BN38 - 3rd July 2026

Today, instead of doomscrolling I:

  1. Skipped Morning Pages and switched to free writing to challenge my thinking on a personal challenge. With the right prompt to frame the exercise, I find it a very useful practice to break through mental blocks.

  2. Went for a short bike ride.

  3. Read three chapters of The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon - Daniel Farson. A great book that shares the author’s experience of the mercurial personality of an artist who lived without boundaries. A faded bookmark fell from the pages as I was reading, a notecard from the Cumberland Hotel in Bournemouth, an art deco masterpiece. My departed friend had left it in place when she returned the book to her shelf. It’s a reminder of her abiding love of art, artists and architecture.

BN 36 - 24th June 2026

Today, instead of doomscrolling I:

  1. Wrote my Morning Pages and was reminded how helpful it is to winkle out the nagging thoughts and insights that I am often too busy (distracted) to pay attention to. It’s not exciting, or that interesting to anyone else, but it helps me.

  2. Looked out of the window of my 0559 train and instead of fixating on how hideously early it was and how tired I felt, I enjoyed the cool air-conditioning and watched the mist evaporate off the fields of Suffolk and Essex.

  3. Read a New Yorker article - What Science Knows About Grief by (Paywall) by Amanda Petrusich: “Grief can’t be “fixed”—death is famously irreversible—so conversations about it require both parties to abandon problem-solving and accept a kind of unpleasant stasis. When well-intentioned friends or colleagues asked me how I was doing, I felt dread. What I wanted to say was This feels exactly as bad as you think it feels. What I usually said was Yeah, I’m O.K.”