap between the written word and our lived experiences. Just today, I found myself fretting and extremely agitated over the state of our lawn. With Ývan nursing a broken foot and all our attempts at finding temporary lawn maintenance services mysteriously unresponsive, I’ve been anxiously eyeing the growing grass, all too aware of our HOA’s stringent standards and all the judging eyes of the neighborhood.

To take my mind off it for a moment, I randomly opened The Sphinx and the Milky Way: Selections from the Journals of artist Charles Burchfield. To my astonishment, I found him lamenting the very same issue – the pressure to maintain a perfectly manicured lawn in a neighborhood of immaculate yards. He writes of cutting down bunches of weed, plants that he actually deems quite beautiful, “Back of it all was the custom of people to have neat flat lawns–our front yard was a “disgrace,” and, accordingly, I was out with my sickle.” Burchfield’s frustration penned almost 100 years ago in 1925, mirrored my own current predicament with uncanny accuracy.

These synchronicities, while fascinating, often leave us grasping for explanations. Are they merely coincidences, random alignments in the vast tapestry of human experience? Or do they point to something deeper, a hidden order in the universe that occasionally makes itself known through these moments of convergence?

Carl Jung believed these meaningful coincidences were evidence of an acausal connecting principle – a force that links events not through cause and effect, but through meaning and significance. He saw synchronicities as moments when the collective unconscious bubbles up into our conscious awareness, revealing connections that transcend our ordinary understanding of time and space. As a reader and writer, I find Jung’s perspective particularly compelling. Books, after all, are portals to the collective human experience. They allow us to tap into the thoughts, emotions, and observations of countless individuals across time and space. Perhaps it’s not so surprising, then, that as we immerse ourselves in this vast sea of human consciousness, we occasionally encounter currents that align with our own lives in startling ways.

But synchronicities aren’t just curiosities to be marveled at and forgotten. They can serve as powerful tools for self-reflection and personal growth. When we encounter these meaningful coincidences, they often highlight aspects of our lives or psyches that we might otherwise overlook.

For instance, the recurring chess knight imagery I encountered could be seen as an invitation to consider the non-linear paths we sometimes need to take in life. Just as the knight moves in unexpected L-shapes on the chessboard, perhaps there’s an area of my life where an unconventional approach might yield surprising results. Similarly, Burchfield’s lawn-related frustrations resonating with my own current situation might be prompting me to examine my relationship with societal expectations and the pressures of conformity. Am I, like Burchfield, chafing against norms that don’t align with my values or natural inclinations?

Synchronicities can also serve as creative sparks, igniting new ideas and connections in our minds. As a writer, I often find that these moments of convergence become seeds for new blog posts, essays, or poems. They invite us to explore the liminal spaces between different ideas, disciplines, and experiences, often leading to fresh insights and innovative thinking. Frequently, I’ll be working on a piece of writing and suddenly recall a perfect reference or idea that I’ve encountered in my reading. What’s remarkable is that these references often come from sources that seem entirely unrelated to my current work. Yet, they fit seamlessly into the piece I’m crafting, as if they were waiting to be discovered and used in this exact context.

An experience late last year perfectly encapsulates this phenomenon. While preparing for an interview with Adam Rowe about his book on 70s Sci-Fi Art, I was concurrently reading John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows – a work that, while not directly related to science fiction, explores otherworldly notions and ineffable experiences.

In Koenig’s book, I encountered the concept of “Astrophe” – the feeling of being irrevocably tethered to Earth while longing for the stars, that bittersweet mix of dreaming of other worlds and being constantly pulled back to earthly reality. This concept, emerging from a book ostensibly unrelated to my interview preparation, provided the perfect springboard for a question to Rowe:

“Is there a particular sci-fi artwork you revel in or an artist you admire whose art is so bold and striking that somewhere in your mind, it permanently yanks you right out of Earth’s orbit, perhaps quells that Astrophic yearning?”

This question, born from the collision of Koenig’s philosophical musings and Rowe’s exploration of science fiction art, bridges two seemingly disparate worlds. It invites a deeper reflection on the power of visual art to transport us beyond our earthly confines, even if only in our imagination.

Of course, it’s important to maintain a balanced perspective when it comes to the stuff of synchronicity. While they can be meaningful and insightful, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of seeing significance in every coincidence. This can lead to magical thinking and a disconnection from reality. The key, I believe, is to remain open to these experiences without becoming obsessed with them or reading too much into every chance alignment.

