Issue 38: Seven Things Worth Your Friday

Dear reader,

I promised something lighter, so here it is. I keep a running list through the week of things that made me stop, and on Fridays I pull out the best. Some of these you could find yourself, and some you couldn't, but I hope the kinds of thing will be familiar. Look for your own versions this week.

The seven

1. A lighthouse keeper's logbook, read aloud on a train. Every entry is the weather and nothing else. By the fifth day you realise it's the most honest diary you've ever heard.

2. An essay about a bus stop. Nobody dies, nothing is solved, and I read it twice in a row.

3. The sound of a pencil being sharpened with a knife. If you've never done it, find a pencil and a knife. Do it near a window.

4. A forty-line poem with no adjectives. I counted. It still manages to feel like a garden.

5. A letter from a stranger who had my wrong address. Kind, funny, entirely misdirected. I forwarded it to the right person with a note saying "this is yours, enjoy".

6. A recipe that is mostly an argument. The quantities are wobbly, the opinions are firm, and it's the best thing I cooked this month.

7. The best sentence about rain I read all month. "It came down as if it had been waiting years to say something and had finally found the words." I'd love to tell you who wrote it, but I copied it onto a receipt and lost the context. Consider it anonymous and slightly haunted.

A note on lists like this

I used to feel guilty about newsletters made of recommendations. They seemed lazy, as though the writer hadn't earned the right to fill the space. I've changed my mind. A good list is an act of attention, and attention is the rarest thing any of us can hand over. You notice something, you hold it for a week, and you give it away.

The rule I try to keep is: one line each, no ranking, nothing I wouldn't say to your face. If I can't describe why a thing mattered in a sentence, it didn't matter enough.

Your turn

I'd like to run a reader's list in a few weeks. Send me three things that held your attention this month, one line apiece. Weird is welcome. If you aren't sure yours are good enough, they are.

If you want the serious stuff, last week's mailbag is still open, and Marit's reply is worth the walk.

See you next Friday, and wishing you a week with at least one good sentence in it.

Hollis