Hello you all,
I’m going to keep it brief, even though this month has been very full.
First, some business: After this missive goes out, I’ll be putting my patreon on an indefinite pause. So much gratitude to those of you who’ve been following along and getting something out of these, but I think the next step for me must live on my website. In the fitful times before I fall asleep here in the new apartment, my mind whirls with ideas for pages and formats and contents, all too thrilling and complicated to fit in the constrained space of patreon. I also feel like my position is too financially complicated at the moment to receive your gracious pledges. The old posts will remain on patreon, and I’ll be putting them on the website soon enough.
That being said, I am going to keep having a newsletter! Instead of big monthly things around a theme or experience, they’ll be sporadic updates whenever I feel they’d be appropriate. I’m imagining them as a kind of round up of new content on the website (where I’ll likely be putting everything I’m working on for the near future), little news from me, and probably links to things I’ve enjoyed. They’ll be through Tinyletter, and you can plug your email in here: https://tinyletter.com/fofarrell, or on the info/contact page of my site https://fofarrell.neocities.org/interact.html.
So, September has held our exit from Moscow and our entry to Berlin.
Those last two weeks in Moscow were dense and exhausting. Furniture gradually disappeared from the apartment; bookshelf, couch, desk, bed. We checked off the big final to-do list items like “get rid of food”, “shut off internet”, “goodbye Kitten”, and “move stuff to storage”. I biked to Pullman on an edible and did a big tarot reading for the new moon in Virgo. I saw so many people for the last time in a long time. Austin arrived a few days before departure to facilitate our exit. On the last night, with everything packed away, no bed or blankets or sleeping bags, we stay out late walking. On the same arboretum peak from which Scout and I looked up at the blood orange moon, the three of us saw all dancing with the sunset Jupiter and Venus and Saturn and the Moon. After dark we wandered through campus and said goodbye. Back in the empty apartment I plugged in the half-broken Christmas lights and lit our last candle. I quick tarot for the gang, a fitful few hours on the floor, then up again well before dawn to head out.
More than 24 hours in transit, or something like that. Moscow-Spokane-Denver-Munich-Berlin. Several times we tried to figure how long it was for our bodies vs. the clocks. We had our stolen vegan jerky and nutrigrain bars in the quiet corners of our layovers. It was rough. And suddenly, finally, we were in the Metropolis, struggling with the transit directions and wrestling with our four suitcases, pushed to our limits, then collapsed in the new apartment.
We started acclimating, slow and difficult. Some of the densest days I’ve ever lived probably. Every outing has been so exhausting, pelted nonstop with new experiences. But! We're getting used to it. Figuring out the train system and where to buy groceries and what meals we can make without an oven. There’s really too much to say. I’ve been very good about journaling every day, so I have a record of all these occurrences, and I’m intending to upload all of it to the website somehow sometime soon, so you can pour over my details if you’re so inclined.
A surprising turn of events, but I’ve been fighting off a fierce depression these last two weeks. I’m wobbling between big happy optimism about this growthy newness and the deep misery of being uprooted from all I’d grown to love. I’m tired, burnt. But the pleasures run high too! I’m housewifing, cooking and laundering. It’s been so freeing being off instagram. My head feels clearer and I’ve got more energy to do what I’d sincerely like to, which still isn’t much, but it’s still nice. Our apartment is very lovely, so much better than we were expecting. It’s two floors up and has big beautiful windows, a spacious kitchen, and a great big wooden table in the living room. I sun comes in on the bed in the morning and sometimes the moon comes in at night.
As of today I’m nannying again, and last night Olivia got paid by Fulbright, both huge reliefs. I just got my monthly train pass this morning and Olivia’s student one starts tomorrow, so we’ll be free from the scarcity of buying a ticket to and from each journey. I think that’ll open up our world significantly. I'm excited for it.
This is kind of a hard moment to transmit from because I don’t have any good wrap up for you. We’re still very much in the middle of adjusting and it’s hard but it’s getting better, that's it.
We have a TV here again, and it’s been fun and comforting to zone out and eat superior european nutella at the end of an overstimulating day. We took a plunge and watched the second season of Love on the Spectrum without seeing the first season or knowing anything about it, and we were so pleasantly surprised! The gaze of the film didn’t feel voyeuristic or tokenizing or gross and it was honestly just a really sweet depiction of autistic adults genuinely pursuing love! I’m sure there’s a valid cutting critique out there, but we found it heartwarming and cozy.
’d been kind of too busy to listen to any new music up until the start of this week, and what pulled me out/in was the incredible incredible escape room from Rural Internet, the same trio who gifted into the world BREAKING UP back in the rough February of this year. This album is so fucking good, I don’t know what else to say. I’ve only really been through it once but every song has so much going for it. It does go pretty hard at points, but in that way where it’s like it’s all blowing apart, but in a way that brings a lot of clarity? There are also points of supreme beauty, right out of the gate on the first track actually. I don’t know, go give it a try if you want.
Ok, that’s all from me for now! Love you all! Thank you so much for being here, wherever that is! I hope I see you on the other side! Stay safe ok!!
<3 fran
(out the bedroom window, the first time I saw the moon here)