Without justice there can be no love

I’m finding it very hard to write. This happens now and then, occasionally for months at a time. But I suspect my current difficulty is linked to medication I’m taking to help manage my premenstrual dysmorphic disorder (PMDD), which was diagnosed just before Christmas. I hope to write about that sometime, and I’m grateful not to be in the circular despair I have been experiencing, but I feel somewhat adjacent to my emotions, which is a huge change. I’m used to not just feeling my emotions but being my emotions. The other contributing factor is how to write anything in the face of the brutalities inflicted on the Palestinian people and Gaza. As we have seen in reporting of Israel’s actions, language has lost its meaning. Children are dehumanised by being referred to as ‘minors’ and rather than acknowledging the deliberate killing of people, they simply ‘have died’ as though a strange illness took hold of entire families and communities under the cover of darkness. The struggle to write is a struggle to comprehend the cruelty and injustice. But we must comprehend so we can fight against it. I did manage to write a short contribution to

Natasha Lunn

’s Conversations on Love project. Natasha invited some writers to offer a ‘love lesson’ for Valentine’s Day. I was very moved by Sheena Patel’s lesson, writing about the horrors of Gaza:

‘The easiest thing is to love people who are the same as you, borne of you, who you have chosen. What love really is, is when it is extended to someone who is apparently, not like you at all, where your child’s life means the same to me, as if it were mine. This is love’s true face.’

To Sheena’s words I’ll add bell hooks’ profound wisdom, from her book All About Love

‘It is our responsibility to give children love. When we love children we acknowledge by our every action that they are not property, that they have rights – that we respect and uphold their rights. Without justice there can be no love.’

Please consider donating to this fundraiser Valentines 4 Palestine, in support of Palestinian writers at risk https://www.gofundme.com/f/valentines4palestine-donate-for-writers-at-risk.

And if you’re finding it hard to write too, this essay by Patricia Lockwood might help.

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For a while I had a notion that I could become an interiors influencer. I started an Instagram account called @interiorwithsuddenjoy but soon realised I didn’t want to taint what I’d found pleasurable with commerce, likes and my susceptible online ego. Still, writing about the home and the ornamental domestic world, is a live dream for me, and for PR plan for my book I was desperate to write for The World of Interiors, the only magazine I subscribe to. The essay I wrote for them has just been published and I’d love for you to read it. It’s about a box of lichen and moss I mention in my book – and how to go about loving the most fragile of things.

(Illustration by Lawrence Mynott)

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I also wanted to mention a few things coming up. I’m doing an event at the Faversham Literary Festival on Saturday 24 February, where I’ll be in conversation with A K Blakemore. It will be fun! I’m also doing a one-day online course on The Essay for Arvon on 15 March. Finally, my paperback comes out on 4 March, you can pre-order now if you were waiting for a cheaper version to come along!