Cultivating an awareness of synchronicities isn’t some magical talent – it’s a skill we can hone over time. I recall an early exercise in my high school AP English class that, while not synchronicity in the strictest sense, helped attune me to these literary coincidences. Our teacher encouraged us to note down on index cards any instances where we encountered our vocabulary words outside of class. The very evening after this assignment was given, I heard the word ‘surreptitious’ used in a rerun of Roseanne! It was either that or The Simpsons –in any case, it was an unexpected find. This exercise trained me to be more aware of the connections between my academic reading and the wider world.

As readers, we can cultivate a mindset that’s receptive to synchronicities without actively seeking them out. This involves maintaining a wide-ranging reading habit, exposing ourselves to diverse perspectives and ideas. It also means staying present and mindful as we read, allowing ourselves to fully engage with the text and notice connections that might otherwise slip by unnoticed.

Keeping a reading journal can be an excellent way to track and reflect on these synchronistic experiences. By noting down striking passages, recurring themes, or moments when a text seems to speak directly to our current circumstances, we create a record of these meaningful coincidences. Over time, patterns may emerge, offering deeper insights into our own psyches and the themes that resonate most strongly with us.

In my own practice, I’ve found that sharing these synchronicities – whether through public blog posts, private journaling, or conversations with fellow readers– can amplify their impact. Not only does this allow us to gain new perspectives on these experiences, but it also creates a sense of connection with others who have had similar encounters. There’s something deeply affirming about realizing that you’re not alone in experiencing these uncanny moments of convergence, and as we navigate the complex web of our lives, with all its challenges, joys, and mysteries, synchronicities serve as gentle reminders of the interconnectedness of all things. They whisper to us of hidden patterns and unseen connections, inviting us to look beyond the surface of our everyday experiences.

In reflecting on literary synchronicities, I realize that what truly captivates me is not just the phenomenon itself, but the magnetic pull it exerts on my curiosity and imagination. These uncanny convergences of text and life, of disparate books echoing each other across time and space, have held me spellbound for years. Perhaps it’s the thrill of discovery, the feeling of being let in on a cosmic secret each time I stumble upon a meaningful coincidence. Or maybe it’s the way these synchronicities transform the solitary act of reading into something more expansive, connecting me to a vast web of ideas and experiences that extends far beyond the pages in my hands.

There’s a comfort, too, in sensing an underlying order to the seemingly chaotic flow of life and literature. Each synchronicity feels like a gentle reassurance that my voracious reading habit is more than just a personal indulgence – it’s a way of attuning myself to the hidden rhythms of the universe. In exploring these literary convergences, I’m really excavating my own psyche, uncovering the deep-seated need to find meaning and connection in the world around me. And in sharing these experiences, I invite others to join me in this wonder, to see their own reading lives through this lens of magical possibility. After all, isn’t that shared sense of awe and discovery what draws us to literature in the first place?

The decision to pair this introspection on literary synchronicities with the artwork of Remedios Varo feels like a synchronicity in itself – a perfect convergence of text and image that speaks to the mysterious interconnectedness that so captivates me. Varo’s surrealist paintings, with their dreamlike quality and intricate, often impossible machines, beautifully capture the essence of what draws me to these meaningful coincidences. Her works often depict figures engaged in arcane pursuits, surrounded by swirling energies and cosmic symbolism, mirroring how I, as a reader, find myself caught in the eddies of unexpected connections.

The way Varo blends the mundane with the magical – ordinary rooms opening onto vast, starry voids, or domestic objects revealing hidden, otherworldly purposes – echoes my own experiences of finding profound links between everyday reading and life. Her recurring motifs of threads, webs, and intricate patterns visually represent the invisible links that I’m constantly seeking and discovering. In Varo’s world, as in my world of synchronicity-attuned reading, reality is permeable, full of hidden doorways and unexpected connections. Her art reminds me why I’m so drawn to these literary convergences: they reveal that beneath the surface of our ordinary lives lies a realm of wonder and mystery, waiting to be discovered by those with eyes to see. Just as Varo’s paintings invite viewers into a world where the impossible becomes possible, my fascination with literary synchronicities stems from a desire to uncover the magical in the mundane, to find meaning and connection in the vast tapestry of words and experiences that surround us.

So the next time you encounter an uncanny parallel between your books and your life, or between two seemingly unrelated texts, pause for a moment. Savor the shiver of recognition, the sense of wonder that washes over you. Reflect on what this convergence might be highlighting in your life, what invitation it might be extending. And then, by all means, keep reading. For in the vast library of human experience, who knows what synchronicity might be waiting for you on the next page?

