Hey,

A day later than usual, sorry about that. I messed up some DNS records in the midst of switching email provider and, despite fixing them, they hadn't propagated in time for me to send this yesterday. Anyway, back to our regular programming.

This month, I’ve ended my working relationship with two clients.

One needed to happen. They’d had this huge churn in staff and weren't using my skills in an effective or valuable way. It reminded me of the last few weeks of a relationship where you know the end is coming but neither of you has said it yet. That, but on repeat for months. Pretty painful—and pretty relieving to be rid of it.

Hey,

Saturday night, we landed in Funchal. The lights of the south coast twinkled and rose up steeply into the hills. We took our taxi from the airport to Ponta do Sol in sacred silence, marvelling at the steep rise of cliff-faces on our right and the steady drop down to the Atlantic on our left.

I get this feeling sometimes in Cornwall, that I’m on the edge of the world and things are always a little more severe, a little more intense, more vivid. I feel it here. I feel it madly.

That’s one of my favourite things right now: finding that places completely apart from each other can share an essence. Or maybe it’s that they touch some similar essence in me.

Hey,

When you experience an experience, it comes and goes. When you resist experiencing an experience, it persists. And the major form of resisting your experience is by thinking. If you're trying to think your way around things, what you first need to do is stop thinking and feel your way through things.

Christmas chats, for me, were dominated by Radical Honesty. Interestingly, this was almost exclusively with my friends and Bex’s family, not my own family. The last hurdle. The final boss. The site of original dishonesty. Or something like that, I don’t know, ask Sigmund Freud.

Anyway, I wanted to bring the spotlight back to RH after Slow News Day #24 and feeling like I couldn’t explain what it’s all about to my friends over the last few weeks. This is my attempt at a second, third, and fourth explanation.

Hey,

I bought a blazer, trousers, and shirts from Uskees a couple of months ago. They’re quality. Proper craft and care with good, grounded ethics. Paying a little bit more for items is a privilege I’m still pretty new to, but it’s throwing up some interesting things for me.

When I think about the hallmarks of ‘quality’, the first thing that comes to mind is precision.

Precision is what separates the mass-manufactured shirt that quickly fades and thins from the carefully manufactured one that lasts for a decade. Delicate double-stitching, specific cuts of quality fabric, buttons made of natural materials instead of plastic. It’s not viable to make these products at the same scale as DTC behemoths or cheap-and-fast retailers, because the process can’t be done quickly.

Hey,

Past Joe here. I’ve scheduled this in advance, as I’m off work for a couple of weeks now. Usual service with the newsletter, if you can forgive a bit of time-bending.

Christmas is a funny time. I know I put a lot of pressure on myself at this time of year.

I have high expectations of myself:

Hey,

“I’m really not sure I can handle it,” I said. “It’s going to be so cold.”

I wasn’t preparing for a wild swim or anything brave—I was just boarding a plane from Tenerife to come back to the UK. Woe is me, right?

And my fears came true. Like wearing jeans with dodgy pockets, we climbed above the clouds and seemed to drop 20°C somewhere over the Atlantic. No chance of retracing those footsteps.

Hey,

Remember last week? I told you I was on my way up to Bristol to attend a Radical Honesty workshop over the weekend.

Well, I did it. I did it and I’m struggling to find the words to explain it.

I’ve never, in my entire life, done something so challenging. Nor have I done something so rewarding.

Hey,

The signature on the opening page stretches from edge to edge, covering its entire breadth. A thoughtful scrawl, seemingly forgetting that it’s supposed to be bordered by white space. It stretches beyond its expected confines and captures the eye immediately.

It’s also just Hannah Kent’s signature in the signed hardback of Devotion, given to me by Bex as a birthday present.

A historic queer love bildungsroman that takes in pain and faith, gain and love, and the unavoidable and ever-present magic of trees.

Hey,

Well, it’s here. World Cup fever feels more like a stuffy nose and tickle in the throat this time around.

Everyone’s got a stance, everyone’s got their hypocrisies. And I really don’t know where I stand with it.

I know that I completely disagree with Qatar’s policies around and treatment of LGBTQ+ people, migrant workers, and women. I know that I love football and the meeting of countries, citizens, and cultures that the World Cup uniquely provides.

Hey,

If you’ve been here for a while, you might remember Slow News Day #8. It was all about goodbyes—about the conflict of leaving something lovely behind while appreciating how the temporary nature of things is what made it special to begin with.

(You might not remember it even if you have been here the whole time—that’d be a pretty impressive devotion of mental space to these silly slow emails.)

Well, I’m in that place again. We’ve left Cactus Coliving and today’s the last day of our mini-holiday at the end of it all. All of the words I wrote back in August remain true. In fact, I’m pretty moved by their accuracy and perspicacity. Nice one, me.

