| THE EPISTOLARIAN |
With the beginning of the school year, my family and I have been walking to school some mornings. It’s a lovely way to begin the day, outside, slow, leisurely. On one of these walks, I found myself wondering what school drop-off might look like if, instead of cars lining up outside the school, there were a congregation of horses and carriages.
It would still be slow and outdoors, but there would be the novelty of arriving to the rhythm and clatter of horses’ hooves.
It made me think of the innovation of the car and a line often attributed to Henry Ford, almost certainly apocryphally, that if he had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
Now, dropping my kids off at school, I have no need of a faster car. I dream of the occasionally saddled slow horse.
I have always preferred life faster. Airplanes, fast cars, steep and technical skiing. There is a flow state that happens at the extremes of speed. My conscious self disappears and I feel at one with everything.
Ayrton Senna, one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time, described reaching an extreme version of this state during qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix.
“That day, I suddenly realised that I was no longer driving conscious. And I was in a different dimension, for me.”
The circuit became a tunnel, and he found himself operating almost entirely on instinct, moving beyond the limits of his conscious understanding.
It frightened him so much that he slowed down and returned to the pits.
In my early 20s, I came home to recover from an eating disorder. My doctors knew how much I loved to ski, but they wanted me to find a more sustainable relationship with exercise, one in which my body was safe and I did things solely for the pleasure of them.
The challenge was that, for me, the pleasure of skiing was going fast and doing dangerous things. By that point, I’d already had two knee surgeries and one serious concussion from freestyle skiing.
So when the doctors gave me clearance to start skiing again, they instructed me to ski slowly for three laps for every fast lap.
It was horrible.
The safety I had felt from skiing at a speed at which I couldn’t be caught had disappeared. I felt like a sitting duck.
I tried my best to ski as slowly as possible.
Bad skiers would pass, and I would feel unsafe or annoyed. Good skiers would pass, and I would wish they knew I wasn’t actually as bad as I looked.
But then I realized I actually was as bad as I looked at very slow speeds.
Skiing at a mile an hour, or trying to go even slower than that and still get on an edge, was extremely difficult. Growing up, I had just kept going faster and getting better, but I had never practiced getting better at slow speeds.
After my first few laps, something opened up. All of a sudden, the flow and fascination I had found at high speeds came to me in a gentler form of slowness.
I would laugh and smile at my mistakes. I felt that same sense of being one with the forest, just as I had at fast speeds, like some magical mountain nymph.
By the end of that ski season, I had learned to love cat tracks as much as I had loved mogul fields.
I realized that I could ski my whole life and love it just as much at any age.
What a wonderful gift, to learn slowness.
And yet, I still love going fast.
I remember, as a kid, driving in my dad’s sports car with him on a remote Nevada road. We hit a straightaway with no one around, and we could see for miles because it was just fields. There were no cars or animals or tractors.
He stepped on the accelerator as I watched the speedometer climb higher and higher, like the needle of a scale with a heavy weight slowly applied.
Eventually, we hit 176 miles an hour.
The edges of my mouth turned up in an equanimous and uncontrollable smile.
Oh, how I love going fast.
But then there is the braking. With good brakes, it is perhaps more fun than speeding up. To feel the car shift down through each gear, your body knowing exactly which moment it will happen and what sound the engine will make.
We often think of acceleration as getting faster, but in physics acceleration is simply the rate of change of velocity. It can mean speeding up, slowing down, or changing direction.
Perhaps it isn’t speed itself that I love, but the experience of changing it. Of discovering something about the world that was invisible to me at another pace.
Even standing still, we are moving through space at extraordinary speed, though we feel none of it.
I have always loved the wonder of the immense, the world seen from an airplane, the Earth imagined from space. But I am discovering that there is just as much wonder at the opposite end of the scale. There are entire worlds among the smallest things, where a snail’s journey across a leaf can be as extraordinary as a journey across the sky.
There is an Italian word, sottobosco, for the undergrowth, the small world beneath the forest canopy.
It is a world that is easy to miss when moving quickly. It reminds me of my love of acceleration at the far end of the safe spectrum.
