Journal

Journal

What rain rearranges

Journal

What holds, and what it keeps

Journal

The record stone keeps

Journal

On things that wear well

Journal

The first land the wind finds

A western seaboard read as it is — the wettest, most weather-worked margin, where the south-westerlies arrive first and the light will not hold still.

Journal

On what a batch is

Journal

On hands

Journal

On knowing when a thing is finished

Journal

On limestone, and the sea it remembers

Journal

On the habit of not smelling

Olfactory attention is a perceptual skill most people have let lapse. It can be recovered, the way perfumers and sommeliers recover it daily.

Journal

On reading Annie Dillard

Journal

On the threshold

Journal

An object built to disappear

A bar of soap is a designed object that consumes itself — losing mass and geometry with each wash until it ends as a translucent sliver.

Journal

On the four-week wait

Cold-process soap is chemically finished in forty-eight hours. What follows is another four weeks, and the difference between the two is everything.

Journal

On the morning hour

The first hour of a day is a crossing most people now sleep through or rush past. Older structures once marked it. They are worth attending to.

Journal

On the return of the bar

Bar soap was displaced by liquid in the late twentieth century and now returns. What killed it, what brought it back, and the marketing on both sides.

Journal

On the towel

Journal

On the poverty of smell-words

Journal

The wind, written down

Journal

On the weight of things

Journal

Solving for pattern

Journal

The mind at three miles an hour

Journal

The words for weather we are losing

Journal

The room built around water

Journal

The hardest part is what you leave out

Journal

From more toward enough

Journal

The low sun

Journal

Ground that keeps everything

Journal

The shape of a useful thing

Journal

The unhurried washing of things

Journal

There will not be our likes again

Journal

The maker's mark, and what it promises

Journal

The one job of a soap dish

Journal

What hot water does to a day

Journal

Taste is a trained sense

Journal

What the Atlantic smells like in November

The characteristic smell of the sea is not freshness but chemistry — dimethyl sulfide, iodine, ozone — and in late autumn, the cold and smoke that arrive with it.

Journal

What the hands knew

Journal

On the difference a word makes

Journal

The shortest path in the brain

Journal

Where the trees bend toward the sea

Journal

The bottle by the sink

Journal

What rain rearranges

What holds, and what it keeps

The record stone keeps

On things that wear well

The first land the wind finds

On what a batch is

On hands

On knowing when a thing is finished

On limestone, and the sea it remembers

On the habit of not smelling

On reading Annie Dillard

On the threshold

An object built to disappear

On the four-week wait

On the morning hour

On the return of the bar

On the towel

On the poverty of smell-words

The wind, written down

On the weight of things

Solving for pattern

The mind at three miles an hour

The words for weather we are losing

The room built around water

The hardest part is what you leave out

From more toward enough

The low sun

Ground that keeps everything

The shape of a useful thing

The unhurried washing of things

There will not be our likes again

The maker's mark, and what it promises

The one job of a soap dish

What hot water does to a day

Taste is a trained sense

What the Atlantic smells like in November

What the hands knew

On the difference a word makes

The shortest path in the brain

Where the trees bend toward the sea

The bottle by the sink

The tomato that lost its flavour