Hey,

20 newsletters, how cool is that? I’ve spent every week for over a third of a year writing — taking time to reflect on my experiences through the lens of slowness and learning about myself. And a growing number of you are interested in reading it each week. What a joy!

On Sunday, Bex and I leave Cactus Coliving and are heading to Costa Adeje for a five-day holiday in true British style. Hotel, pool, laziness. Not quite all-inclusive, but not far off. After four and a half weeks of intense social connection and communal living, it’s a sweet tonic to look forward to.

And on the topic of holidays, I figured now is a good time to share how I take time off as a freelancer.

Hey,

Every Sunday at Cactus, a local guide takes the group on an excursion somewhere on the island. He picks a cool place to go and gives everyone a rough timescale for the day. It’s a great addition, but it’s not for me. I’m not much of a hiker (I could write for days about my dislike for the concept, but that’s not really Slow News Day material). I get anxious without a clear plan and I tend towards panic when I’m not in control of my movements or schedule.

So, I don’t go on these Sunday trips. And I feel like a total fucking loser when I don’t. I’m on a beautiful volcanic island and I’m not comfortable going out for the day to clamber over cliffs and swim in choppy seas.

There’s a huge swathe of negative self-talk that goes on in my head — even though I know I’m acting in a way that respects my boundaries and gives me the sense of safety I need. It’s something I’ve been properly working on with intention for the last year or so and I always pictured my progress with it as a stepped thing.

Hey,

I’m not too sure what time looks like; its form or function.

Why do our clocks tick in circles, but our calendars never come back to square one?

Is each inward and outward breath a unique process, or one repetition of a constant cycle?

Hey,

COVID really fucking got me, to be honest.

I felt pretty grim, probably the worst cold/flu I’ve ever had, but not exceptionally unwell and I didn’t need any external medical attention.

My cough and, more than anything else, my fatigue persisted… but I got over it. I thought.

Hey,

Bex sent me an article a little while back. It was written by Doi Emi, in 2019, for Nippon. It’s not extensive, it’s not detailed beyond belief, it’s a pleasant story told one drip at a time.

I won’t rehash it for you here; you can read the whole thing if you’d like to.

What I want to do here is focus on a few words Daibō Katsuji—the article’s hero—shared in their conversation.

Hey,

When I was a kid, I had a habit that came up regularly enough to make me itch with discomfort, but irregularly enough to keep me tantalised by its idiosyncrasy.

It’d usually appear on long car rides or when trying to sleep despite not really being tired enough. A perfect time-filler and brain-blower.

I’d try to create a sequence of sounds—word-like without being words—that, in my opinion, had never been uttered by another human.

Hey,

Last week was a long-awaited week off. I crammed extra work in in advance, so I didn’t have to think about client stuff at all. I prepped what I could to make this week a smooth return.

When I finally got everything ticked off my to-do list on Friday night, we went to the pub with friends for a drink and to play a board game. A nice way to see in some time off.

Then, on Sunday night, a tickle in my throat appeared and wouldn’t go away. On Monday, I was ill. On Tuesday, I got a positive result on my test. 2.5 years later, it finally got me. After all the risk-avoidance, planning, and care.

Hey,

I almost didn't write a newsletter this week. I'm writing this on Wednesday and things are kind of hectic -- we're in a busy period of regular relocating (we left Margate early - thank you for the encouraging and caring replies a bunch of you sent in response to Slow News Day #10) and I'm taking next week off work.

That means, this week, I'm effectively doing 10 days of work in five and trying to fit in packing/unpacking and an afternoon of travelling...

Yet I'm still happy about it. Yeah, I'm tired, but I'm in control.

Hey,

I’ve been taking Sertraline for two and a half years or so. I started at a time of desperate need and have no regrets—in fact, I’m proud of the bravery and self-love I showed in seeking the prescription at that time.

A year or so after first getting my prescription, I had a medication review with my GP. “You don’t really want to be on them forever, so if you’re feeling okay right now it could be a good idea to try and come off them.” (Certainly not their exact words, but an approximation as best I can remember.)

So I tried. A week later I was in a fucking bad place all over again. It was sudden. Severe. I felt dangerously out of control of my emotions and responses to them. I returned to my original dose a little later and took on board the idea that I’d failed and would need to stay on them indefinitely—despite my doctor’s belief that one should aim to do the opposite.

Hey,

In about two weeks, it’ll be exactly 10 years ago that I started university.

My parents dropped me off at St George’s Hall in Reading, we unloaded the car, walked around, and hugged warmly and deeply. I watched them drive off as my heart skittered and my independent life began.

I was an excited, baby-faced, incessantly stoned kid. I thought I had it all figured out.