Notes On: Love in the time of Heartache

Very exciting news: I’ve made a zine !!!

You get the sense that it’s possible, simply to go through life noticing things and writing them down ... That the seemingly insignificant things that most of us spend our days noticing are really significant, have meaning, and tell us something. — Joan Didion

I just enjoy lying on the couch and reading a magazine — David Sedaris

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Did you know that you’ve turned the mundane into the magical? Because it’s true, you have. And now, the simple act of sitting on my sofa on a Saturday night, with nothing but HBO’s Girls, M&MS and a hair-mask to accompany me, translates from a notes-app thought into a piece about the beauty of solitude. Crying on my birthday becomes an essay about ageing and success and that strange loss that comes with growing up. The group chat a community, like a girls’ bathroom, all compliments and commiserations and recommendations and admissions of ‘oh my god I feel that too’. You’ve said, in your myriads of ways, yes, the things you notice aren’t insignificant, they have meaning, they really do. I wanted to say thank you.

And so, I dreamt this up, just for you: A zine, called ‘Notes On: Love in the time of Heartache.’

artwork by maxine mccrann, made for the zine !!!

I’ve collaborated with some of my favourite writers and artists (including Maxine McCrann,

Bel Hawkins

, and so many more) to bring you a publication full of essays and poetry and recipes and love letters, all illustrated with unique artwork. It’ll be delivered, in envelopes, to your doors. Like a love letter. From us (readers, thinkers, artists, hopeless romantics), to you (whoever you may be).

As I’ve never done anything like this before, I’m doing a limited print run.

images from pinterest

At its crux, this is a publication about how to exist, as Kamala Harris put it, 'in the context of all in which we live.' Geopolitical unrest. White men swaggering in the streets. Racism. Sexism. Conversations with old friends over pasta. Signing petitions. Buying flowers and wandering into bookshops and sending voice notes. The phrase: 'text me when you get home.' It’s a publication about learning to live in this context – and find beauty within it; a love letter to those who intellectualise their emotions and also Taylor Swift lyrics; who re-watch the same shows over and over again as a way of self-soothing; who take photos of the moon even though they know they won’t come out very well and who send long, rambling texts to their best friends every time they have a sip of alcohol, just because they’re overwhelmed by how it feels to love.

It will be released in mid-February, a midwinter glimmer. As a gift for you; for your friend, or your mum.

I started my TikTok just over a year ago. In that time, I’ve received so many comments and messages about this inherent need we all have to switch off. To stop looking at our phones. To write letters and read books and take polaroid pictures and exist in a world that isn’t blue-lit. This is my version of that: A tiny magazine to read, on Sundays, in bed. Poems to go back to. Artwork to pore over. A postcard to stick on your fridge; a recipe for when you feel alone. A tangible, beautiful object to read and to treasure. And, ultimately, a reminder of the many, many beauties of the world. (Sitting down to eat at your favourite restaurant; a cat curled in sleep; acrylic splashed on canvas; your bedside table; writing in gel pen; tulips unfurling against cold air; a kaleidoscope of butterflies; a toddler in mustard yellow wellies; the phrase ‘how about another?’). I hope you love it.

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P. S. Two of you guessed it (!!) Which is wildly exciting.