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In the hazy heat of late summer, when the sky feels too vast and the cicada’s ceaseless shriek all but deafening, I turn to Charles Burchfield’s sunflowers.  These are not the cheery picture-perfect rows that grace so many cottage-core garden beds or the charming yellow bouquets of Mary Englebreit greeting cards.  No, Burchfield’s sunflowers throb with an eerie vitality, their petals seeming to vibrate with unseen energies, their stems twisting like dancers caught in the ecstatic trance of an errant breeze.

Born in 1893 in Salem, Ohio, Burchfield spent much of his life in Buffalo, New York, a city of harsh winters and industrial grit. There, he found endless inspiration in this interplay of nature and industry, magic in telephone wires humming with unseen messages and in the steadfast sunflowers that refused to be cowed by concrete or steel. They are nature’s rebels, refusing to be contained or cultivated. This visionary American painter found in sunflowers a kindred spirit – proud, resilient, and slightly otherworldly.

Burchfield’s unique style, often described as a form of mystical realism, combined precise observation with a visionary approach. His technique involved layering watercolors to create luminous, vibrating effects that seemed to capture not just the physical appearance of his subjects, but their inner energies as well. This approach is particularly evident in his sunflower paintings, where each petal pulses with an inner light.

Burchfield knew sunflowers. He really knew them in that bone-deep way that comes from countless hours of patient observation.

In his journal, he wrote:

“The sunflower turns its face to follow the sun, but what of its nighttime dreams? Does it yearn for dawn even as dusk falls?”

I wonder this, too, gazing at his paintings.

And it’s not just Charles Burchfield and me. Sunflowers have long occupied a place of reverence in human culture. Native American tribes used sunflower seeds not just for food, but in their healing rituals. In the language of flowers, sunflowers represent adoration and loyalty, their steadfast faces ever turning to follow the sun’s journey across the sky. Did you know the Incas saw gods in sunflowers? I can almost understand why, looking at Burchfield’s work. There’s something ancient there that speaks of long summers and longer winters, of cycles that spin far beyond our brief lives.

This unwavering devotion to light and time inspired the poet William Blake to pen these lines:

“Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done.”

Weary of time. Yes, that’s it exactly. Blake’s words resonate deeply with Burchfield’s visual explorations of sunflowers. In Burchfield’s paintings, these flowers aren’t caught in a single moment but seem to exist in all moments at once – bud, bloom, and withering seed head in one impossible, beautiful form. His technique of layering watercolors and using bold, rhythmic brushstrokes create a sense of movement and transformation as if we’re witnessing the entire life cycle of the sunflower in a single glance.

Burchfield wrote in his journal, with a mixture of awe and kinship:

“Today, I stood before a stand of sunflowers, and for a moment, I swear I could hear them singing. Not with voices but with the very vibration of their being. It was a song of summer’s zenith, of life lived boldly and without regret.”

Oh, to have ears that could hear such songs! To see the world as Burchfield saw it, thrumming with hidden rhythms and secret symphonies. His sunflowers invite us to try, look closer, and listen harder. This ability to tune into the secret frequencies of nature draws me to Burchfield’s work and sets it apart. The weird lights and shadows of his strange singing sunflowers remind us that even in the most familiar of garden plants, there lurk ancient mysteries and untamed magics. In their strange, vibrant forms, we see echoes of every summer past and the promise of summers yet to come.

If you seek to steep yourself in the essence of Burchfield’s sunflowers, to feel the thrum of their secret energies, consider exploring works that share their spirit.  Dive into the pages of Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows” or Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, where nature’s mystery bleeds into terror and wonder. Let the haunting melodies of Joanna Newsom’s Ys or Grouper’s Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill wash over you, evoking landscapes both familiar and utterly alien.

Lose yourself in the shadowed forests of The VVitch or the sun-drenched, unsettling vistas of Picnic at Hanging Rock. For a more psychedelic journey into nature’s mysteries, Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England offers a hallucinatory exploration of an English Civil War battlefield that feels spiritually akin to Burchfield’s vibrating landscapes. The eerie folk horror of  The Wicker Man(1973) and the cosmic dread of The Lighthouse also tap into that sense of nature as an overwhelming, often hostile force. The invasive, untethered reality of the endless reeds in Onibaba feels like a dream, like folktales or mythology.

Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Mary Oliver’s nature poetry captures a similar sense of wonder and reverence in the natural world. J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine offers an intense, almost hallucinatory immersion in the English countryside that echoes Burchfield’s vibrant landscapes. Robert Macfarlane’s  The Old Ways explores ancient paths and landscapes with a keen eye for the mystical and the uncanny, resonating with Burchfield’s ability to reveal the hidden energies of the natural world.

