try a little tenderness q+a
...wildly tender, and whimsical, talkative
are you and jeremy completely over? indefinitely? sending you love.
i have received this question more times than i can count in the last couple months. it feels like a question i’ve received over a thousand times, each time phrased slightly differently. sometimes it’s phrased in a more demanding tone and other times, the question is asked with a kind gentleness.
i understand the curiosity. and for a long time, i avoided answering the question in a simple and straightforward way because it doesn’t always feel like there is a simple answer to this, let alone a straightforward one. because although the answer is ‘yes’, i find myself wanting to over-explain and to give context out of feeling protective of what we shared and in some ways - still continue to share. i feel a desperate need to give proof that even though we didn’t last, our relationship wasn’t a failure! we really do love each other! he loved me! we truly hoped we would be together forever! we really tried our best! we loved each other and it was real! it was so real.
jeremy and i have chosen to split up and although it’s been devastating in many ways, i truly want nothing but happiness for him. so in that way, when i think about him being happy, it feels much less sad for me.
i feel very lucky to have been loved by him and i feel so grateful to have loved him for so long.
what is your first food memory?
i have fragments of memories surrounding food: beef jerky being dried in a large appliance on the white linoleum of my childhood home that we referred to as the ‘pink house’. ddoengjjang jigae with hobak (korean zucchini) being fed to me in a long silver spoon by my ‘restaurant grandma’. a hot summer night, a blanket on the family room floor in front of the television, the sliding glass door is open, my dad is eating cool whip with strawberries with us out of a plastic yellow bowl while a kung-fu movie plays in the background. splotches of deep purply blackberry juice.
what’s your favorite cookie?
my brother’s tenderbro ccc. the recipe can be found on my highlights on instagram!
i also love a soft snickerdoodle cookie. it tastes so nostalgic to me.
if the world was ending, what would your last meal be?
i hope that if the world was ending, it wouldn’t be so much about what i was eating but rather, who i was sharing that last meal with. i hope that if the world was ending, and i had someone to experience the end with, we would just make all of our favorite dishes (similar to the scene in the movie, signs). we would indulge in decadence. pavlova with lots of softly whipped vanilla cream and fruit, a rich chocolate cake layered with thick chocolate frosting, big platters of steak frites and moules frites, a luscious pasta with clams and garlic and white wine, roasted potatoes that are perfectly salted with a salsa verde, fluffy rice with a rich beef stew, a thick creamy cheese slathered on ripped chunks of baguette and dipped in golden honey. we would talk, we would laugh, we would cry from laughing, we would reminisce, we would hold hands and hug. we would make it to the end with a full stomach, drunk on wine, love and affection for a life well lived.
thoughts on valentine’s day?
i shamelessly love valentine’s day. i think it’s such a sweet day - wholesome and pure in it’s own way. i love how it’s a day to express love for your significant other and/or your friends. i love it all: the flowers, the cards, the candy, the balloons, the outward displays of love and affection, people waiting in line to pick up their bouquets for their loves, couples walking hand in hand to dinner, seeing a father and their child walking back home with a supermarket bouquet of flowers early in the morning. it’s a day to bask in love and to celebrate the love we feel in our lives. it pains me when people shame the ones who love valentine’s day - what is there to not celebrate? what is there not to love? what is there to be ashamed about?
how to know if a relationship is worth working towards?
i think that’s something only you know if you’re in that situation. what does your heart feel? what does your gut say? there isn’t really any advice someone can give you to help you come to a conclusion.
it’s really about how you feel, how this person makes you feel and most importantly, how you feel when you’re with this person. do they make you happy? do they make you feel seen and understood? do you laugh together? do you have the ability to love each other the way you both need and want to be loved? can you grow with this person? do you want to grow with this person? can you grow together while being your true selves? can you share your truth with this person? can you handle their truths? do you feel safe with this person? can you make them feel safe with you?
and as maría irene fornés once wrote: is this someone who will guard your sleep? someone who will ask you how you feel?
do you feel lost now after your break up?
i am sad and logistical things are the main source of my stress and anxieties.
but i do not feel lost.
i feel excited about what the future holds for me. i am excited to have a home of my own. i am excited to continue discovering who i am, what i want to do with my life and who i am becoming, i am excited for the freedom to take care of me even if it will be a bit more stressful. all of this is very exciting to me and maybe that’s just me trying to find the silver lining of it all. i think younger me would feel very lost and the most scared of not finding a romantic love again but i don’t feel that way anymore. finding love is no longer something i am concerned about. i want to be deeply loved by someone who deeply believes in love and if it happens, it happens. if it doesn’t, i know i will be okay. i am happy with small flirtations in the mean time and i feel lucky to be a single woman in her early thirties - just existing between the small and big happinesses.
how do you deal with procrastination?
i am the biggest procrastinator. i have a huge, huge problem with procrastinating. it’s one of my biggest flaws.
i have not found a way that helps me be more productive or less of a procrastinator. i wish i could give some helpful tips but to be honest, i still struggle with it so i am one to give any advice to anyone about it.
if anyone has tips to help cope with procrastination, i would love to hear them in the comments!
when/how did you know it was time to part ways from your partnership?
i don’t know if there was a specific time or one thing that made it clear jeremy and i needed to part ways. it came to light through a few really difficult conversations. it was hard to really come to this conclusion because no one had done anything wrong. no one had committed a foul against each other. no one had lied or done something malicious. we knew that we still loved each other deeply but something wasn’t connecting anymore. something we couldn’t put our finger on was lacking which was making us both feel less loved and understood.
i think it dawned on us that this is one of those situations where if you really love someone, you want them to be happy - even if it’s not with you. you want them to be loved the way they need to feel loved and you want to be seen and understood for who you truly are.
jeremy loves me enough to understand that i am still growing and that i am still figuring out who i am becoming. and that this is something that requires freedom and space, just for my own happiness but his as well. i think love tells us when it’s time to part ways, to be honest. i think true love can tell us a lot if we pay attention. if we know our love well enough- it tells us what we need even if it hurts.
rice or pasta for the rest of your life?
rice, forever.
where do you hope your passion with food leads?
i hope it leads me to become more ambitious and more motivated because those are things i struggle with. i also hope it leads me to continuing to learn and to explore creatively in ways i haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing. i hope i learn to become less insecure and more confident.
i just hope i can do something that future me will be proud of. i think that would be nice- to look back and also be proud of younger me.
it’s kind of like that old poesy ring saying: not for riches but for love.
i just hope it leads to experiences/projects i love doing.
Letters from Alfred Stieglitz to Georgia O’Keeffe, November 8-10, 1916:
“How much we have in common. — Traits. — Both turn everything we touch into something really living — & amusing — for ourselves. — Both can laugh — really laugh — even at our heartaches… 300 years you want to live!! — I wish I could give you that as a gift —”
this ending scene in aftersun is one of my favorite scenes in a film. i thought about it for hours.
i’ve seen srishti and claire post about this novel and my personal musings about motherhood and having children have me very curious to read it. it’s on my list of books to read. have you read it? what were your thoughts?
I appreciate your writing.
How does one find your IG? Or, could you post the cookie recipe here?
For procrastination, I find that doing small things in regard to the task helps me get it completed but makes it less overwhelming which is why I often procrastinate. Hope this helps!