We arrived to our local green spaces in swathes, armed with homemade cereal box pinhole projectors, colanders and for the lucky few who were organised in time, real solar eclipse viewing glasses. I was not part of this destined lucky few, so my boyfriend and me had the utmost privilege of viewing the eclipse through my highly technical stainless steel lemon juice strainer. There I was, stood in the park at my big age of 27, intently staring at the shadows cast through my lemon juicer, hoping to feel something.

Cloudless and heavy with the promise of a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical phenomenon, the sky turned a slightly dimmer shade of blue. I braced myself for total darkness, but was instead quickly met with this kind of hard, unwavering evening light (the type you can only feel at around 7pm in a heatwave in London). Underwhelmed with salt on our skin, we returned to the car to drive home. In some ways, it felt bittersweet. I wasn’t totally present during the eclipse because a man had approached us to ramble about how he was ‘just there for my kids’ whilst my grown ass was nodding my head in agreement, trying to shrug him off politely so I could see cool shadow on tree.

I was also filled with existential dread because seeing our beautiful green spaces become ashen yellow kindling this past summer, has made me feel so hopeless about the state of it all. And yet simultaneously, I felt the joy of community. In spite of all the ways we have been told we are not like each other, here we were as mere mortals before the extraordinary ball of light in the sky, that different cultures across our earth have revered for thousands of years. Beholding the path of totality, together. When it really boils down to it, we can organise. We can show up in the same space, for the same thing, at the right time. And more than anything, we don’t have to be perfect in the ways we show up. That dustbowl of a park, became a basin which filled with hope and in mere seconds drained with my despair. We can come together to adore our beautiful moon and sun, but can we come together to protect our planet?

Watching the news these past few weeks, my ‘climate anxiety’ has skyrocketed. The whole world has been on fire and as billionaires let it burn, ordinary citizens have been burned out of their homes, wildlife has struggled to adapt to extreme conditions and we are watching it all from our screens. I want to believe that we can come together to protect our planet, our wildlife, our food sources, our citizens. If you have read this far, I thank you. I know that if you are reading this, you have empathy for other perspectives, that you strive to do more for others and are doing your best to lean into the discomfort of where we are right now. I praise you for your courage in not looking away. I hope the excitement and energy that you may have felt for the eclipse propels you to keep advocating for our beautiful planet, and what she is being made to cruelly endure right now. I hope you know that your passion for her protection is the reason I believe in hope. And more than anything, I thank you for showing up imperfectly.

a playlist for climate anxiety because apparently that’s the main way I process things

1. That Funny Feeling, (originally performed and written by Bo Burnham, but the Phoebe Bridgers cover has my heart rn)

2. Cranes in the Sky, Solange

3. forwards beckon rebound, Adrienne Lenker

4. Plastic 100 degrees, Sampha (this particular cover has been on repeat for me since it came out)

5. Soft Shock, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

6. Both Sides of the Moon, Celeste

7. Debold, Vegyn

8. Separate, Mustafa

9. Futile Devices (Doveman Remix), Sufjan Stevens

There will be times in your life where you will find you are no longer reaching for the things that brought you sanctuary. Your labour, your attention and your energy will be siphoned into other demands, be it a job or school. The hobbies you used to devote hours to as a child that you then nurtured into adulthood fall by the wayside. The people you used to catch up with after class fade into shadows in the distance. Your hands no longer cradle a book on your way out of the train station. This time for me, was after my Master’s had finished.

Like a lot of us, I spent my time fulfilling the next goalpost. First it was school, then it was university, after that a job (one that I couldn’t stand), then another job (one that I couldn’t stand even more) and then university again. You spend so much time on the hamster wheel of life that you forget about all the things that you loved and loved you back, before the world told you who to be. When my life fell into a more of a rhythm, I finally had a moment to recoup and steady myself; to relearn who I was when life had afforded me the kind of slowness to just be.

I realised I was no longer creating anymore. And I was no longer excited by the prospect of anything anymore so long as I wasn’t creating or immersing myself in the things I loved. So it was important that I fixed that. Creative output has always felt like muscle memory. The longer I didn’t do something that required me to make or do or write or draw or edit, the longer it took for me to get back into the act of creating. I bought myself an online course on drawing for 20 pounds, sheepishly greeted my 20 year old graphite set like it was an old, distant friend that I had made amends with, and got to work. It was so hard at first. A blank page resembled a black hole. So now I have to fill the void? With something actually good? Legible, even? Pffft.

I got over the drawing hump. I first started drawing birds. I started appreciating birds more from just the act of drawing them. I started looking out for birds on every walk I took. Every time I heard a call or a song, my ears would perk up like a dog being summoned for dinner. My love for drawing made me interested in the world again. It pulled me out my head and into my body. My curiosity came rushing back. I started immersing myself in the hobbies I loved most: I started reading again. Annihilation was one of the first books I read coming out of my long and enduring reading slump.