Musically, you might also explore the atmospheric landscapes of Sigur Rós, whose ethereal soundscapes evoke the vast, unearthly beauty of their native Iceland. The transcendent folk of Current 93 delves into mystical and sometimes unsettling territory, much like Burchfield’s more intense works. Consider too the haunting Appalachian-inspired ballads of Gillian Welch, the spectral ambient works of William Basinski, or the nature-infused neo-folk of Hexvessel. Each of these artists, in their own way, captures something of the mystery, beauty, and occasional menace that Burchfield found in his sunflowers and landscapes. I’ve got a little playlist here, not so much sunflower-inspired, but more just Burchfield vibes in general: Sphinx & Milky Way.

These works, like Burchfield’s paintings, tap into nature’s hidden histories and the uncanny lurking in the everyday. They evoke moods of wistful contemplation and eerie beauty, revealing a deep, sometimes uneasy connection to landscape and seasons. In their own ways, they whisper of a world alive and conscious, often indifferent or even hostile to human concerns – much like the vibrating, almost sentient plant life in Burchfield’s most intense works. Through these various mediums, we can approach that sense of an animated, mysterious natural world beyond human understanding, inviting us to look closer, listen harder, and perhaps, for a moment, hear the secret songs of sunflowers.

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The title of this post is taken from Melancholy Maaret’s audio poem “Paper Butterflies.” I originally pondered this bit of weirdness, this memo on melancholy, if you will, for the Coilhouse blog back in 2011, and my thoughts often return to it. I can’t believe I never shared it here, so I am sharing it today because it continues to enthrall me, even now.

I’m embedding that particular audio installation because I loved it so much at the time (and still do but with an older, craggier heart and more life experience), but I also find the creator herself incredibly captivating. Melancholy Maaret is a deaf multidisciplinary artist, writer, and sound-art composer based in Helsinki and New York. Her work spans various media, including vocals and voice-overs created from sound-memory and vibrations without auto-tune. Maaret’s art often involves character-based performances, embodying fictional or historical women, as well as her own ancestors. Her creations are influenced by an eclectic mix of Finnish folklore, neuroscience, epigenetic trauma, and the works of diverse thinkers and artists. She leverages her classical training in theatre, movement, and voice to create unique sound compositions, often accompanied by manipulated video installations.

Her approach to melancholy was both profound and provocative, as evidenced in her statement about ‘Paper Butterfly’:

‘I do not want optimism and blind hope. I want to triumph in sadness… Science can never denude the soul’s need for an artistic confrontation or a lullaby… Sadness and her sister’s emotions increase productivity, kindness, and creativity.’

The intersection of melancholy, creativity, and cognitive function intrigues me immensely, and I often wonder about this artist—is she still creating? Where has her journey with melancholy led her in her art and life?

By preserving these snippets of writing on my blog here, I hope to maintain a record of my fascinations. Coilhouse, though not active for over a decade, continues to maintain its archives–which is amazing!–but I have been burned so many times by the blogs I’ve written for in the past suddenly winking out of existence, and like a dummy, I never had backups of my contributions. So here we are. And this is why you see things like this pop up on my blog occasionally. I wrote them initially for someone else’s blog, but the site disappeared, and my writing became unhoused for a time. What you see here today and at other times is my writing returning home.

 Anyway, this intro is becoming longer than the original writing! Just a bit more, though. Rereading it now, I’m struck by how some aspects still feel relevant, though I recognize that my approach to language and certain topics has evolved over time. I’d likely phrase some things differently today, with a more nuanced and sensitive perspective. I certainly would not tell anyone to ditch their meds in this year of our lord, 2024! I’m also aware that pain as performance, the romanticization of melancholy, and the allure of the tortured artist–these can be damaging ideations, potentially glorifying mental health struggles and obscuring the very real need for support and care. But …does it still resonate with me? On some level…of course, it does.

So I suppose this serves as a snapshot of a particular moment in time, both in my personal journey and in the broader cultural conversation around mental health and artistic expression.

…scientists say melancholics are better lovers” /” ..happy people are forgetful suckers”/ “…Roget created his thesaurus to combat the funk”

Melancholy Maaret, enigmatic contemporary visual and performance artist and founder of Secret Sauna Sirens—a pseudonymous, experimental collaborative of multidisciplinary artists—has some interesting insight into the subject of sadness. In her poem “Paper Butterflies,” she solemnly urges us inward, in lilting, bird-like tones and a delicately rolling Finnish accent, to examine our melancholia and embrace these hermetic, suffocating feelings.

