Luminarysworlds - Abibliophobia-TheFearOfRunningOutOfReadingMaterial

Pay attention to things that usually pass you by unnoticed. Discover new sounds in songs you like and new meanings in your favorite stories. And then go beyond. Listen to new songs. Read new stories. Fall in love with astronomy and then with painting. Start writing poems, songs, and love letters. The possibilities are endless and whatever you choose to do, just remember to never stop opening the doors of your existence because behind some of them you may actually find yourself.

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dolores nemi caldentey

This is beautiful and spot on 🥰

December 6 - i think of things. kids laughing kids crying kids learning to talk, tiny gods of chaos with their sticky hands and wide eyes, every sound they make an echo of something ancient. mothers cradling them, their spines curved like question marks, as if carrying the weight of the world in their arms isn’t enough, they still wonder if they’re doing it right. butterfly wings, paper-thin, flutter in my mind, and i think of cursive handwriting, those loops and flourishes like secrets unraveling, a song written in ink. bird songs, bird sounds, the chatter of sparrows and the caw of crows blend into the distant hum of kids calling out to each other, voices sharp and soft like the sun breaking through the winter haze. god, i love the winter sun. it kisses your face like it’s shy, but it lingers, doesn’t it? it holds on. sometimes i want to do something big, something huge, something that makes me look in the mirror and think, - 'yeah, she’s okay. she’s worth it.' long nails, red nails, sharp enough to cut through the layers of me i don’t like. i think about getting a manicure, a pedicure, about letting someone else shape me into something pretty, something polished. the sun feels like a brushstroke on my skin, something deliberate and golden, something that makes the chaos of the world seem softer.

i think of the one who lives far away. there’s a kindness in his words, a gentleness that feels like the edge of something meaningful, but i wonder if it’s real or just a reflection of what i want to see. but him him him, the one i call mine, he persists in my mind like it's his home. i don’t want to be the more obsessed one, the one who bends, who believes too much, who feels too much who hopes too much. i want to be adored. i want to be  dreamt about, someone they can’t stop thinking of. maybe he doesn’t like me for me. maybe he likes me because i believe in him, because i listen, because i know how to turn his fears into something smaller, something manageable. maybe he likes how i make him feel, not who i am. mom doesn’t like pigeons. i think they’re kind of beautiful. they fly in messy, chaotic patterns that somehow make sense, and when they land, they look so ordinary, so unassuming, like they don’t know what it means to touch the sky. i wish i could be like them. i wish i could fly with them, circle over cities, over him, over myself, and laugh at how small it all looks from above. maybe then i’d stop taking myself so seriously, stop giving so much weight to things that don’t deserve it. just a flicker, something so small and unimportant it doesn’t even cast a shadow. i’d make a home with the ants if they’d let me. weaver ants, those little architects of leaves, always so busy, so focused. they used to bother me, always crawling, always taking over, but now i think we’ve reached some kind of truce. they don’t invade my cookies, and i don’t crush them under my thumb. there’s a respect there, i think. or maybe i’ve just grown tired of fighting things that are so much smaller than me, so much simpler.

it’s strange how you can learn to coexist with something that used to bother you. i wonder if that’s what love is supposed to feel like, not this endless hunger, not this sharp, desperate ache, but something quieter, something that can live beside you without needing to consume you. but then, the winter sun touches my face again, and i think about kids. kids laughing, kids learning to talk, their words soft and unsure, like butterfly wings brushing against your ears. i think about butterfly wings, about their colors and fragility, and how they never seem to notice their own beauty. i think about my hunger for love how I hate the madness of it and still can't help getting lost in it. i think of how i want to do something, something that makes me like myself the way i like the winter sun or the idea of birds laughing. maybe that’s why i think about long nails and manicures, about the tiny things that make me feel human, grounded. but then the world pulls me back to its noise when all i want is a quiet life, a life where i can just be. where the sun feels warm, the birds keep flying, and maybe, just maybe, someone loves me in a way that feels like sunlight.

Edward Steichen was taken by the beauty of delphiniums and hybridized many new varieties at his Connecticut farm. This photo is from the 1940s.

Filmmaker Laura McGann’s documentary The Deepest Breath — a collaboration with A24, Motive Films, Ventureland, and RAW — tells the story of two free divers and their fated journey to cross paths: a champion trying to break world records and a beloved safety diver who helps her train. The film also gives the audience a stunning view inside the world of free diving itself, with extended scenes shot below the surface that are somehow both teeth-grittingly tense and beautifully serene.

“There was almost something otherworldly about it, almost spiritual,” McGann told Tudum in January. “I could feel that there was just an at-oneness that these people had, that they were so relaxed and they were just meant to be there. It was really gentle — but also powerful and hard to believe.”

[The Deepest Breath]

Golden hour light

There's a new post up on my substack that includes this throwback and a few other pen-and-ink journal comics from the archives, along with a behind-the-scenes blog post. This is my first paid-subscribers-only substack post because it's more personal than usual.

Most of my substack posts are free and publicly available! Subscribing (free!) gets them sent right to your email inbox! It's neat! I love you!

The House of Scientists, a historic architectural building in the center of Odesa, destroyed by the Russians

Photos: Petro Obukhov / Telegram