a monk sits, wanting nothing more than to meditate, but finds himself constantly interrupted by people needing his attention. eventually, he rows a little boat to the middle of a lake where, surely , no one will disturb his peace. eyes closed, he melts into the pure, sweet silence. less than two minutes in— knock–knock, knock . before he opens his eyes , his mind is sharpening knives to throw at the absolute fucker  who dared disturb his peace in the middle of a fucking lake, for fuckssake!...

i’ve spent 20 years (unintentionally) amassing an endless library of notes. literal towers of scribbles, actual gigabytes  of files and voice-memos. but for this, the first  of many  field notes   [distilled from the encyclopaedic ( but much more fun ) version (you can soon find) on   bear bones — where i gave the un-curated me (and her “william faulkner: eat your fucking heart out ” writing voice {often layered with enough footnotes and explanatory tangents—replete with nested...