Stop trying to be happy, she warbles. After all, “…mental acuity flourishes in despair” and”…blue betties make fewer tactical errors”. “I’m not making this shit up,” she insists. Well…is she? Perhaps not. In Scientific American’s 2009 article regarding a study of depression’s evolutionary roots, it is suggested that depression is not a disorder at all, but a mental adaptation with some useful cognitive benefits.

Depressed people often think intensely about their problems. These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time.

This analytical style of thought, of course, can be very productive. Each component is not as difficult, so the problem becomes more tractable. Indeed, when you are faced with a difficult problem, such as a math problem, feeling depressed is often a useful response that may help you analyze and solve it. For instance, in some of our research, we have found evidence that people who get more depressed while they are working on complex problems in an intelligence test tend to score higher on the test.

Thank you, Melancholy Maaret, for validating us saddies. Viva melancholia! Ditch the Wellbutrin. Stay sad and homely, indeed.

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Yesterday was a weird day. So weird, in fact, that now it’s got me thinking that it’s actually the whole week that’s been weird. But maybe it was just yesterday.

I got bitten by an ant early in the morning, which felt like an ill-omen. Sitting at my desk at the start of the day, I felt an extremely unsettling sensation of something crawling at the back of my neck, and then further down my back. I would not usually be so desperate about it, but it just felt so uncommonly strange that I leapt from my chair, violently yanked my dress off, and frantically slapped and scratched every inch of my body, trying to search out the intruder. And there, wriggling furiously on the floor at my feet. I found it: a massive ant, an ant so giant I could almost see how mean and ugly his face was.

The day culminated with my pasta turning out mushy while making dinner (not a big deal, but it doesn’t take much to make one feel like a failure sometimes) and Yvan breaking his foot while doing yard work. And that one actually was a big deal. I had to drive him to the urgent care place, which was nerve-wracking –and I was already freaking out!– because, believe it or not, I have not driven this new car even once since we bought it last October. This concerns me quite a bit; my mother never drove and was totally dependent on other people for transportation, and I swore I would never let that happen to me. I can drive, and I used to drive more frequently, but then we moved to Jacksonville, and if I am being honest, driving around here terrifies me. But this a problem for another, less weird week.

Anyway, I only had to drive about five minutes up the road, and I didn’t crash or explode the car, so it was fine. It turns out Yvan has a very fine fracture, so tiny you really can’t even see it in the x-ray, but a fracture is still a fracture, and here we are. The funny thing (not funny haha) is that my sister Mary broke her foot in May, and our baby sister Melissa broke her foot in April, so I was sure it was my turn! Yvan jumped in and fielded the curse for me, I guess.

I do not deal well with stress, so here is some runway fashion. That’s a terrible transition; I am sorry!

So, fancy couture it is. I thought I’d share some of my recent favorite runway looks with you. A little glamour to brighten our day, inspire our dreams, or maybe just say, “Good grief, what am I even looking at here??”

It’s hard to put into words why certain looks call to me over others. I suspect my love for beads, velvet, and sequins plays a role – these prismatic sparkles capture and transform light into magic. These materials are stardust made tangible, moonbeams woven into fabric. Sequins shimmer like submerged scales in an otherworldly sea, or glitter like the scattered remnants of a shattered disco ball. Beads, in their myriad forms, span from smooth river stones to alien pearls, to childhood marbles, interiors swirling with miniature galaxies. Velvet, with its shifting shadows and highlights, mimics the surface of a midnight lake – deep, mysterious, and ever-changing. These elements play with light and shadow, offering glimpses of realms just beyond our grasp, portals to realms of dark wonder and luminous possibility.

In the more avant-garde creations, I find a gleeful absurdity that challenges reality. The more a piece defies conventional movement, the more it captivates me, becoming a wearable sculpture that transcends mere fashion. And, of course, I am always drawn to collections that conjure up visions of unwritten horror films, hint at celestial influences, or seem to embody some sort of bizarre cosmological philosophy.

So, without further ado (because lord knows I have had enough “ado” this week), here are some looks that have been delighting my eyeballs and making me want to grab a fistful of fabric and rub my face all over it. That form of escapism will probably get me arrested. But maybe these looks will provide a little escape for you, too.

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To gaze upon a painting by Margaretha Roosenboom is to be transported into a realm of heightened sensory experience, to lose oneself in the velvety darkness of a peony’s innermost petals, to trace the delicate veins of a translucent leaf, to feel the weight of a dewdrop trembling on the edge of a petal.

