Deborah Rose

@deborahrosereeves

Writer. Reader. Maker. Post Office Stan. They/She. Working on a novel that for now I'll just call "the Post Office book." It has vampires. And poets. Reading 📖 Desperate Characters, Paula Fox deborahrosereeves.com

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Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· 3d

When your library holds become available on the same day and they’re all so good and you’re torn on where to start and just have to read them all right now right now #BookSky

Screenshot from my StoryGraph reading tracker app. The cover pages of three books with a percentage tracker under each one: On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle( 5%); Beginning, Middle, End by Valeria Luiselli (5%); Desperate Characters by Paula Fox (10%)

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· 20d

Today in Brig-Glis, Switzerland

On a grey cobbled street three pairs of bottle-green vintage heels of different styles are lined up one in front of the other

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· 28d

I love him

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· 28d

Feel this so much

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· 28d

For me the most impactful books were those first experiences as a young lone reader. This story mirrored mine in terms of being the elder sister of a middle brother & younger sister dealing with our own particular struggle w/ chaos & seeking safety. It helped me understand my life & feel less alone.

Book cover of Under the Hawthorn Tree: Children of the Famine by Marita Conlin-McKenna. An illustration of three young children on a dirt path towards a town far in the distance with stormy skies above them.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Jul 12

Alpine flowers on a beautiful hike to a glacial waterfall in South Tyrol, Italy this afternoon #WildflowerHour

Closeup of a Bladder Campion wildflower (with a large cluster of the same flower blurry in the background). Drooping and delicate white petals extending from a large, balloon-shaped swelling/calyx with a network of pink veins. It is this balloon-like feature which gives the plant its common name – Bladder Campion.

A clump of “simple leaved milfoil” on a rocky alpine path. Eight or nine flowers are clustered closely together, overlapping. Each flower has white radial petals with “toothy” looking ridges, and pale yellow florets in the center.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Jul 5

Trollius europaeus (San Martino in Badia, Dolomites)

A cluster of European Globeflowers, a bright yellow globe shaped flower, with shaded woodland in the background

Closeup of cluster of European Globeflowers, a bright yellow globe shaped flower.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Jul 5

Daisies in the Dolomites #WildflowerHour

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Jun 28

Living in a van provides Loody with an ever-changing cast of neighbors to snoop on each night. She always gets the goss 👀

A cat standing up straight like a hooman on two legs peers out of the gap in a closed window blind. It is nighttime and you can barely make out the curve of the top of a van outside the window.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Jun 26

Never feel more like an animal than when I’m eating an orange

A plate with the ragged remains of several orange slices, that have been sucked and gnawed on, savaged and ravaged. Absolute carnage. Vampire shit.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Jun 21

Oof, this heatwave is brutal. I have ice packs tucked under my boobs, and Loody is getting in on the action too 🧊

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Jun 6

Felt a little lost & panicky this morning. Procrastinated with some craft books accumulated over the years. In a copy of How Fiction Works by James Woods were a couple of postcards I used as bookmarks that felt like much needed signs, in particular ‘Army of Me’ - a painting by the artist Amy Cutler.

Two postcards propped up against a colorful throw pillow. On the left, a letterpress print by Expedition Press that says in bold black text: ALLOW THE TIME THAT IT TAKES. On the right, a postcard of an original painting by Amy Cutler. Titled "Army of Me" it depicts an illustrated drawing of a white woman, her hands clenched in fists, towering above dozens of other women. Like the larger version of herself, the smaller army of women are bare-legged, their brown hair tied back in a bun, are wearing old-fashioned sensible shoes and old-fashioned dresses in different muted color patterns - check-prints and flowers, etc.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Jun 3

Spoiler: It’s me

A black and white photograph. San Marino, Italy, February. In the far distance a small figure walks shrouded in fog along an old medieval stone wall, a thin fog around the parapets and the branches of a nearby tree.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· May 28

I see someone already offered Emily Dickinson’s poem, but Billy Collins and Seamus Heaney came to mind too

Billy Collins

THE FIRST LINE OF A POEM

Before it flutters into my mouth, I might spend days squinting into the wind like an old man trying to thread a needle by a window
in the dying light of late afternoon.
In a chair,
he aims the limp end at the dim glint of the impossible eye,
narrower than the door of heaven or the sliver of moon that will not rise

Billy Collins

from behind pines
until the needle finally slides
along the thin loop and he eases into his all-night stitching, sipping the new wine, singing a song
the color of his thread.

Seamus Heaney

At Banagher

Then all of a sudden there appears to me The journeyman tailor who was my antecedent:
Up on a table, cross-legged, ripping out
A garment he must recut or resew,
His lips tight back, a thread between his teeth, Keeping his counsel always, giving none,
His eyelids steady as wrinkled horn or iron.
Self-absenting, both migrant and ensconced;
Admitted into kitchens, into clothes
His touch has the power to turn to cloth again - All of a sudden he appears to me, Unopen, unmendacious, unillumined.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Apr 4

Happy #Caturday - and a year on the road with these goobers! They’re such good sports, unreasonably proud of them 🥹

A tuxedo cat on a leash with the Adriatic sea in the background and a stormy sky

A small grey and white cat in a field with buttercups and woodland in the background

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Apr 3

Weird. I can’t seem to find it. Weird glitch on my end or something. Thanks for confirming you can see it though.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Apr 2

“Everything happens so much,” - Horse EBooks (Stitched it for the time capsule in case the internet breaks)

Screenshot of a tweet by Horse Ebooks that says “Everything Happens So Much.”

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Mar 14

Another #Caturday in southern Italy where the stray cats will make you smile & break your heart in equal measure. They will also just unabashedly commandeer yer stuff.

