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"Every time a man yells you are seven years old again."

Clementine von Radics, “Mouthful of Forevers.”

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short hair laudna fans rise up

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Yōko Wanibe ph Masahisa Fukase

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Pandora by Thomas Benjamin Kennington (1908)

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Doron Langberg

Eli and Marco, 2018

Oil on linen

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My favorite thing about reading adult fantasy is just accepting that the first hundred pages or so isn’t going to make any fucking sense. You won’t be able to keep the characters or the places straight and you’ll have very few hints regarding the plot but by the time you hit page 200 you’re all in.

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This is probably my favorite image of all time I first saw it years ago and it has stuck in my head since then. The only vibes I’ll ever need

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In That Morning   -      Zhao Bandi , 1990.

Chinese,b.1966-

Oil on canvas, 200 x 190 cm.

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“Lovers” by Lev Khailov (1950s)

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Giant Skeletons by Jocelin Carmes

This artist on Instagram

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Mum Word Vomit

I've wanted to talk about my mum's passing ever since it happened. Partly because I miss the woman she was, and talking about her in any way gives me that familiar feeling of her being nearby. But mostly because of the depressing and heart wrenching lead-up to her death which probably started when she was my age (early 20s). I'd not really discussed any of the details with anyone, because I couldn't manage it, but I've had this extreme nagging feeling to talk about it somehow - so this is my next port of call.

My closest friends and family knew that my mum passed away after battling a lifetime long battle with alcoholism. Unfortunately, ever since I was a young child, I'd always known this would be how it ended. As a family, we decided to leave that out of her funeral as well as the social media posts, because we didn't feel it was necessary. Which I felt was the right thing to do - as her closest friends/family knew this anyway - but now I've begun to change my tune. I feel as if it's necessary for me to discuss the way alcoholism affected her, as it ultimately dictated my entire life and relationship with her.

My mum was a beautiful and effervescent woman who had the most incredible talent for making everyone around her feel so loved and accepted. She was a social butterfly, and spent a lot of her early years with many friends, drinking socially and travelling around Europe. She made a great life for herself. She was a fantastic older sister, a wonderful friend, and a dedicated colleague. But she was also an alcoholic - something that you don't tend to notice in younger people. As a young girl in her early 20s, drinking is simply part of life, and it began that way for her too. She'd battled with anxiety and depression for as long as we can remember, and to cope with it, she drank. She drank a lot. This began in her early twenties, and she continued this way until she died at 63 years old.

As a child, a huge majority of the trauma I faced stemmed from mum's drinking; it made her irrational, angry, and clumsy. She'd been hospitalised three times - when I was 10, 12, and 14 years old - for breaking bones due to falling down when drunk. It was a huge anxiety for me; some of the things I've seen I can't even begin to talk about, but that's not really important. I blamed her a lot for her drinking as a child, because I implored her time and time again to stop for me. She went to rehab once and it didn't work whatsoever, she'd made her decision long ago and unfortunately nothing could change that.

The deterioration of her health was gradual at first - from my childhood to my late teens, she was still functional, albeit heavily depressed, and drank a lot at night to cope with her thoughts. There were a handful of hospitalisations, but she always picked herself back up and carried on.

At the beginning of the pandemic, everything changed. I hadn't seen her in a year - I kept calling to ask her if I could visit - but I'd get turned down as she wasn't feeling healthy enough to see me. I was worried, but she was persistent I couldn't come. My dad, who she'd separated from in 2014, received a call from her begging for help and for him to come over immediately. He did, and what he saw was enough to know how bad her drinking had become.

(TW: Graphic)

Mum had been bedridden for months, unable to walk due to excessive drinking, and was essentially lying in a bed of her own waste which had accumulated for months. It was the most heart-breaking news I'd ever received. She used to be so full of life, and now she'd been reduced to this. She had given up taking care of herself. Luckily, he rushed her to hospital and employed a cleaner and a carer to sort out the mess of the house. She saw a slight improvement in the hospital (being completely T-total for a couple of weeks) but was back to square one once she'd come home. The carer, who was a godsend, came over to feed her twice a day, got her shopping, and tried to get her to exercise so she could walk again. But for the next year, it was clear mum had made her decision that this was how she wanted to live, and there wasn't much anyone else could do about it.

The week leading up to her death, she'd gotten a kidney infection, and began to hallucinate. She hallucinated seeing me and playing games with me, which shattered me to pieces. I called her a week prior to see if I could visit and she declined once again. I knew things were getting worse again, but my family told me countless times to focus on finishing university and that things would be okay. I wish I hadn't listened, as she passed away less than a couple of weeks afterwards. I'd seen my mum once for a couple of days in the last year and a half before she died. We spoke on the phone weekly, but I wish I had gotten more time to spend with her. The day before she passed, an ambulance was called for her as she wasn't responding, and they told her she had to come to the hospital or she was going to die. Her response was, 'so be it'.

Alcoholism destroyed any attempt I made for having a good relationship with my mum. I missed spending time with her, but when I went to visit, she'd be catatonic and it would always end in a huge argument and a lot of crying on my part. By the end, we were all exhausted and I can imagine she was too, and when she passed it felt like a huge relief. Not because of the hassle, but because she finally wasn't living in that god-awful state anymore. It's not what she wanted for herself but she couldn't help it, and neither could we. On the 6th of July, I firmly decided I was going to move in with her to care for her full-time and to get her back on her feet. I was going to call her the next day to tell her, but she passed away that night. She made the decision for me, and I suppose I'm grateful for that.

It's been 2 months and things don't get easier. The heart-breaking conditions surrounding her death haunt me daily and I want them erased from my mind most days. I think of her in that bed, wasting away because of drink, completely surrendering to life. No matter how many times people tell you not to blame yourself, you can't help but wonder what you could've done differently. I have a million of those questions floating around my head every week. I'm severely depressed, and I have been since she left us. I feel hopeless and empty and all I want to do is pick up the phone and call her.

I don't know how to end this other than saying - if you're beginning to see signs of becoming an alcoholic, please, PLEASE, get help. If my mum had gotten any help at my age, things might've been so different now. Alcoholism ruins families and lives, and it isn't talked about enough. Think for yourself, your family and your future.

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i am BEGGING everybody to please look at this picture of a dog who worked at Wood Island Lighthouse in Biddeford, Maine in 1903. his name was Sailor and it was his job to ring the foghorn. he was famous nationwide. mariners passing nearby the lighthouse would toot their horns in greeting and he would get very excited and ring the foghorn as a hello

source: https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/18525

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Horizon 2: Forbidden West

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on soulmates

f. scott fitzgerald / friedrich nietzsche / florence and the machine / andrea dworkin / kiersten white / euripides / audre lorde / phillip pullmann / bob hicok