Annihilation was the breath of fresh air that I needed. The story follows four women; a biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor and a psychologist as they explore the uncharted terrain of Area X. Whilst many have sought to uncover the mysteries of Area X, no one has been successful in understanding it’s formation or the goings on that happen there. We follow the story through the perspective of the biologist. She has this magnetic fascination with nature which simultaneously anchors her in the real world and transports her to one that is far away, detached from the banality of the everyday. She is reinvigorated by the glimmers of the natural world in a sort of infectious way that can’t help but make you feel that way too. It has been a long time since I have had the pleasure of reading a book that made me feel like a wide-eyed kid again. I used to devour books when I was a child; I would constantly be wondering when the next time would be that I’d be reunited with my book again between classes and my commute. Reading Annihilation felt like reading The Hunger Games for the first time - I was instantly hooked, and read the book with the kind of voracity and pace that transported me back to my childhood bedroom.

Without further ado, here is the sonic world that accompanied me in my reading of this fantastic book - all music is hyperlinked for you and will send you to the YouTube format of the listed song(s).

a playlist for annihilation by jeff vandermeer:

1. Optimistic - Radiohead

2. braincells - tomcbumpz

3. We’ll Meet Again - Vera Lynn, Roland Shaw & His Orchestra

4. #bfbfbf (12:20:00pm - 05:07:53pm) - Jun Futamata

5. Hanging Ghosts - James Newton Howard

6. Goetia - Lustmord

7. Craig - Smerz

8. Empty Pools - Shlohmo

9. The Boat - Hania Rani

10. Just Breathe - Nine Inch Nails

11. the past, the present - helix fracture, Hevi

12. An Ending (Ascent) - Remastered - Brian Eno

13. Sea-Watch - Floating Points

14. It’s a Rainy Day on the Cosmic Shore - Ana Roxanne

Often we sit and wait for the quiet moments worth living to show. If you nurture your curiosity, the glimmers will find you, everywhere you go.

With love,

N x

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If you’re reading this you either stumbled on this by pure chance or have come from my instagram page - either way, I’m grateful to have you here.

Music is a huge part of my life. Whilst I’m regretfully not a musician (I gave up on my violin lessons far too early as a child), I’ve always been in the habit of listening. I started collecting CDs at age 10, and then abandoned them for vinyls age 12, before I had even had a record player for them. My first ever CD I purchased was Paramore’s Riot! and my first vinyl I’d ever bought was ‘The Best of Blondie’ which I scavenged in the charity shop down the road from my childhood home. Growing up in London, I was blessed with living in a main touring city and I’m fortunate enough to be able to say that I have not only seen a lot of my favourite musicians live in concert, but also met a lot of the artists who have shaped my listening habits and in a lot of ways, the person I am today: Little Simz, Daniel Caesar, Kali Uchis (she told me I had big beautiful eyes and I am forever changed), Sampha, Q, Denzel Curry, Mustafa - the list could go on and for that I am so grateful.

If you know me, you’ll know I have a playlist for virtually every time and emotion and use case in my life. Where I stopped keeping journals for fear of looking back at experiences that were too painful or precious to revisit, music filled the gaps. Music kept the score; the sadness, the joy, the nostalgia, the anger, the moments in between. Music has always been both my personal sanctuary and time machine, careening me back to the exact moment after my first heartbreak, the precise way the wind felt on my face in a new town, the blurring colours of lurid city lights through the cab window on a rainy drive home from a night seeing old friends. And so naturally, I wanted to share this with you, my beloved reader.

I recently uploaded my first episode of radio of orchid, where I feature curated playlists for moods, books, whatever I’ve been feeling. My first playlist centres Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Klara and The Sun was the first fictional text I dared to pick up after finishing my academic studies. It was a text that explored what it meant to be human in an age where we are collective witness to the advent of A.I. What does it mean when community is no longer a meaningful part of our lives? What if loneliness became more familar than human connection? What happens when death becomes synonymous with obsolecence? This book both totally unsettled me whilst leaving me with this unnerving and stoic sense of calm that I still think about three years later. Without further ado, here is my resplendent little playlist, a companion for Klara and The Sun:

a playlist for: klara and the sun by kazuo ishiguro

Chamber of Reflection - Mac De Marco

Space Song - Beach House

The Wilhem Scream - Tom Misch

Sunshine - Steve Lacy ft Foushee

Plastic 100°C - Sampha

Avril 14th - Aphex Twin

Dawn in the Adan - Ichiko Aoba

This is How We Move - Billie Marten

Dream - Ryuichi Sakamoto

Without You (interlude) - Orion Sun

Guilty Cubicles - Broken Social Scene

Our Love - Emil Mosseri

Organon - Men I Trust

Sea Swallow Me - Cocteau Twins, Harold Budd

XXX Olympiad - Ross From Friends

Instrumental 3 - Florist

I hope this playlist gives you a little piece of what I experienced. May music carry you in the way words fail to.

all my love,

- N

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