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Iām thinking about two quotes from things I read yesterday.
- Kaveh Akbar: āLove was a room that appeared when you stepped into it. Cyrus understood that now, and stepped.ā
- Lynne Tillman (writing about Nan Goldin): āA section titled "Empty Rooms," which lies at the center of the book, insists on what's lost or gone. Goldin is traveling, staying in hotel rooms, visiting friends, returning home and leav-ing. There's a portrait of a plumped pillow on a bed, rumpled sheets and two pillows that stand in for bodies that once lay there, a mirror that reflects light only on an ordinary bureau, golden paintings above a bed's backboard, and all are stage sets for memory.ā¦Hotel rooms usually mark transitoriness and freedom from daily life, but they're haunted by the many bodies that have passed through. The photographs are also haunted by her absent friends, some of whom have died and some of whom are far away. Temporary stations themselves, the empty rooms emphasize the inadequate hold anyone has on life, how it all just goes, finally.ā
I texted Jancie the Akbar quote. She reminded that love is a room you donāt even know youāre building.
And now Iām thinking about the rooms I have built without knowing, how many people have been in them. The world is very big and full of very many rooms. Itās amazing to see that now.
Jul 9, 2024
Related Recs
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Iāve always felt an almost defiant pull toward spaces not built for peaceāthe kinds of places where calm isnāt handed to you, but carved out by necessity. For years, it was bathrooms. Pink and white tiled sanctuaries where panic could unravel in private, where I could collapse and collect myself in the same breath. Those spaces hugged my chaos without asking questions.
Now I find myself inside a libraryāa new one, unfamiliar yet unnervingly tender. It doesnāt try to soothe me. It justĀ is, and in that quiet refusal to coddle, I feel at home. I am alone, yes, but not lonely. I am submerged, not lost. For the first time in a long time,
I can hear myself without interference. Iām beginning to meet myself where I am, instead of where I should be.
To the strange, unlikely rooms that have held meāthank you. You were never meant to be safe harbors, but somehow, you were.
3d ago
For someone who claims to identify so closely with solitude, uncovering just how tethered I was to the emotions of people I love was a crispy realization. Of course, that attachment is the basis for any kind of relationship. You cannot claim to āhave someoneā in your life if you do not feel some kind of emotional connection towards them. The stronger the connection, the stronger the relationship. We all know this. However, there is something to be said about a relationship that is ātoo goodā; a bond so strong due to its shocking lack of tension. In hindsight of various broken and fragmented connections Iāve been apart of, any relationship that exists while remaining entirely unscathed now kind of terrifies me.
I believe there can be such a thing as ātoo much loveā, and I think those who have given or received it know when they have done so. Itās a mistake anyone is capable of making. Imagine a relationship so polished, free from any erosion (visible or otherwise); seemingly perfect. This type of connection can only be established through a building of trust and an abundance of time. However, Iāve come to learn that the more impeccable bonds tend to break easy when faced with their first real blow. Birds only crash into the cleanest of glass.
*"If music be the food of love, play on; / Give me excess of it...*"
I donāt want excess. For the food of love, I am no glutton. I eat until I am full and push my plate aside. I used to love like my life depended on it. I put those people whom I adored on the highest of pedestals, framed them in my gallery and admired new details every time we shared a visit. Maybe I just hadnāt been wronged enough to ever think that I could be wounded by those I dote on so heavily. What is it with loving and being loved that makes feeling hurt seem so impossible? Why must love shatter all preconceived expectations of what emotion is? Is love really so massive, so gargantuan that it conquers all other feeling?
Yes, and no. At least thatās what I think. This is all just what I think. I donāt want to come across as some great romantic or lovesick puppy or old friend. Iām just trying to figure out the right way to love, like everyone else.
Mar 16, 2025
š”
I awoke this morning in the gold light turning this way and that
thinking for a moment it was one day like any other.
But the veil had gone from my darkened heart and I thought
it must have been the quiet candlelight
that filled my room,
it must have been the first easy rhythm with which I breathed myself to sleep,
it must have been the prayer I said speaking to the otherness of the night.
And I thought this is the good day
you could meet your love,
this is the gray day someone close to you could die.
This is the day you realize
how easily the thread is broken
between this world and the next
and I found myself sitting up
in the quiet pathway of light,
the tawny close grained cedar
burning round me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending through the first
roof of light the sun has made.
This is the bright home
in which I live, this is where
I ask my friends to come,
this is where I want to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple of my adult aloneness
and I belong to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.
Mar 13, 2024
Top Recs from @florinegrassenhopper
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No screen Sundays. If I want to listen to music its CDs or radio. If I want to watch a movie, no I donāt. If I want to see a friend, I will make plans with them on Friday or Saturday to meet up. As a result, I read more, write more, and sit with questions like ādid Citizen Kaneās 50 year winning streak in the Sight and Sound critics choice survey end in 2012 or 2022? When did Stephen Merritt come out? Whats the etymology of Whitsun?ā
This is something that I have practiced off and on for many years but Iāve been doing it every week since December and I love the way that it just allows me one day of true freedom and rest.
Jan 22, 2025
Mar 3, 2025
My calendar this year has 52 of these week at a glance pages but I donāt think that way. So, I've been inspired by Ross Gayās Book of Delighs to start recording the little moments and sensations that bring me joy throughout the day. An analog pi.fyi, if you will.
heres some of what I have so far:
- Waking up to the sound of my upstairs neighborās footstep. It sounded nostalgic. Felt like company.
- Strawberry jam
- feeling tender for strangers: their lips, nail colors, their small wrists. Thinking of all the lives we hold gently.
- A young girl bought an LP at the bookstore just before I left. She stroked its cover with love
- Green tiles āthe mint shade always makes me think of Jancie
- Charlieās little bop and punch dancing to some German language punk
- lunch with Katherine, curry Brussels sprouts
- small talk at the photo studio. The photographer's brother was named after their dad, stole his identity, bought jet skis.
Jan 13, 2025