This extraordinary 19th-century Dutch artist broke new ground in floral still life painting, developing a unique, impressionistic style that favored natural compositions of single flower types against dark backgrounds. Despite being denied formal academy training – a common obstacle for women artists of her time – Roosenboom’s talent blossomed under the tutelage of her father and grandfather, both accomplished painters themselves.

This rich artistic heritage is evident in her masterful command of light and shadow. In Roosenboom’s paintings, light takes on a life of its own. Sometimes it’s the warm gold of a late afternoon; other times, a cool, silvery glow that makes the flowers look almost spectral. It’s as if they exist in some in-between place, not quite of this world but not fully here, either.

Have you noticed how her roses tremble on the edge of dissolution? Or how her lilacs droop with the weight of unspoken sorrows? There’s such exquisite detail in every bloom, you can almost feel the silken texture, catch a whiff of their fading perfume.

Her innovative approach and masterful watercolor technique didn’t go unnoticed. Roosenboom earned international acclaim and numerous awards, establishing herself as one of the leading flower painters of her time alongside contemporaries like Gerardine van de Sande Backhuyzen and Adriana Haanen. Yet, beyond the accolades, it’s the underlying melancholy in her work that truly captivates – the way she captures flowers on the cusp of decay, their splendor tinged with the inevitable. There’s profound beauty, but also a pervasive sadness. Each petal, each leaf, and stem tendril reminds us of life’s inexorable cycle.

In capturing these blooms at the pinnacle of their glory, touched by the first whispers of decline, Roosenboom offers us a meditation on the delicate nature of impermanence. Her canvases embody Mary Oliver’s insight: “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” She elevates quiet floral moments into something profound, suspending instants of fleeting beauty that invite us to linger in the liminal space where life reveals its deepest truths.

Roosenboom’s paintings persist not merely as a testament to her skill, but as a gentle challenge to our modern haste—a hushed invitation to pause, to look closely at the small miracles that surround us, and to find poetry in the curve of a petal or the shadow cast by a leaf. In closely observing life’s ever-present and unchanging cycles through her work, we might discover a richer appreciation for its ephemeral wonders.

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Today on the Midnight Stinks Patreon, I have concocted a trio of fantasy perfume collections that speak to the darker corners of art and fashion and, well, frankly, just things I am permanently obsessed with: the surreal eroticism of Jean Rollin’s films, the haunting beauty of vanitas paintings, and the avant-garde allure of macabre runway couture.

Envision scents that capture the essence of Rollin’s “Living Dead Girl” and “Fascination,” where notes of blood accord and decaying flowers mingle with absinthe and velvet. Picture fragrances inspired by the fleeting beauty and morbid symbolism of vanitas still lifes, where the scent of wilting blooms and tarnished metal serve as aromatic memento mori. I’ve also bottled the essence of fashion’s darkest visions, from Alexander McQueen’s haunting “Widows of Culloden” to Gareth Pugh’s Asgarda-inspired collection. These olfactory creations embody the transformation of trash into treasure and the juxtaposition of delicate beauty with dangerous edge.

While these perfumes exist only in our imagination for now (and probably forever unless some extraordinary perfumer/s wants to collaborate!) I invite you to lose yourself in these scented reveries. What dark corners of art and culture would you translate into fragrance? Join me on Patreon to explore the full collection and share your own fantasy fragrance concepts: Des collections de parfums imaginaires pour les âmes sombres *

*in French for extreme fanciness

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It’s a July morning, a weekday at 7 am, and I’m curled up on the sofa with my coffee, lost in the pages of a book.  (Future me: I added the above image a month later. Sorry to be confusing.) The house is quiet, save for the gentle hum of the AC. I don’t have to work today – it’s the 4th of July, and my office is closed. I’m lingering leisurely, savoring the rare luxury of unhurried time, yet I presently find myself here at my desk anyway, in this familiar routine.

Today’s book is Stephen King’s If It Bleeds (not pictured above; it’s a digital version), and as I read, my mind wandered. I can’t help but notice how his writing feels increasingly tinged with a sort of nostalgic melancholia. It makes me think of when I first read IT, published in 1986, though I probably devoured it in 1987 when I was eleven. In my memory, that’s when I read everything. Back then, the kids in his books felt like real kids to me. They had outrageously horrifying adventures, of course, but their words and thoughts weren’t always dripping with reflections and portents.. were they? O…r were they? I was only a kid, too. Perhaps I didn’t observe or internalize that vibe; perhaps I couldn’t have recognized it even if I had.

