Edition #186: On Love
First, second, and all the in-betweens. Plus, the sweetest tiny studio apartment, Venmo culture sucks, and a protest I'd like to attend.
A Note From the Editor
I like my life. That feels like an important place to start. I haven’t always liked it as much as I do now, but these days I can find very little to complain about. I work for myself and more or less make my own schedule. I am barefoot in the sand every day. I have everything I need and plenty I don’t need, but that I still enjoy and appreciate. My days can be whatever I want them to be. Some days, when I step back and inspect this life I have cobbled together for myself, all seems golden. And yet, the moment a romantic interest enters the picture, everything changes.
Does it happen to everyone like this? There you were, living life, making your eggs in the morning, doing your work during the hottest part of the afternoon, going for sunset walks in the evening and everything was fine, until, with a startling swiftness, someone arrived and moved everything around. It’s as if all the lightbulbs in the house were swapped out when you stepped out to run errands. The change is subtle but it creates an entirely different vibe. You didn’t realize how harsh those overhead lights were, before. How sterile and boring. Now, a warm glow. The light is softer and so are you. Your to-do list doesn’t feel as weighted and neither does your heart. Your imagination becomes more fertile like it was when you were a child, dreaming up endless configurations of the future. A game of MASH.
I don’t mean all this in an overly poetic sense, but quite literally. Any time a love interest enters my life—someone I really like, whether they will be a central figure in my romantic history or a fleeting visitor—the shape of my existence changes. It might not be visible from the outside, but my inner world is doused in color. Maybe I get distracted from the previous focus I had going, maybe I spend extra time in the imagined future and less time in the present, maybe I pick them up a few little treats, bake them something good. I wonder whether the other person is experiencing the same sudden burst of vitality that has sprouted up in my life. I hope they are. Not just because I want them to like me, but because I want everyone to experience this feeling. The suddenness of it, the totality.
It’s so good it’s too good. On the other side of the bliss is terror; what happens when you lose this? Think of every time you’ve lost it before. That stark hospital lighting of your life turns back on. All at once you hear that buzz, clicking on, and now you are bathing in fluorescent light. Everything you enjoyed about your life before becomes temporarily dull in comparison. You no longer have access to the mysteries of someone else’s world, someone else’s mind, to the warmth of someone else’s body. Waking up with their sour breath on your face and not even caring, leaving the party with that deliciously coy feeling like, Yeah, this is fun, but I’ve got something even waiting for me at home. Quiet pity for those who don’t.
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An in-person astrological reading and an app both confirmed that in the arena of love, my soul is inexperienced. I’ve been around the block a few times before, but love is still new to me and I can feel that each time I approach it. It is one area of my life where my assuredness falters. I often feel like a baby Bambi learning to walk, a pre-teen debuting a new haircut on the first day of school.
My first love was blinding. I loved him almost immediately and in a way I had never experienced before. He would walk past me and my heart would pound in my throat, my palms would become slick with sweat. The first time I saw him in regular clothes—swap the tailored suit and leather shoes for plaid shorts that were a touch too long and an ugly brown t-shirt—I knew I was done for. He dressed so badly and still, my heart went mad. I recall telling him I loved him for the first time, how difficult it was to get the words from my heart to my brain to my throat. We were lying in bed, face-to-face, and I was crying and he didn’t know why. I made him turn away from me so his face was to the wall and only then could I get the words out. I would love him for many years.
My second love was quieter, sweeter. We were equals; he was never my boss and we were the same age. The first time he slept over we stayed in bed together all afternoon watching Billy on the Street videos and I didn’t even feel like I was wasting my life. Every goodbye lasted so long, hours of making out all over the city—on a bench in Central Park, in front of the Union Square subway station, outside the Tompkins Square dog park, the Bedford L. We made shrimp dumplings in my kitchen and he did a goofy dance to Cheeseburger in Paradise and it made me laugh, that playfulness juxtaposed by a serious passion for doing the right thing, doing right by people. His love was consistent and secure and I didn’t know what to do with it. I was assembled with masking tape and he, it seemed, with high-quality wood. I recall crying in bed one night during my 27th birthday weekend. The end of a perfect day, he didn’t know why I was crying and I couldn’t bear to say it: I don’t want to ruin you. You are pure in a way that I will never be. I wanted to protect him from everything I carried.
There were some half-loves, too, during that phase in early New York life when all it took was a handsome hedge fund boy to insist on ending the first date with late-night Italian food to sweep me off my feet. He kept me on the hook but never reeled me all the way in and it drove me mad for him. I would dance and sing and do back flips, please love me, bake cookies and answer every call and take him to my favorite secret massage spot, please love me, send him songs and bring him back souvenirs from Europe and pretend to like his annoying friends, please love me. None of my tricks worked.
The three-quarters love was the most damaging; the trouble of starting as a friend. A real friend, no flirting, no kissing, no nothing. A whole month of genuine friendship, my first friend in a brand new place. He showed me the ropes, invited me everywhere, drove me around, brought me coconuts and broth when I was sick. So when these two friends sat in a hot tub together to watch a lightning storm, not at all sober, the kiss to follow was momentous. His body was a foreign land, nothing familiar about it, but the togetherness was as natural as the sunrise. Never had I spent so much time with another person without needing my own space. The was sun pouring through his big window one of our last mornings together, our legs tangled up, my head resting on his chest. I recall the pitter-patter of my heart as he looked me in the eye and said I was his favorite person. I knew it was true. He was mine, too.
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All of these loves would end. I would leave or they would leave. I would move to Hawaii, I would escape the city during COVID and discover a dormant need for space and trees and water. They would confess they weren’t over their ex, be unable to provide me with the guarantee I needed to keep things going. Sometimes they would inquire about friendship and I would try, but in the end it really never worked.
