| Website | https://jayperry.works/ |
| Pixelfed | https://pixelfed.social/@jay.perry |
| Location | Patapsco river valley, near Baltimore |
I finally finished the illustration for the last chapter of my new essay, called Nightfall.
This fall got busy and I had to keep putting this drawing off. Feels really good to finally cross it off -and to have all the illustrations done. I still have some copyedits and finishing touches to do on the essay itself, but it's almost there.
You can read it here:
https://www.jayperry.works/longform/2024/nightfall/1/
Some photos I've been taking on walks around my neighborhood.
Winter around here gets a bad rap. Gray, dark, bleak. But the longer I live here by the Patapsco River, though, the more I can’t help but fall in love with the way sunlight behaves this time of year.
We adopted a new dog last week, a 3 1/2-year old greyhound we named Penny Jane.
I visited Montreal a few weeks ago for a conference. This was the first time I've been there and I hope it won't be the last - it's such a beautiful city.
https://www.jayperry.works/blog/2025/11/14/visit-to-montreal/
A few thoughts on trying to figure out how to strike a balance between planning ahead and letting go. I'm not great at the letting-go part, but I'm learning.
https://www.jayperryworks.com/blog/2025/10/07/plans-and-pouring-water/
I love the way sunlight filters in through our windows in the morning this time of year. The sun gets brighter in April as the weather gets warmer, and it throws these lovely shadows and highlights across the house when it rises. I like to look out the window as the coffee brews, the house still quiet, and sometimes the light lures me outside.
https://www.jayperry.works/blog/2025/05/04/spring-morning-light/
I love the way sunlight filters in through the windows in the morning this time of year. The sun gets brighter in April as the weather gets warmer, and it throws beautiful shadows and highlights across the house when it rises. I like to look out the window as the coffee brews, the house still quiet, and sometimes the light lures me outside.
Chapters 7 and 8 of my essay ‘Nightfall’ are up: https://www.jayperry.works/longform/2024/nightfall/7
These last couple chapters mull over what the night has meant to us humans over our history, and also what it means to me, personally. It scares us sometimes, but it’s also a place for us to step outside our senses, to lose ourselves, to make contact with the source of things, to transform ourselves.
And now there’s just one more chapter to go! Watch for that one in June.
The older I get, the more attached I feel to my daily routine. Over the years I’ve hammered my days into a certain shape and flow that works pretty well, all in all. But it also sometimes makes me feel … brittle.
https://www.jayperry.works/blog/2025/03/20/creature-of-habit/
Chapter 6 of my essay, Nightfall, is up!
When I watch bats or birds fly, I often wonder if it feels like swimming. Do they experience the wind as a fluid they're suspended in? Can they feel their 'buoyancy' change as they climb or dive?
When I swim, I find that I feel... different. Time slows down. I feel a sense, as Akiko Busch put it so beautifully, of 'a vast remove.'