Slow Notes 01

May 2025 in review—and a few recommendations and prompts for you.

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👋 Notes on May

I’m currently reading Ocean Vuong’s stunning new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, and have been thinking about this snippet from his conversation with Oprah:

“[As a writer], you have to really love the world, even when it’s difficult to love. I think description is autobiographical in that when you describe something, you’re giving it a point of view. How you would describe something, how you see something, says a lot about yourself.”

It’s often my default to describe the seasons in a series of lyrical observations, but if I’m being honest, I can only describe this month as… damp: raindrops, tears, sweat, broken umbrellas, stains, half-dried hair, morning grass, puddles.

But I don’t think that tells the whole story, so I’ll try to take it one step further…