A tabby cat and an orange and white cat sit on the step stool outside my camper van.

Two cats snoozing on our camping chairs in the sun

A youngish tabby cat takes a curious step into our campervan

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Mar 14

Stitched Zinn’s words on the little flag they gave me at my citizenship ceremony three years ago 💔

A small United States flag pinned onto a circle of white cotton inside a wooden embroidery hoop. In red thread, a quote by Howard Zinn is stitched in capital letters on the white stripes of the flag: “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Mar 12

In my case, it is often explaining why my cat Mingus is named Mingus that introduces people to the work of Charles Mingus for the first time.

A floofy tuxedo cat lying belly up, legs spread and most alluring on a white embroidered bedspread. Of particular note is his dashing white mustache.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Mar 7

I gatti 🤍

A striped tabby with a white underbelly snoozes on the remains of a pillar in Pompeii. In the background are the partial remains of a temple with four tall columns.

A cat stands on a sandy cobbled street in Pompeii… the street stretches far behind him with the ruined remains of brick storefronts on either side

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Mar 7

Happy #Caturday from the cats of Pompeii

A tabby cat mid-yawn sitting on a stone ledge with the ruins of Pompeii (out of focus) in the background.

Among the ruins of Pompeii, a tabby cat crouches on the edge of an ancient stone fountain (a large rectangular basin featuring a spout with a crude carving of a cat-like face)

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Feb 28

Last day of #BlackHistoryMonth & my nerdlove of all all things post officey goes to William Harvey Carney. Born to enslaved parents on February 29, 1840 , he was the first African American to receive a Medal of Honor and was also the first known black mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Department.

Black and white photograph of William Harvey Carney, a Black man with a short greying beard, standing on the steps of a home dressed in postal uniform and holding an envelope.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Feb 27

Post a pic you took, no context, to bring some zen to the feed

Street art. Mural on the side of a building depicts a young girl of maybe eight or nine years old, hugging her arms against her body and pointing her face upwards with closed eyes, a look of love and serenity on her face. In the middle of her pink t-shirt is a large keyhole in which there appears to be a galaxy of stars in a deep navy black sky. A bird flies off above her, carrying off a golden key on a chain around its foot.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Feb 14

Douglass has appeared on other U.S. postage stamps. This celebration of collective cooperation and collaboration featuring real photographs is my favourite: a 2024 homage to Douglass and other vital figures of the Underground Railroad.

Frederick Douglass postage stamp. The top third features a sepia-toned photograph of a younger Douglass. Below it are several lines of text with the words: BLACK/WHITE, COOPERATION, TRUST/DANGER, FLIGHT/FAITH, COURAGE/RISK, DEFIANCE/HOPE, and UNDERGROUND RAILROAD/USA.

Sheet of 10 postage stamps honoring key figures of the Underground Railroad, a mixture of men and women, Black and White (Harriet Tubman, Thomas Garrett, William Still, Harriet Jacobs, Jermain Loguen, Catherine Coffin, Lewis Hayden, Frederick Douglass, William Lambert, and Laura Haviland.)

The top third of each stamp features a sepia-toned portrait. Below it are several lines of text with the words: BLACK/WHITE, COOPERATION, TRUST/DANGER, FLIGHT/FAITH, COURAGE/RISK, DEFIANCE/HOPE, and UNDERGROUND RAILROAD/USA.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Feb 14

"Men talk much of a new birth. The fact is fundamental. But the mistake is in treating it as an incident which can only happen to a man once in a lifetime: whereas the whole journey of life is a succession of them. A new life springs up in the soul with the discovery of every new agency by which the soul is raised to a higher level of wisdom: goodness and joy."
Frederick Douglass

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Feb 14

OTD 1967, the Frederick Douglass stamp was issued as part of the Prominent Americans stamp series. Like many people born into enslavement, Douglass didn’t know his actual birthday, which was very difficult for him, and later in his life he chose February 14th to celebrate his birth. #DouglassDay

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Feb 4

February 4th 1986, USPS issued a commemorative stamp honoring Sojourner Truth. The Sojourner Truth Project carefully explains and documents the 2 very different versions of Sojourner’s famous speech, Ar'n't I A Woman? - Ain’t I a Woman? sojournertruthmemorial.org/sojourner-tr...

USA Black Heritage postage stamp featuring a double portrait of Sojourner Truth - a larger head and shoulders portrait of Truth in black dress and a white bonnet showing a hint of grey white hair, and a smaller portrait in the lower right depicts Truth standing behind a lectern delivering a speech.

Jerry Pinkney, who created the first Black Heritage stamp in 1978, typically included a second element in his designs to provide historical context. For Truth's stamp, he took a slightly different approach, opting for a double portrait to emphasize her powerful efforts for both the abolition of slavery and for women's rights. On the issue of sustaining momentum in the fight for equal rights for *everybody* (rather than achieving rights for one group and then another, each having to wait their turn), she said: "I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again."

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Feb 4

February 4th is the 113th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Parks @zinnedproject.bsky.social has excellent resources on the sanitizing mythology around Parks & how understanding her real history is key to understanding the demands of the present moment. www.zinnedproject.org/materials/ho...

2013 USPS “Forever” postage stamp bears an artist’s rendering of a 1950s-era photo of Rosa Parks. Dressed in a green jacket and green hat, her hair tied back in a low curled bun, Parks’ looks slightly over her shoulder.

Deborah Rose@deborahrosereeves· Feb 4

Who’s your go-to for well-written, independent journalism with integrity? Beyond @democracynow.org , lately I’ve been reading @truthout.org @theflytrapmedia.com & @boltsmag.org Who else do you recommend? In the U.S. and beyond!