I found myself glancing up from my book, taking in my surroundings. Here I am, a middle-aged person, reading on a comfortable (and not inexpensive) sofa. Morning light stipples through the lace curtains of the house I now own outright. The AC blows on my sockless feet, chilling me even in midsummer – it’s very robust; we just had a lot of duct work done! This dawn-light ritual has become so vital to my day, a cocoon of comfort I’ve carefully crafted.

But as I sit here, I can’t help feeling it doesn’t quite measure up to those vivid memories of my eleventh year. I can still see myself, a chubby preteen growing out of my clothes, sprawled on a vinyl chaise lounge on our dusty screened porch. Hour after sticky hour, I’d sit there, plowing through stacks of lurid paperbacks. Sweat trickling down my back, thighs peeling off the seat when I shifted. I’d gulp down endless icy cups of Crystal Light (the horrid red kind, probably full of now-banned dyes). It was gross and uncomfortable, and yet… I loved it fiercely. When I think back on my childhood, it’s these humid afternoons of feverish reading that stand out as some kind of high point. The kind you can’t recreate, no matter how hard you try.

I’m feeling pretty maudlin lately, and I can’t pin it all on Stephen King. I keep asking myself: as much as I enjoy my cozy morning reads, why don’t they ever quite match up to those sweaty summer afternoons? Is it because at eleven, my whole life stretched out ahead of me, full of unknowns? While now, I feel like I’ve already lived the bulk of it?

Which is ridiculous, right? I’m not even 50. There’s still plenty of road ahead.

I find myself hopeful that every phase of life has its own peculiar charm? Yes, childhood had its magic, but adulthood has its own wonders, too. The ability to create a space that nurtures my passions, the depth of understanding I bring to my reading now, the quiet satisfaction of a life built on my own terms – these are not small things. There’s something to be said for this life I’ve pieced together. It’s not nothing, is it?

I wonder if instead of trying to relive that childhood intensity, I could find a way to tap into that openness, that hunger for stories, right here in my present. There are still worlds to explore, both in these pages and beyond them.
Those memories of reading marathons in muggy, mosquito-filled Florida summers – they’re part of me. But I don’t want to get lost in them. Maybe they can serve as a reminder of why I fell in love with books in the first place. What if I could bring some of that raw enthusiasm to my reading now? What strange new territories might I stumble into? What might I learn about myself in the process?

Who’s to say the most vivid moments are all in the past? (Notice I didn’t say “the best moments,” ha! Not over here trying to say I ever had any glory days.) There could be something waiting in the next chapter, or in a random Thursday morning like this one. This might just be the pinnacle of joy I’ll be nostalgic for decades from now.

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As July unfurls its sticky, sweltering tentacles across Florida, I find myself once again at odds with summer’s exuberant cheer. For those more attuned to autumn’s melancholy or winter’s quiet introspection, this season can be… challenging, to say the least. To say the most, it’s really fucking awful.

It’s a peculiar form of reverse seasonal affective disorder if you will. While others bask on the beach and barbecues and patio pool brunches and trips to Disneyland — you absolute freaking psychos– I find myself yearning desperately for cozy layers of clothing and the rustle of falling leaves, and a more benevolent sun that can actually read the room and doesn’t hang out in the sky until 9 o’clock in the evening. And in this state of summer-induced ennui, I’ve come to a realization: I gotta get out of here.

In the spirit of self-care and creative rejuvenation, I’ve decided to step away from the digital realm for a spell. I’m embarking on a digital sabbatical for the month of July. A respite from the noise, a chance to recalibrate. In the grip of July’s oppressive heat, all those nasty social media feedback loops become a cacophony I can no longer ignore. And knowing this, I’m going to shut it down. Quite literally! Logging out of all the things.

(And yes, I realize this isn’t my first rodeo with the whole ‘social media break’ thing, and it probably won’t be my last. It’s become something of an annual tradition, hasn’t it? Like my own personal digital detox festival. I’m not pretending I’ve discovered some revolutionary concept here. It’s never easy, but I’ve found it’s good for me – a necessary reset for my overheated brain.)

So, instead of losing hours to the infinite scroll, I’ll lose myself in the pages of neglected books and the flickering frames of films long on my watch list. Maybe I’ll start knitting a shawl (or, let’s be realistic, maybe I’ll add another row to that sock I’ve been working on for the past four months.)

This isn’t goodbye, merely a brief intermission. I look forward to returning in August, hopefully refreshed, possibly vitamin D deficient, and with new stories to share. Until then, may you carve out your own shadowy refuges in this sweaty, noisy world.

