die prima · vol. lxxiv
a chronicled almanac of imperfect days, pressed like flowers between the pages of an afternoon.
observed, not optimised · curated by a forgetful naturalist
incipit · the vine takes root
Here begins the ledger. The vine, like all good intentions, does not run straight — it wanders left, then thinks better of it, then wanders left again. Hang each day from it like a tag. Do not press too hard; the paper remembers.
die iv
The first rose hip of the cold months arrived bruised, which felt correct. I taped it here with more washi than necessary. There is no graceful way to file a thing that has already let go of its petals — only a fond one.
Noted: thorns rendered as small notches, the way memory renders sharp things — present, but blunted by the angle you remember them from. The hip itself is the colour of an old apology.
— smells faintly of tea and the back of a drawer.
die ix
An oak leaf, fallen mid-thought. Its veins branch like the conversation I meant to have — each side-thought spawning two more, none of them reaching the margin. I drew the veining recursively until my hand got tired, which is also how the conversation ended.
Pressed it under the heaviest book on the shelf (a dictionary, fittingly, of words for "almost"). It came out flat but not defeated. Most days are like this.
die xv
The snail shell. I tried to draw it on the golden spiral and got it deliberately, lovingly wrong — a quarter-turn off, the way the actual day was a quarter-turn off the day I planned. The error is the only honest part.
Found empty by the back step, the tenant having moved on without notice, as tenants do. I kept the shell. It is good to keep the houses of small wanderers; they are better at endings than we are.
— ↻ wound the wrong way on purpose. don't fix it.
die xxiii
A mushroom cap, gills drawn fine as ledger rules. Mushrooms are the punctuation of damp weeks — they appear overnight, full of opinions, and are gone before you can ask them anything. This one I caught mid-sentence.
Probably not edible. Definitely not advice. I noted its spots the way one notes freckles on a stranger met once on a train — without context, but with attention. Some days that is the whole project.
die xxxi
Trailing ivy, five leaflets staggered like footnotes nobody asked for. It had grown across the windowsill while I wasn't watching, which is the only way ivy ever grows. I let it. Some borders are improved by being quietly overrun.
Snipped one strand for the ledger and apologised to the rest. It did not seem to mind. Plants are generous with their fragments; it is people who are stingy with theirs.
— grows toward the part of the day that has light in it.
die xliv
A moth, wing-eyes like concentric afterthoughts. It came in on a warm evening, circled the lamp the agreed number of times, and settled on the page itself — as if volunteering to be filed. I traced it before it changed its mind.
Those false eyes are the moth's small joke: look here, not at me. Most of us run a version of it. I noted the markings with respect, and a little envy, and let it go back to the dark, which it preferred.
die lii
A beetle, found on its back near the door, elytra half-lifted as if caught mid-decision about whether to fly or simply stay and think about it. I righted it; it did neither for a while, and then did the second one for good.
Drew it with the wing-cases open so the membranous under-wings show — the part beetles keep folded, the part most of us keep folded too. It is a strange privilege, to record a thing's unfolded version. I tried to deserve it.
— last specimen before the page corrupts. brace gently.
— for one beat the sepia tears, the channels split, the inkwell skips. then the paper re-knits, and we go on as if nothing happened. (something happened.)
in marginibus · fragments with no job
Everything in this panel is decoration. It carries no meaning, which is the most honest thing on the page. Look at it the way you look out a train window: gladly, and without note-taking.