Music, places, objects, books — the things that stayed.
Fourteen minutes of restraint and longing. Coltrane plays around Ellington's piano as if they've been speaking the same language for decades. A recording that makes you feel the room they were in.
1963The ginkgo trees at Eikan-dō at 7am, before anyone arrives. Orange underfoot, complete silence except for the raking. I've never felt so outside of time.
AutumnJenny Offill. A novel in fragments — reads the way memory actually works. 160 pages that take weeks to leave you. I've given away four copies and keep needing to buy it back.
Jenny Offill, 2014The one tube that's survived every edit. Lavender, rosemary, cedar. The smell of feeling put-together. Has been on my desk for three years running.
Used dailyRecorded in two nights. The whole record sounds like winter light through glass. A guitar and a voice and nothing else — and it's enough.
1972A city built for fado. The light in late afternoon is terracotta and gold — get lost deliberately. The tiles, the laundry lines, the hills. Every street leads somewhere worth arriving.
AprilThere is no hour that doesn't speak to someone, somewhere, of something they have lost.
Expensive enough to buy secondhand. Light enough that you forget you're wearing it. The colour is neither grey nor green — it changes with the light.
Found, 2022An album that turns grief into something almost beautiful. I put it on when I need to feel something precise. "Should Have Known Better" is six minutes that contain everything.
2015Three hours at 120°C with olive oil, thyme, and a pinch of sugar. They become something else entirely — jammy, deep, almost sweet. Ottolenghi's version. On everything, always.
Summer recipeW.G. Sebald. A walk along the Suffolk coast that keeps dissolving into history, photography, and memory. The photographs feel like proof of something uncertain.
W.G. Sebald, 1995The kind that fades to something specific — your specific. Oni denim from Kojima. Nothing else holds a crease like this, or breaks in the same way. A garment that becomes more itself over time.
OngoingCinque Terre before the crowds. The sea is an impossible shade of blue and the pesto is nothing like what you've had before — basil grown at altitude, mortar and pestle, no blender.
SpringThe kraft covers. The dot-grid inside. Something about writing in them makes the thinking better — maybe the constraint, maybe the smell. Three at a time, always.
RecurringThe one that started everything. Jazz cafes, autumn campuses, and a grief that gets into your bones. I read it in a week and have been rereading it in pieces ever since.
Haruki Murakami, 1987Low heat, a long time, and patience. The miso deepens everything. Serve on sourdough with a soft egg. A recipe I cook when I want to feel like I know what I'm doing.
Adapted from OttolenghiOne good one is worth ten mediocre ones. Slightly oversized, poplin, proper collar. Worn half-tucked, sleeves folded twice. The only garment that works in every room.
The essentialNo frills. No app. Runs for four hours then quietly stops. It asks nothing of you. Has been on my desk for three years and I've never thought about replacing it.
Used daily
