Passing Thoughts

Thursday, 26th August 2021

I haven't left but the spiders are already moving in

I find them in my bed, my curtains, dead and coiled in an old blanket fort

They ring the chimes that hang from my ceiling light

And find space among the creaking boards

I had a dream of this once, spiders hung in every corner and footfall

Taking over my life, my memories, as they crawl into the space left before

It is only when I know I am leaving, that I see the dust in the corner

And the tide coming in from the far away shore

Introduction

I’m Ruth (she/her) and I write a lot, mainly poems, but I am also a historian, proofreader, and tarot card reader. I don't want to spill my whole life story but I'm also dyspraxic and hypermobile. I’m currently studying dress and textile histories, and my research is focused on deliberately concealed garments in UK buildings. I’m going to list a few of my WIPs and projects so that you know what to expect from my blog!

WIPs and Projects: 

Substack - I now have a newsletter for my historical research if you are interested! It is about deliberately concealed garments and concealment rituals around clothing and shoes, the stories of the people who owned these objects and their emotional dimensions.

Poetry collection - Holly House. I need to go back over some of my posts and add tags for the poems that are part of this collection. Holly House refers to the name of the house that I first started writing poems in and that has been a massive source of inspiration. 

Mirror World WIP - a historical fantasy/magical realism book I have been planning for a long time

Tales and Stories of the Fairy Kind - I can't help but dabble in rewriting fairy tales, but with much more of a historical perspective. Right now, I am writing a seventeenth century take on Cinderella that focuses on domestic relationships and how romance and fantasy is used as a means of escape and freedom for many people surviving through abuse

Here are all my links:

My Substack

My Etsy

My Instagram

My Pinterest

Thank you for stopping by!

Ruth

“I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams.”

— Virginia Woolf, from ‘The Waves’

0903, O.L. / Tumblr: @3lsahart / Peggy Toney Horton / September Days, In New England Fields and Woods, Rowland E. Robinson / Unknown / Alexander Theroux / Memory of Water, Reina María Rodríguez / September, Helen Hunt Jackson / Wallace Stegner / Instagram: @kjp / H. Stuart / Unknown / Unknown / Henry Rollins / Margaret Atwood / Diario Cuatro, DC de Oliveira / Virginia Woolf / Unknown / September 1st, D. E. / Beginning and ending with my death, Zeina Hashem Beck / The Whole Word and Other Stories, Ali Smith / Turquoise Silence, Sanober Khan / Victoria Erickson

“The moon is honey on the mouths of madmen”

— Guillaume Apollinaire, from Claire de Lune; Alcools: Poems (tr. by Donald Revell), 1913

I’ve just finished reading The Girl Who Chased the Moon and magic realism is my new favourite thing - historical fantasy has always been my lane, but I’m definitely branching out. I have already ordered some more of Sarah Addison Allen’s books and I’m thinking of making a list of some more magical realism books. Recommendations are welcome!

Dark Shakespeare Sequels

Thirteenth Night: Malvolio’s Revenge

Much Ado 2: Kill Claudio

The Merchant of Menace

As You Don’t Like It 

The Scary Wives of Windsor: The Fall of Falstaff

The Tempest 2: Hurricane Miranda 

Richard III 2: Back from Bosworth (feat. zombie Richard)

A Midsummer Nightmare: Attack on Titania  

Much of what happens to us in life is nameless because our vocabulary is too poor. Most stories get told out loud because the storyteller hopes that the telling of the story can transform a nameless event into a familiar or intimate one. We tend to associate intimacy with closeness and closeness with a certain sum of shared experiences. Yet in reality total strangers, who will never say a single word to each other, can share an intimacy — an intimacy contained in the exchange of a glance, a nod of the head, a smile, a shrug of a shoulder. A closeness that lasts for minutes or for the duration of a song that is being listened to together. An agreement about life. An agreement without clauses. A conclusion spontaneously shared between the untold stories gathered around the song.

John Berger, "Some Notes on Song (for Yasmine Hamdan)"

let me stay,

dancing like fae among flowers

lost to the breeze

and summer sun-showers