In the wake of these loves, I was torn apart at the seams and put back together. Five whole years before I recovered from that first time. The second, days spent hiding under the covers in that crusty Greenpoint apartment, binge-watching Fleabag and sobbing over the impossibility of the Hot Priest story arc, of my own heartache. Friends would pick me up and put me back together. Flowers in a mason jar delivered on a rainy morning, a long hug, a delivery of Milk Bar truffles all the way from Texas. New lovers would delight me, distract me, color my world once again, and I would forget.
I used to dream about one of these old loves often; I don’t recall when the dreams stopped. He would pop back up in my subconscious mind, knock knock, and my waking brain would wonder whether he was the real thing that I just wasn’t ready for. I like checking in on him whenever I can catch a glimpse—not often, for there are no digital tethers left. I like seeing his smiling face, his cute new partner, exactly the sort of girl I imagined he should be with. I could have never been her, that’s just how it goes sometimes. I regret nothing.
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Cheers, my dears, and as always thanks for reading. In the spirit of today’s essay, I leave you with some love songs I love:
Every time I hear this song, I am transported to a little Alpine town in France where I spent a month reading poetry at a tiny cafe by day and strolling through a twinkly-lit garden at dusk while listening to this song on repeat. It remains one of the most romantic songs of all time.
This song sounds exactly how I want my next great love to feel: soulful, simple, and poetic.
This song has made my heartache for years. It’s the sentiment, nothing mattered before you, and idea of being on either side of that proclamation.
My sister and her family are coming to visit me tomorrow. I can’t wait to to show them around. We’re going to spend lots of time at the beach, I’m going to take them to the most incredible spot for a long lunch, and then we’re traveling to another part of the country in search of sloths and red-eyed frogs and good chocolate. Have a wonderful weekend! Get a massage, buy some high quality olive oil and make bruschetta, write a love letter.
Three Pieces of Content Worth Consuming
Claude-Noëlle Toly’s 275-Square-Foot Studio Feels Worlds Away From Bleecker Street. Just as poets are especially talented for thier brevity of language, designers are especially talented when they can transform a tiny space into an oasis. This studio looks like it was plucked out of an independent film shot in the French countryside and plopped into my old neighborhood in Greenwich Village. So beautiful and such a great use of space, even though it makes me feel a little claustrophobic.
Fake Centenarians, Faulty Data, Junk Science, and Contested “Blue Zones.” I live in an (alleged) Blue Zone and I’ve always felt a healthy dose of skepticism towards the designation. Part of this had to do with the gross commodification of what could have simply been a cool scientific finding—when science turns into a full-fledged money-making machine, you have to wonder what’s up. There's been a lot of discourse over the Blue Zones lately, but this article takes the cake as the most well-written, entertaining, fascinating tale of the drama. You’ve got the trusted Belgium demographer who did the blue zones research but hasn’t been included in the commodification of the Blue Zones as a brand, the bro-y Midwestern businessman who turned the science into an empire, and the passionate British crop scientist who has spent his life trying to prove the Blue Zone theory a farce. I promise this is so, so good and worth the read (or listen!).
There’s Simply No Reason To Be Nickel-And-Dime-ing Your Loved Ones in Pursuit of Saving $9. I love Hate Reads, the pop-up series by Delia Cai in which anonymous, clever writers share their very specific gripes in the form of a punchy essay. This one kicked off Hate Reads, Season 2, and man, did it feel good for someone to finally acknowledge the icky underbelly of Venmo culture! If you’re of the millennial generation, you're probably familiar with which of your friends is a Venmo miser, prone to requesting you for every $6 coffee and $7 half-the-guacamole appetizer. I get it when it’s a situation where everyone orders vastly differently—we used to itemize our split checks at book club, for example, because some of us would guzzle expensive bottles of wine while others only had dessert—but otherwise, being Venmo crazy with your established, successful friends is a poor practice that doesn't create good feelings.
Perhaps You Should… Practice Your First Amendment Right
Gone are the days when this newsletter was a space for me to air my political grievances, of which there were (are) many. There are a few reasons for this, but mostly, I got tired of shouting into the void. Still, I remain politically engaged even when I don’t want to be. And watching America’s institutions strategically dismantled by a bunch of losers is a hard pill to swallow.
If I were in the States this Saturday, I would attend one of these coordinated, nationwide Hands Off protests. I’d cancel all my plans to attend, I’d bring all my friends, and I’d plug myself back into the energy of America which is, at its best, a free nation in which citizens have a constitutional right to “peaceably assemble”. I’d bring my kids if I had them. Teach them that the people will always yield power.
For proof: this week, a liberal judge beat out Musks’ $25 million bid to buy a Wisconsin court seat, and a Democratic Senator finally stopped sitting around doing nothing and spoke out in protest for a full 24-hours with a little help from my girl.
**Bonus Content** (A Feel-Good Thread)
There is no place that makes me quite as happy as a little, independent bookstore. A curated poetry selection, be-speckled staff who quietly argue with one another over whether a new novel is adequately rated, the presence of those perfectly thin, soft-covered Moleskin notebooks. This thread from an indie bookseller made me smile big time. I, too, have recently purchased a copy of Meditations.
Also, shoutout to my favorite indie bookstore in NYC—I’ll be back for you soon. When I do go back, I’ll pick up this novel. I need to make these cucumbers stat, a clever use of space (+ me!), I want to try all these nut butters, he’s not wrong, and a cold open that made me cackle.
A Quote From A Short Story You Should Read:
“They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.”
- On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl On a Beautiful Spring Morning by Haruki Murakami (featured in The Elephant Vanishes short story collection)
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