The New Leaf #23 - Space Opening Up
Hi, and welcome to the twenty-third instalment of The New Leaf, an informal and infrequent email bulletin with the things I’ve been writing and reading lately.
The summer is here, the vaccine is here, the passage of time has resumed. We're back to having not just a past and present, but also a future - how long have we waited for this?! Part of me wants to move forward and never think about any of this again, but another part is just reeling - what the f*** just happened? We're just at the beginning of starting to work out how this has changed us. We are not the same people, but I'm not quite sure what that means yet.
I felt genuinely giddy when I got my covid vaccine - science is a marvel, and it's incredible what we can do when we collectively put our minds to it (can we do climate change next please?). It was only after I got my second shot that I realised how much fear I've carried in my body this past year and a half. I'd worried about a lot of things but getting covid wasn't really one of them (in the sense that once you've washed, masked, and distanced, you can only hope for the best). It was only when that fear lifted that I realised it had been there. I expect there might be a lot of little realisations like that in the time to come.
For now I'm just focusing on going outside, seeing people, and doing all the things we weren't able to do for so long. I honestly think this last round of lockdown left us a bit funny and we need to have some experiences - we sat inside for five months and the well is truly empty! So I'm going outside to remember what it's like to be a person in the world, and I'm so happy to be here. It's a very beautiful summer.
Here’s what I wrote recently.
Remembering our Year of Hell - Star Trek
20th May is Captain Janeway’s birthday (in 315 years). For Star Trek, I was very pleased to write about my favourite captain in one of the best Voyager episodes, Year of Hell, as well as our pandemic birthdays, the moods of time, and what we want to remember 🖖
In praise of the good old fashioned phone, our lockdown hero - The Daily Telegraph
Texting is too little and video is just way too much - turns out voice calls on the phone was the way to go all along. For The Telegraph, my story on how this elder millennial went full circle ☎️ (PSA: If you sign up to The Telegraph they will let you read one free story a week or whatever it is, ditto The Times.)
The sum of my parts - Wellcome Collection Stories
For the Wellcome Collection I wrote about finally having made peace with all this genetic stuff - in part because it was a long road for me and also, because most stories about genetic diagnoses are written during the early distress stage. I wanted to bookend this topic with a reassurance that yes, it does get better. An unexpected treat of this story was the accompanying photo shoot at the Wellcome Trust studios. I had so much fun sitting for Kathleen Arundell, an amazing photographer who made me look good and hopefully also writerly - either way you only go round once, right. I hope this will be the last thing I write about this from my own point of view - because touch wood, I have nothing more to say. I mean that in the very best way.
What if we designed towns also for sound? Brent Cross Town
I've been working part time with creative agency dn&co since the start of the year, which has brought me the closest I've been in a decade to having a "real job". It's been a surprisingly good experience to have colleagues again, and seeing a different side of the process of shaping new pieces of the city. Sometimes that means talking to with cool people like Julia Jones, who has all these intriguing ideas about what it might look like if we designed cities not just for what they look like, but also for what they sound like.
Here’s what I read recently.
Reading List, Hot Vaxx Summer edition.
Reading List, Back to the Future edition.
Reading List, Life Comes Back edition.
Reading List, Space Opening Up edition.
Feel free to forward this newsletter if you know someone who may be into it - the subscribe link is here. If you want to say hi, my email is jessica.furseth@gmail.com. Thank you for reading x