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Sometime in 2022, I wrote a very long and very personal and very “ma’am, this is a Wendy’s” essay review of this scent, but I am not sure that I shared it here. The gist of Soul of My Soul from Etat Libre d’Orange is that it’s soft and cozy sandalwood-y musks; the cocoon of your feet touching your person’s feet under a fleece blanket when you’re comfort-watching LotR for the bazillionth time. It’s a spot on your person’s chest sculpted perfectly to cradle your head at night. It’s their funny murmuring snore when you shift your body in bed, and your butts touch for a moment. It’s the secret language of two hearts who get it, and who got the chance to get it. It’s the miracle and magic safety and connection and all the green flags saying go-go-go, that it’s okay to be your weirdest, most authentic, very truest self with someone, and no matter how weird or hard things get–and they will get harder and weirder, make no mistake–you will always remain a soft, safe place for each other.

I picked up a bottle of Baruti Oh My Deer from Perfumology in Philadelphia earlier in the month when I was visiting my Best Good Friend. Oh My Deer struck me immediately because one, I’d never smelled anything from these guys, and two, this really does not smell like anything in my collection. This is one of those fragrances that immediately conjures an image in my mind; one of my late father’s Heavy Metal magazines from the 1980s featuring a metallic beauty on the cover, all gleaming chrome and curves, stark lines, and a strange, throbbing sense of mystery. Hajime Sorayama’s art for Heavy Metal magazine perfectly captured his signature style of future-noir and sci-fi eroticism for the machine age, and it certainly captured my attention when I first saw it at the tender age of 11. I don’t typically dissect fragrances through the lens of sexiness and sex appeal because, frankly, it feels inelegant and reductive. Perfumes can be so much more. But in this instance, it feels strangely fitting. Oh My Deer is a scent of bitter, aldehydic metallic musks, perversely both mineralic and animalic, and the olfactive dissonance of peppers that are warming and resinous but also act as a cooling, electric current. It’s a scent that also feels gritty and grungy, somehow, which brings it all back to a very personal place for me. Gritty and grungy is exactly how I felt when I first flipped through that back catalog of Heavy Metal magazines; they terrified and exhilarated me in equal measure, and those dark, techno-apocalyptic narratives may have been the catalyst for the first bit of… stirrings… in my weird little bod. Hey, we’ve all got our origin stories. Oh My Deer triggers a fascinating internal dialogue, pulling me back to those thrillingly strange magazines. It’s not what most would consider sexy, and for me personally, it isn’t either. But it’s undeniably weird, a quality I find endlessly intriguing. More importantly, it’s a scent I genuinely enjoy wearing.

A trio of scents from Heretic that I tried during that same Philadelphia trip…

Dirty Violet: dank dungeon jasmine, a collection of skeletal cypress knees, and a patchouli oil-slicked leather executioner’s mask
Dragon’s Blood: earthy, in a fantasy vegetable detritus compost-y sort of way, and also a bit smoky, like you made incense from that compost? (This was a limited edition and not available now.)
Cactus Abduction: has a sort of retro cucumber melon/cotton blossom vibe, but with an added zhuzh of effervescence, like the dream of the 90s is alive but make it sparkle!

Frederic Malle En Passant I’m a little ashamed to say that as long as I’ve been enthusing about fragrance, this is the first time I have ever smelled this one (I believe it is meant to be some kind of contemporary classic?) With notes of lilac, cucumber, cedar, and white musk, I am still trying to put into words what a beautiful creation this is. All I can say is that it’s like the gauzy childhood memory of a gentle, misty spring day, cool tendrils of fog lifting as the sun shifts through the clouds and warms the skin…but that’s not quite right. As a child, I wouldn’t have had the language for the ghostly sense of nostalgic melancholia En Passant evokes. It’s more like looking at the source of this memory through a hazy window pane as an adult, the present as it unfolds moment to moment, and becomes memory as fast as the moment unfurls. And knowing how fleeting it all is. And the sadness for the passage of time, and the joy for the child who doesn’t feel that yet. It’s that. It’s all of that.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Nyx, Night Goddess Imagine all the forbidden nocturnal mystery evoked by rich, smoky, brooding resins such as opoponax, oud, and frankincense, but soften it with sweetness and snuggles, make it a kinder, gentler darkness. Brown sugar candle glow, amber lantern light, the honeyed hum of a streetlamp– a companionable luminescence for the midnight soul, and a comforting balm for night owls, moonlighters, and after-dark enthusiasts.

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