#57 A Slow Sunday Scroll ☕️
your round-up of books/pods/links/inspo
Does anyone else get superstitious about clothes? Recently I sold a really lovely silk orange dress. I had a really awful experience in it a few years ago and therefore I couldn’t look at it in the same way, shoving it to the back of my wardrobe, even though it’s lovely. Conversely, if I have a good experience in a certain item, it becomes a sort of lucky charm, even if it’s not that special on the surface.
There was a jumpsuit that I lost years ago, I must have sold it or given it away. It was dark blue and orange and had lots of illustrations of eyes on it. I kept thinking about it recently, it reminded me of some really good moments in early 2020, pre-pandemic — I wore it when I was on a nice holiday and got a direct message from Marian Keyes who’d just read my book and I screamed; I wore it to a special Waterstones signing in London when Olive first came out in hardback; I wore it to multiple Ctrl Alt Delete recordings at Soho Radio, including a memorable episode with Alain de Botton. I wore it to my sister’s birthday at a time when I was feeling great. I wore it while walking down The Strand listening to Cloudbusting by Kate Bush (Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen / I don't know when / But just saying it could even make it happen). It wasn’t even that special or expensive, but clearly I associated it with good times.
Then! Scrolling on the bus the other day, I spotted it on Vinted. The same patterned jumpsuit in my size. I re-bought it. Then when I received it, I noticed a faint red lipstick mark on the label, a mark I’d accidentally made putting it on and had tried previously to get it out. I’d bought back my old exact jumpsuit — what are the odds?
Does this mean anything? Probably not, but obviously I will read into it, anyway. It has lots of eyes on it — a symbol that I’m okay with being seen, again, maybe? Did I manifest this silly jumpsuit with a click of my fingers? Maybe a sign that if we start thinking more about something, we pay more attention to it, and it somehow gravitates towards us? Who knows. (I’m a writer, I overthink things.)
Either way, I loved wearing my (new? old?) jumpsuit again in Lisbon earlier this week. A woman came up to me while I bought a coffee from a silver van and said she loved my outfit and I told her the story and she said she did a similar thing recently — spotted an old piece of furniture of hers online recently and bought it back. Are we reclaiming something in doing this? Are we wanting to hold onto a piece of our former selves? Again, maybe it’s all just a coincidence… or maybe not.
I enjoyed my time in Lisbon, I did a signing and sold out Q&A at the brilliant Salted Books interviewed by Georgina Lawton, organised by writer and founder Alex Holder. Grateful for opportunities to connect in these real and meaningful ways. Everyone was lovely, I loved chatting and signing copies of The Success Myth.
Other lovely things from Lisbon: iced coffee from Numa, rooftop writing at The Vintage hotel, going to a friend’s house for dinner and eating a perfectly-cooked fish and then handing them a ceramic fish I’d bought them as a gift, texting my Dad on the walk home down the cobbled streets, thinking of the villa he used to own in Boliqueime called os girassóis (the sunflowers), eating pastel de natas, the elderly couple on my flight home who had their hands on each other’s knee for the duration.
(This is my year of travel and spontaneity, if you’d like me to visit your local bookshop, please mention it to them / put in a good word — lots of lovely suggestions on my Note here.)
Also a heads up: I am planning another creativity retreat and it’s going to be amazing!