honey, my earth is merciful. you understand?

thoughts and feelings

i haven’t opened my computer in over four days. i check my email on my phone and if i need to send an email, i send emails that are one or two sentences. succinct and full of brevity. my computer lays untouched and lifeless on the bed. there is a lot that has been happening but at the same time, life feels like it’s moving at a pace that can only be described as molasses. time feels slow and repetitive, sped up by moments of shimmery brightness but otherwise a melancholic constant. i’m struggling to find the words for this season of life. there has been much to think about, to dwell on, to savor, to clench my jaw and shake my head at, to daydream about. but i’m trying to feel more than think. i’m just trying to feel everything and i am trying to soak it in without giving it too much thought. i just want to feel it all. so that’s where i’ve been. here but not there, blindly finding my way by feeling and savoring the shimmering brightness where i can find it.

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thinking once again about how laughing, eating, kissing, fucking, loving, crying, hugging, and laughing some more is really the cherry on top.

thinking about how i’m starting to believe paying attention is really the most important and best love language.

thinking about how women give so much and why our hearts are so big and generous and giving, sometimes against our better judgement.

thinking of those who witness me with love and patience rather than judgement.

thinking about how when frank o’hara said “all I want is a room up there and you in it”.

thinking about how telepathy grows as love grows.

thinking about doing things out of love and not for someone to owe you something.

thinking about when susan sontag said any situation where people are genuine with one another produces intelligence.

thinking of telling people ‘i’m so happy to see you’ as the first thing i say when i first see them instead of jumping to, ‘how was your day?’ because that can always wait.

thinking of how i feel better when i express love.

thinking of how skin on skin contact is the nicest when it feels safe. whether it’s chest to chest, back to chest, chest to back, hand on hand, fingers and palms touching and intertwined.

thinking about how keeping secrets as an adult feels less like keeping secrets but instead, it’s keeping important things safe and sacred.

thinking about how i always remember ‘la haine engendre la haine’ which is a gentle reminder for me to keep the heart soft and quietly heal what needs healing.

thinking about insecurity coming out as pettiness coming out as sadness coming out as cruelty coming out as an apology.

thinking about how i was telling someone i like about how special it feels that i can sit at dinner with viv and we can be silent and just communicate with our eyebrows or short glances toward each other and how it made me think of that monologue in frances ha and how sometimes a shared knowing glance can be so intimate that it almost makes me want to cry.

thinking about the story of francesca and paolo: francesca loved paolo in the human world, throughout eternity she will love him in hell. but, the lovers are damned because they will not change, and because they will never cease to love, they can never be redeemed. dante represents this fact metaphorically by placing paolo close to francesca and by having the two of them being buffeted about together through this circle of hell for eternity.

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try a little tenderness will be back with a little more regularity. i promise. thank you for being here. i’m so happy you are.

x

e