Hullo,

In stark contrast to last week’s domesticity, in this episode we celebrate nomads and women on the move:

This women did the Appalachian Trail, which I’m given to understand is extremely difficult, and over the course of it read only books by black writers, which she left as she finished them so that by the end the trail would have the start of a library. I recommend you read this excellent story in full:

I started to leave books at shelters along the AT so that other hikers could read them as well. Some books were left at hostels. Zora Neale Hurston is in Walasi-Yi, mile 30.7, where roughly a quarter of all thru-hikers decide to call it quits. Yaa Gyasi was last seen at Peru Peak in Vermont. Ladan Osman is at Crazy Larry’s in Damascus waiting for next year’s Trail Days. Responses to my project from hikers consisted of either effusive praise or dead silence. I chose as many short story, essay, and poetry collections as possible to encourage exploration. I thought about what the author or protagonist of the title might have wanted to see. I got to a view. I held them to the light. I told them, firmly, “This is yours.”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rahawahaile/how-black-books-lit-my-way-along-the-appalachian-trail?utm_term=.kh9WzoN7o#.spk3rAg0A

More books, in this case a book about the nomads of the Sahel and loss. As you may know I am a sucker for media about loss and grief:

The year I spent with the nomads I was missing someone very much, and my sadness contoured everything, created a frame of reference of its own. It clung to the savannah like wet silk. As my hosts migrated, in each of their footfalls I saw a separation. I saw them leave behind loved ones, lovers, their dead. I saw them shape their living within sequences of holding on and letting go, trying to accept the transience of everything […]. My narrative of their journey is an imperfect decoction of a world seen through my particular prism of loss.

http://hazlitt.net/feature/you-cannot-walk-out-loss-you-can-walk-beauty-interview-anna-badkhen

Okay fine here is a relevant Reductress link also:

http://reductress.com/post/women-retreat-to-the-hills-to-establish-actual-pantsuit-nation/

Happy Friday,

Alex.