🪺 The Art of Noticing

Dear friends,

Welcome to the very first issue of Saturn Peach! Thank you for joining my little corner of the internet–I’m so happy to have you here.

To introduce myself: my name is Kay, and I’m a poet, publisher, and game designer based in Massachusetts. I’m launching this newsletter to share some thoughts about two topics that are very close to my heart: play and creativity.

Each month, I’ll choose a theme and send two letters: the first with updates and recommendations, and the second with some insight into my design choices for a particular game.

This month, our theme is Neighborhood.

My partner noticed me sitting on my phone last night, and when I told him I was downloading an app that recognizes birdcalls and tells you which birds are calling, he was not even a little bit surprised. In fact, he somehow knew that that was what I was doing.

In her book How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell recommends refocusing on your physical surroundings to bolster your resistance to the virtual attention economy. Essentially, when you spend more time looking at and thinking about birds in your neighborhood, you’ll have less time to spend looking at and thinking about ads on Instagram. Odell uses birds as examples throughout the book since she’s an avid birdwatcher, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised to learn that…she’s right???

Birds are, simply, amazing. I’ve been so interested in our neighborhood birds lately; I like to see where they like to hang out, what building materials they choose for their nests, their colors and (best of all) their roundness. Soon, I want to be able to recognize their songs.

The thing that’s helped me really connect with my surroundings is walking our dog. Over the past year, I’ve become responsible for the afternoon walk. I never walk the dog with headphones in; I need to be on the lookout for things that will upset him (babies) and things that he will upset (also babies). I need to pay attention gross stuff he might want to eat off the ground and other dogs coming around corners.

And once I’ve tuned into those things, there are so many other things I also want to pay attention to: which streets you can usually see cardinals fluttering around, which yards the daffodils are about to bloom in, which sidewalks have good free stuff out in cardboard boxes—and, of course, all the little ways our dog moves and expresses himself, thrilled to finally be free of his winter layers. And when my partner gets home from work, I give him the rundown on the birds we heard, the flowers we saw, and the dogs we met at the park.

I’ve been so surprised by how much the simple practice of noticing things has added to my day. Noticing makes me feel connected to my neighborhood, and helps me appreciate the day-to-day changes in my surroundings. Every bird is worth listening to and admiring.

[Addendum: After I drafted this newsletter, a robin built a nest right over our back door!! We saw her scoping out our porch a couple weeks ago, and I’m thrilled that she’s chosen our house to also be her house. I’ve already crept around the back to see how she’s doing three times today, and she seems to be calmly focused on sitting.]

What have you noticed in your neighborhood lately? I’d love to hear about it in a reply or a comment!

Updates

• Last weekend, I was recognized at the Mass Poetry Community Awards for my work as a poet and editor 🏆
• Corvid Queen, the free journal of fairy tales I run through Sword & Kettle Press, is returning from hiatus on Friday, May 5! We have an all-new season of fairy tales & folklore to share with you 👑
• My silly one-page game Morning Walk has successfully completed a tiny crowdfunding campaign, which means I have the funds to print it professionally 🐕

Current Projects

• I’m currently in the middle of drafting a two-player game based on the fairy tale of King Lindworm. My first two-player game, Your Friend in Witchcraft, is played through writing letters, so this new game, intended to be played live, is making me stretch my creative muscles a little bit more!
• I’m also finalizing the print layout for a collection of my smallest games. Hoping to share more about this one soon!

Things I Loved This Month

• Related to spending less time on Instagram: this episode of the Off the Grid podcast about wellness, misinformation, & social media
• The song “Go Outside” by Ratboys
• This quick & easy recipe for espresso chip yogurt & olive oil cake
• Two strangely comforting sci-fi novellas: The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, about ex-girlfriends solving a murder mystery on Jupiter, and All Systems Red, the first book in the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
• Decaf pistachio lattes, which I like to grab on my way home from picking up my library holds
• Reading newsletters! by Marlee Grace, by Monica Robinson, and by Annika Hansteen-Izora are all longtime faves
• Platform Crocs. This is my true form.

I’ll leave you today with this collection of haiku I wrote about my favorite yards in my neighborhood. Thanks for reading, and take care 💕