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awkward moments of silence

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The week in words #1

January 7, 2018

Time is a strange thing. I can hardly believe that 2018 is already a week old. Only a week.

New Year’s Day used to be my favourite day of the year. I would wake up early and pretend I was the only one awake in the world. I’d go for long walks and listen to audiobooks, then come home and set up my paper calendar for the year (the one I’d forget about around 10th January), and make more resolutions than a human being can possibly keep. 

These days January is a month for me to battle through. Like many others I struggle with the lack of daylight and my freezing cold bedroom in the morning. But mostly this month has become riddled with anniversaries of unpleasant experiences: there are days I absolutely dread (like my birthday), and other days on which I just wake up with a mild shudder. But overall there is little to look forward to.

This New Year’s Day I walked over 10 kilometres through the woods and my neighbourhood, listening to Brené Brown’s lecture series, The Power of Vulnerability. When I came back home in the late afternoon, my relationship had ended. I called my mum and cried to her for an hour. Then we agreed that at least, from here my year could only get better.

And so far it’s been alright. I've gone to work, kept up my meditation and my running; I caught up with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages; read books that made me feel good; and did a few scary things, like launching this blog. My teeth hurt because I’ve been grinding them, and my left shoulder is a tight ball of pain, but other than that, I’m okay. I think it'll be an alright year.

The world is still scary. I still mentally prepare myself each morning before I look at the news. Sometimes it feels strange or inappropriate, in the face of all that uncertainty, to focus so much on ourselves. But we can only make it through, and make it better, if we take care of ourselves and others. We'll keep going.

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I’m Stef, and this is awkward moments of silence, a collection of images and words where I attempt to make sense of the world, and talk about books.


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The Hunting Party  by Lucy Foley

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I dove into “Edinburgh” by Alexander Chee a couple of days ago and came up with a gasp this morning. It’s a deeply immersive and atmospheric read, although I found the language rather dense and ornamental in places, to the point where it obscured the plot for me (English is not my first language and sometimes I still feel it), especially towards the end. Either way, I would absolutely recommend it and will think about it for a while.

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These are my last few weeks in London; from March, I will be working and living in Berlin.
So far I’ve spent 2019 giving notice, saying goodbyes and arranging get togethers. Now my body is tired, and  my heart is starting to get heavy. Four more weeks.

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I’m almost done reading “Alone in Berlin” by Hans Fallada. It’s quite a challenge, very grim and at times still not interesting (Emil Borkhausen, you had way too much page time and I do not miss you), so I’ll be glad when it’s over, as much as I appreciate what it’s doing.

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I finished How To Write An Autobiographical Novel a week or so ago and I still haven’t found any words for it. It’s an interesting read for someone like me – someone who wants to create, but feels she has nothing worthwhile to say. Out of the many many interesting thoughts in this essay collection, I’ve been trying to cling to the one that says that you as a creator have no way of knowing  what about your work will resonate with people – might as well do it and not worry about. I feel that’s definitely the case for this collection, which will resonate with different people on different levels. Personally I’ll hang on to the writing advice, but who knows what it might do for you?

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