how are you?
hi friends,
it’s been a while. are you still there?
i’m not actually in the mood to talk much yet. in this past year, articulating thoughts, feelings and all has been hard. everything feels a little more than what my vocabulary is equipped for. nothing i’ve said these days has felt right. i almost feel like i need to learn how to speak again.
but, i guess, here i am anyway. and the reason that is is because i have this feeling that can only be compared to the feeling of missing someone or something. i haven’t quite identified what or who that could be yet but my palms are open, stretched before me; my instinct is to reach out and check in. perhaps with you, maybe even a little with myself but mostly, i think, with the world. are we okay?
it feels as though we’re hurting, or maybe i’m projecting. maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s my hormones. maybe it’s me having read Bluets by Maggie Nelson, again.
i can’t stop thinking about her collection of blue things, including an old note by an old lover. her witnessing it fading in the sun. a note she’s decided to keep but also accepted of losing. she describes how every day she thinks about yet fails to move it out of the sun to let the dark preserve the message. she says she has ‘no instinct for protection’. she assumes it may be ‘laziness, curiosity, or cruelty’. and i wonder if she realizes that despite it all she’s immortalized it, protected it for good, on page 83.
i relate to her yearning. collectively, we’ve lost so much this year—hope, heart, touch, compassion, community. i fear we won’t get much of it back. i fear we won’t learn from our mistakes even though the regret should be fatal by now. i fear there isn’t enough time left on earth to heal.
anyway——let me stop myself here. as i said, i’m not actually in the mood to talk much yet, and i already said more than i intended. all i really wanted was to leave you with the scraps of thoughts i’ve collected over the months. thoughts i haven’t been able to nurture enough for them to bear any fruit. so scraps is all i have for now.
this fall, i watched my dad lay flowers, burn incense, and pray at his dad’s grave. it was the first time i witnessed my father being a son to his. it never quite occurred to me that he, too, is just a child who misses his parent.
plucking flowers seems cruel. and i’m sure there’s a meaningful metaphor about love and beauty somewhere in there. but why do we kill the things we adore?
can the destruction of something really be a gesture of love?
last night i lost my home, all my belongings in it, my childhood best friend, and a family member in one dream. my boyfriend asked me if i’m feeling overwhelmed these days. i suppose the question of what i fear of losing would be redundant.
on another night, in a moment of real panic where my body reacted before i could consciously comprehend what had happened, i realized that i’m not often in actual fear. i’d always thought of myself as a fearful person but i think i understand the difference between fears and anxieties better now. i want to let go of some of those anxieties. i want to, need to grow up.
even prior to rereading Bluets, i’d started thinking about the role of colour in my life. every child has a favourite. mine was baby blue. i wonder if i gained or missed out on any friendships because of it. i wonder if it means anything that many of my closest friends now—as well as myself—are drawn to muted shades of green.
blue is just a green gone cold. and that is how i feel.
isn’t it sad that i wouldn’t be able to recognize my friends by their handwriting anymore?
i wish we wrote each other more cards and left each other long voicemails. i wish my inbox was filled with letters instead of appointment confirmations. maybe this could count as one from me to you.
but is a letter still a letter when left unread? is a text still a text when not received? what is a message without an intact receiver? i hope i don’t have to find out just yet.
much love,
write me.