The Romance In Everything

Life is hard enough. Look at the sky.

Today’s newsletter deals with themes of depression and suicide, please consider this a trigger warning and skip on to the links under the “Other Stuff” heading if you’d rather not read it.

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One of the things people tell you about depression is that it sucks the fun out of everything, including the things you really enjoy. While I appreciate this abstract attempt at trying to describe the sensation of being bled dry by my own mind, it’s not exactly true. During the worst times, I can’t remember what I enjoy, and every other awful thing is amplified. Depression’s most insidious and dangerous symptom is its ability to appear as the status quo. Like an ant powered by a parasitic fungus, I try to continue with my life, vaguely recollecting that I should eat, shower, tidy up, while the deeper threads that connect the basics of functioning day to day are eroded.

This is what scares me about depression. Without enjoyment, what is life? When it is broken down into component tasks—cleaning, sleeping, exercising, working—it doesn’t seem worth much at all. And this is what it feels like. All of the time. Deep down there is knowledge that this is a strip-lit illusion, that the real world doesn’t feel like this, but it’s hard to know or care when there is no energy left to seek out what truly exists. This is not wallowing. This is some stagnant other thing.

Decades of experience tells me that I have to keep doing the things that help, even when it feels like I would rather die¹. I went to the gym, because I saw a meme on a fitness Instagram account that said “You’ll never regret going, but you’ll regret not going.” This is why last week you might have found me crying on an inverted leg press machine, crushing 80kg, listening to Modest Mouse. No, I was not well. I still went though. Gains.

Today, Rachel Hendry wrote about cider, and the essence of things, and romance, for her newsletter J’adore Le Plonk.

“…romance has so many negative connotations, doesn't it, to most people it is silly, effeminate, unserious. So I’ve been thinking about what it is to be romantic and I think the key quality of romance is in care. It is seen as romantic to care because care is so rarely rewarded”

It’s true. To be romantic is to be silly, to be blousy and fickle, to see the world as a better place—to be an idealist. Rachel’s idea that romance at its heart is care is a lovely one, because while, as she points out, being feminine is often derided and disrespected, the vital act of caring is seen as wholly feminine. To care is to be vulnerable. Caring is a generous act of sacrifice. What could be more romantic?

I notice that depression docks my imagination and urges me to think practically. It’s just the sun. It’s only music. Every day is the same. It stops me from caring, because in caring there is the possibility of pain. It is the opposite of romance. It is an online atheist in the year 2006. What I miss most when I’m ill is my sense of wonder. I’ve learned that seeing glory in leaves and sunlight and a perfect plate of pasta isn’t a way of avoiding reality—it is reality. Caring about others, and the world around me, is what stabilises me, what makes me feel safer. In the romance of the world is where the meaning of life lies, and it feels incredibly unfair to know this while also struggling to see it. But it is there, and it’s waiting for me to come back. I saw it on Tuesday running near Pendle Hill. I saw it last week in a negroni made for me by a friend. Perhaps I’ll see it today.

Other Stuff

• Japanese printmaker Morozumi Osamu’s landscapes are such a serene antidote to the constant battering rain. His print of the Eiger is my favourite.

• Anaïs Lecoq is a French writer from Champagne, and she’s written about her hometown and its local wine for Pellicle.

• “As churches are converted into pubs and flats, bellmakers must adapt.” Rob Bidder’s cartoon on art’s value and function in society.

• “Thoughts and Prayers” is a 15 piece series of ceramics by Stanley Tong, each shot with firearms when thrown, then pit fired, preserving the damage in his finished pieces.

• Talking about romance, Henri Biva’s turn of the century paintings of late summer ponds and parks are total romantic delusion. In a Ladybird book illustration sort-of way.

• An extremely cool video about how Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy was sampled and cut together, made 15 years ago out of paper, scissors, and a lot of creativity.

• Mergoat magazine has become on of my favourite things to read recently, after stumbling across them while looking for local information and news following the devastating hurricane there. This important piece by Veronica Limeberry follows an elder seed-saver in the South-Appalachian region, whose home was destroyed. He wrote a ballad about Hurricane Helene, recorded here.

• Loudemile Weekly on their favourite knives, something all us kitchen folks love

• Charlotte Cook on 70p beers and train journeys in Romania

My Stuff

• Sign up to the Pellicle Patreon to get a bonus piece from me every month! These pieces are only available to our Patreon supporters, and by supporting Pellicle you’re directly supporting our magazine.

Henri Biva - L'Etang de Villeneuve Embrume

1. The most helpful thing I’ve learned over the years to deal with intrusive suicide ideation is to remind yourself that dying is not the only alternative to living with depression. There are millions of alternatives. As much as I hate trite self-help platitudes, something that’s stuck with me is that I’m an adult, so I can make whatever decisions I want. Do I really want to die? Or would I rather have pizza and chocolate cake for tea? Sometimes this helps. Actually, it always helps. I’m still here.