Like Senna, who realized there were speeds so fast that he frightened himself and pulled into the pits, I too have pulled over.
I’m in my 40s. I intend to be an old woman. Preferably a very old one.
But I don’t want to leave that state of flow. I still want to find its edge, the place where it may confuse or frighten me, but where I’m truly in no danger.
And I have discovered there are edges at the other end of the spectrum, too.
A Ritual in Slowness
Take a walk outdoors and see how slowly you can go. Then try going even slower.
Look beneath the leaves, among the moss, and into the little worlds growing close to the ground. Notice what you might have missed at your usual pace.
See how much you can discover by traveling the smallest possible distance in the longest possible time.
Consider bringing a sketchbook to draw or write about the little wonders you discover along the way.
Mark your Calendar
I've decided to make my weekly live sessions more predictable and with specific topics; so that you can plan ahead of time to attend. Of course, I will also post the recording if you are unable to make it at the live time. Each Monday at 9am Pacific (12pm Eastern), I will lead a live session. The upcoming live sessions and topics are:
- October 12th - Behind the Pages: The Making of The Handwritten Life
- October 19th - Away, no session
- October 26th - The 10 Antique Seals I Would Never Sell
- November 2nd - Holiday Correspondence: What I Send, Seal & Give
The Memo Press Bow Seal
This past week, Alice Edwards of Memo Press and I did a live session. We shared our philosophy on art and letter writing, and also unveiled The Memo Press Bow (only 2 remain). You can watch the live session here.
The Memo Press Bow makes its debut on the Kathryn Hastings & Co. website. Future availability and restocks will be offered through the Memo Press mailing list and shop in London.
| The Memo Press Bow |
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| Collect Here |
The Persephone Penny Pawn
The Persephone Penny Pawn is a small Étui created to hold a single Hastings Penny. Each comes with the exclusive Persephone Penny, a design available only with the Pawn and not offered separately. Those who collect the Persephone Penny Pawn will be on the early access list to the newest penny this week alongside the other étui collectors.
| The Persephone Penny Pawn |
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The Persephone Penny Pawn
| Collect Here |
Check Out the Replay of Unveiling the Awaited Persephone Pawn Reveal:
Missed the reveal? Step into the moment when the long-awaited Persephone Pawn was unveiled. Watch the replay and discover the story, symbolism, and intricate details behind this special new addition to the collection.
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| Watch Replay Here |
The Handwritten Life Arrives THIS Month
PRE-ORDER • SHIPPING END OF OCTOBER 2026
At the end of October, the first copies of The Handwritten Life are beginning to find their way into the world.
For this special first edition, I’ve reserved 150 copies to be signed by hand and accompanied by a Crescent Moon seal made especially for the book.
The seal will be entered into the Collector’s Register, and when the 150 are gone, the design will be retired. There will be no second run.
I love the thought of these first books carrying a mark that belongs only to their beginning. The Crescent Moon has appeared before in my work, and it returns in the final chapter of the book, making its way through the story before becoming part of this first edition.
If you would like one of these first 150 signed copies, pre-orders remain open through my website.
| The Handwritten Life: Signed First Edition + Limited-Edition Seal |
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| Pre-Order Here |
Collector Wax Seals You Might Like
Explore Kathryn Hastings’ collection of Collector Wax Seals, inspired by the art, mythology, history, and symbolism of the past. Each design is thoughtfully crafted as a small work of art, made to be collected, treasured, and passed down through generations.
Discover More Collector Wax Seals Here
The Second Generation Helix Edition
Thoughtfully crafted for those who appreciate exceptional craftsmanship and timeless correspondence, each Étui is destined for a discerning collection.
Secure yours while this limited edition is still available.
| The Hastings Étui |
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Étui Borders You Might Like
Discover the Étui borders that are still available to collect, each featuring its own distinctive design and character.
Just Two Hastings Pennies Remain
Only two Hastings Pennies are still available. Each was crafted in a limited quantity and, once sold, will not be returning.
If one has been on your list, now is the time to add it to your collection before these final pieces are gone.
With love,
