#38
on remembering how to be human
dear you,
summer is here. i hope you’re keeping well and letting love in <3
“we look at the world once, in childhood. / the rest is memory”
louise glück, nostos
july so far has been slow and wearying. summer gives me no place to find myself but my childhood. i lie down at night with a lump in my throat and a restlessness in my hands. i’m trying to remain warm, soft, and open to the possibilities of life even if it seems hopeless.
lately, i’ve been taking up space in the little in-between moments of my days like when the birds chirp in the morning and the sunlight hits the wall next to my bed. in the moments when i cook something and all the different colours and smells arise, or when i smile at the person at the till, stare out the window on trains and buses, or walk home in the evening sun.
some days you must find these tiny moments and make them your anchor. the way that the dough feels in your hands, the way that the bits of sunlight between trees create shadows on the ground, the little period at dusk when the sky gets darker, the streets quieter, and there’s a gentle breeze. you have to hold these moments and exist within them fully.
“some days faith is the only fabric i can hold on to. i dig my nails in until it rips”
raych jackson, even the saints audition
the past year has been full of high highs and low lows. i feel like i’ve only been able to feel things in extremes; otherwise, i’ve felt numb and absent. i’ve tried to honour difficult moments with grace and patience and i’ve been immensely grateful for all the good moments whether it’s been time spent alone, with family, friends, or nature, or for achievements, progress, healing etc. sometimes i feel like i’m an observer in my own life; i’m trying to build the courage to participate. my solitude is the only thing that has ever made sense but i’m trying to cultivate a home in the presence of the earth and community in a way that can fulfill me too.
“i won’t make metaphors out of fish. if i have to die, i choose the ocean. if i have to live, i choose you. you: everyone i’ve ever mourned. i believe less & less of sunlight these days. i won’t die alone. to awaken crying is to awaken displaced. ghost of your joy in the bathtub. a face in the mirror. your nephew’s painting in the foyer. my mother cried in bedrooms growing up. i would study her for hours. in a study, researchers learned patients who cried less are likely to have dismissive attachment styles. today, every bedroom in the house is mine. i stopped crying at age 12. as a child, i spoke a language no one understood. research suggests loneliness increases cardiovascular disease. when my cousin died, she died alone. when the world collapsed around Darwish, he wrote of coffee and sex. when you held my body close to yours, i thought of clementines, sweet citrus, all the world’s lemons we’d temper with honey. the world’s loneliest whale sings the loudest song. this is what you’ll tell me the first time we meet. and i’ll think about the ocean. and i’ll think about you. i never learned how to swim. i’ve been drowning my whole life. studies suggest drowning lasts 1-3 minutes. but i’ll never stop grieving. scientists are still searching for the 52-hertz whale. but i swear he’s here. in my bedroom. and i can hear him. and he’s telling me i can stop”
noor hindi, the world’s loneliest whale sings the loudest song & other confessions
i feel so grateful for things i have now that the younger version of myself did not: i spend my days doing things i love and care about, have wonderful friends, and have the ability to be myself fully.
i will never have this version of me again. i want to slow down and be with her.
i love driving around on summer evenings in the hour when everything is bathed in warmth. the dahlias and hydrangeas in the sun, the cats sleepily lounging on the warm ground, the roses especially fragrant. everyone’s faces reveal contentment and peace.
“i wait for every summer, and it is usually good, but it is never as good as that summer i am always waiting for”
martha gellhorn, selected letters
“you still crave lemonade, but the taste doesn’t satisfy you as much as it used to. you still crave summer, but sometimes you mean summer, five years ago”
alida nugent
“i began to talk. i talked about summer, and about time. the pleasures of eating, the terrors of the night. about this cup we call a life. about happiness. and how good it feels, the heat of the sun between the shoulder blades”
mary oliver, ‘toad’ from truro bear and other adventures: poems and essays
i’ve been reading john berger’s ‘and our faces, my heart, brief as photos’. it’s a serious but tender combination of poetry and prose mirroring the illuminating moments in everyday experience and the willingness to experience as fully as possible. berger articulates the music of the time, space, objects, people and chords we are a part of— the lines of reference we create. poetry, for berger, brings peace and reconciliation with an acknowledgement of the repercussions of language and experience. it is a presence before a balm or source of communication. meditating on art, love, and mortality, he brings attention to how we understand our physical landscapes.
“the boon of language is not tenderness. all that it holds, it holds with exactitude and without pity, even a term of endearment; the word is impartial: the usage is all. the boon of language is that potentially it is complete, it has the potentiality of holding with words the totality of human experience—everything that has ocurred and everything that may occur. it even allows space for the unspeakable. in this sense one can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man”
john berger, and our faces, my heart, brief as photos (page 95)
in my own day-to-day, i wander in and out of the past. places hold so much significance and affinity. i feel haunted by loss and possibility. sometimes i feel like i’m watching the days pass without occupying them, like a stranger looking in. but i reconcile this with a passion and fondness for the world and its people. i hold so much gratitude for the faculty of connection. for the beauty people hold within. i would be nothing without the feeling of tenderness passing through me.
i’m making peace with loss in this period of my life. things don’t last forever. i loved and i love and i will love. they were, i am, they are. life is experience, it’s the simplest thing.
i’m trying not to run away from parts of myself that are uncomfortable to face. i’m trying to give these thoughts or feelings a place for themselves. writing helps to set things down so that i can understand it better. it feels like it’s outside of me so that i can find the root of things, and not something i’m consumed with on the inside. i’m trying to be present these days, to bring my attention to the life happening around me. thoughts and feelings are not permanent in themselves or as a part of us. it’s easy to give especially painful ones this power since it’s easy to live alongside them and take them as gospel, as something immovable and enduring. but we can outgrow them and face them with effort, patience and strength so that they can be transformed into whatever we want them to be.
“maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place”
paul coelho
“may i have the courage today / to live the life that i would love, / to postpone my dream no longer / but do at last what i came here for / and waste my heart on fear no more”
john o’donohue, a morning offering
i think all the love we feel for anything comes from the same place within us. when we work on love in one part of our lives, the love elsewhere grows. we have to approach the love for ourselves, the world, and the people in our lives with the same gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and acceptance.
we all have parts of ourselves that are difficult to work through. but we have to extend ourselves understanding and endurance, just like the safe space we provide to others. that’s what love is. give your past self the patience you have a hard time giving your present self. be compassionate in life and don’t leave yourself out of that. make an effort to add something sweet to the world as you walk through life. hold a safe space in yourself and welcome people into it when the opportunity arises. the more you consciously do it, the more it will just be a part of you.
“my truest life is unrecognisable, extremely interior and there is not a single word that defines it”
clarice lispector, the hour of the star (trans. benjamin moser)
i’m doing it scared, i’m doing it alone, but i’m doing it <3
Tiya Di's newsletter always comes with a warm hug
Loved this ❤️