when you share a book with somebody, how do you choose which one it should be? Is it something you think they would like, or is it something you like and want them to know it too? Do you want to share an experience with them? Do you want to show them a piece of your soul, in a relatively safe way, since the words written are somebody else's, you're not even a vessel for them, you're but a distant, shy promoter, gently guiding text and reader towards each other?
Do you want them to feel what you felt? Do you want to think that now there is a feeling you share? Is it some secret, sacred joint knowledge, like watching the same improv play, knowing that this is the only moment it can exist, and those experiencing it are joint in a quiet, inconsequential, and elusive bind?
Are you then, maybe unconsciously, maybe unintentionally, trying to create that bind? To signal that "here, in the reading in this book, we belong together"?
my supermarket rose, one which I became - was made? - responsible for against my own will and despite what I thought were very clear statements regarding how I don't want flowers, well, that rose is now entering its second year and decided to teach me a very unsurprising, annoyingly didactic, and yet somehow profound lesson.
It decided to reward the two repotting, the watering, the coffee grains, the crushed eggshells, the sticky things that are supposed to catch bugs, and the motivational talks with not one, but three new buds (and counting).
I know that this is what roses are supposed to do. What I also know is that the repotting was reluctant, the watering sometimes rhapsodic, the coffee and the eggshells a bit of a desperate move to counter the not always exactly heartfelt motivational talks. In short, I know that I wasn't always fully committed to raising this rose, and that it would have been understandable if it didn't thrive. I would have deserved it. And then I also know that thriving is not alwaus a given, that sometimes roses don't make it to next spring, that sometimes all the committed and heartfelt caring and nourishing is still not enough.
And yet here we are. The rose I'm responsible for is maybe telling me that there is forgiveness, that the important thing is that I did come around. Maybe it's telling me that whether my caring and nourishing will be enough is beside the point. To do it anyway. At least that's what I choose to hear.
sometimes a few fake spring days pops up right after the coldest night of the year, the winds are suddenly not icy sharp, the birds are shouting before it's even sunrise, and this girl pulls out the sorter skirts and the spring fragrance.
And as she walks through the usual street and feels that the cold hard crust around her heart might be softening a little bit, and considers picking up pastries for the office, she thinks about a song she hadn't listened to in years. One that she'd liked very much at the time, one that she remembers having meant a lot for somebody else, and at the time she didn't understand how it made that somebody else so emotional.
So naturally she puts the song onto the playlist, mood already altered by the mild temperatures, the self-inflicted olfactory trigger, and the fact that it's a Friday, and... there it comes. All of them feelings hit her out of nowhere, resulting in nostalgic crying three times over. There is something in the melody, or the words, the alignment of the stars, heartaches that have been pushed down, worries and laughter, some magic combination that makes her feel the New York air (humid and garbage-y), hear the hum of traffic, she can even see the scaffolding on some random stretch of 2nd Avenue, the lights are soft, the movements of masses are wavy and secretly organised, and the whole thing just squishes her heart a little. A lot.
And maybe other people have been listening to the same song, or mybe they also feel that the cold hard crust around their hearts might be softening a little bit, or they too experienced olfactory triggers (ie somebody around them smells nice), or maybe she's just projecting it all, but there seems to be a tiny shift in how the world is that day. It almost feels like... hope? Not just the relief that comes when the winds are not icy sharp, that we might have survived this winter, but the tiniest glimpse of faith that maybe, just maybe, we might have a chance at the next one too.
there is a dark side to all of those "home is" moments, I just usually choose to not give them too much airtime, partly due to the false belief that if I pretend it doesn't exist it will go away (if that ever worked for anybody please let me know), and partly because I do give in to the other false belief that I don't have the right for dark moments because of the bright moments. Pick your lane kinda thinking, you should be grateful kinda thinking.
The dark side does exist nonetheless, and sometimes it pops up in what should be the brightest "home is" moments. When you're somewhere you've been waiting to be and suddenly don't know what you're doing there; when you're with people you've been longing to see and now you doubt if they've been longing to see you too; when you feel like you're being pulled in a hundred directions and you don't want to go to any of them; always, always when you have to live out of a suitcase and people think it's funny but all you feel is that there is literally no place for you and your shoes; when you don't remember why, and all the other questions flood you. "Who am I? Why am I here? I thought I wanted to be here, why am I not ecstatic? I thought they wanted me to be here, why are they not ecstatic? Ugh why are they so ecstatic it's just me? Did they miss me? Will they miss me? Do I matter? How much? How do I know? Am I enough? Am I too much? How do I know? Did I mess it up? Am I going to die alone? Will anybody care?"
And then of course you go to the next gathering and book the next train and pack more cheese and chocolate and send the postcards and the socks and the books. Because all the love is out there and it is worth it.
You just wish that everybody knew that globetrotters, trail followers, cool aunties, larger-than-life uncles, serial suitcase breakers, we are like all other people. Sometimes we bring the light, sometimes we need the light.
May the odds be ever in our favour. May the year be generous and kind and forgiving, and may it help us getting closer to everything we want. May what we want overlap with what we need. May our love keep shining, may it be appreciated, amplified, and returned. May we receive plenty and pay it forward. May we keep dancing when the lights go out. May we hope defiantly; may our love shelter us from our fears.
