It’s December 23rd, I’m waiting for my plane to take off from the Paris CDG airport, lifting me towards my hometown for the Christmas holidays. “Girl you sweet like Fanta, Fanta” is banging in my AirPods for about 15 seconds before I anxiously switch to another short musical blurb, and then another. Whenever I find myself in a particular state of mind, when my thoughts are short, uneasy, frantically jumping from one to the other, inevitably, my Spotify playlist follows. ...

“The fact that human beings create such things as gardens is strange […]” reflects Robert Harrison in his 2008 book Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition – a book that was recommended to me by my partner in weird academic interests, Rea! (psstt, who now also has a blog) “Why would gardens be strange, you weirdos?” you might be thinking. As the author puts it – they mark a bizarre and somewhat conflicting (but not fully antithetical) human desire to both represent nature as well as to transfigure it! Many of us, especially those born and raised in cities, are used to considering a walk in a garden or park as quasi-wilderness where we could get some… #nature #hotgirlwalk. ...