love is a spectrum

and you're all on it btw (+ SPOTIFY WRAPPED)

Dec 02, 2023

this week’s Thought (singular)

when you say you miss something are you talking about the thing itself or do you actually miss how your life was during that thing (when you say you wish it was summer, are you actually thinking of summer from seven years ago?)

a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that their new shampoo does a good job of removing all the oil from their hair. thank you for joining us. may you not have to deal with weirdly textured and oddly sticking out hair because you weren’t sure how much of this new shampoo you need to use to get it all out why won’t it go i can’t leave the house for another four days why why.

my friend and i were talking about love and friendship–you know, as you do–and she said something that stuck with me.

two messages - the first one reads **there has to exist a love that is something in between romantic and platonic janz**, the second reads **I am convinced of it**

this led me to think about how love exists on a spectrum. not in terms of gender or sexuality, although those are also on a spectrum, but about how the nature and magnitude of love you feel for another person is very rarely a clear-cut, absolute thing.

i couldn’t let go of this image of a solid line extending to infinity on both sides, with overlapping and blurry sections of different colours representing the different forms of love between and within people1. and to make it all messier, every element on this line is irrational. how can you possibly define the feeling of receiving a picture with a ‘this made me think of you’ message underneath it? what is a satisfactory explanation for the sheer magnitude of excitement you feel for weeks before your best friend is back in town?

the exact point where eros (romantic love) stops and philia (deep friendship) starts can’t be identified–the closer you look, the murkier it gets. in the first line of strawberry blond, mitski sings ‘i love everybody, because i love you’. i came across the term ‘friend-love’ in this comic titled I THINK I AM IN FRIEND-LOVE WITH YOU and it hasn’t left my mind since.

none of these allow for the neat, little squares that we typically try to fit our relationships into. are you not friends with your partner? are you not at least a little bit in love with your friends? there’s so much spillover between categories, so many combinations, so many mixtures, so many angles - whatever your muddled metaphor of choice is, it works.

my first instinct when i continued to discuss and slowly arrive at this was a sort of foreboding. where are the boxes? where is the logical boundary? how am i supposed to colour within the lines if i can’t even tell where the lines are? but the more comfortable i become with this idea, the less daunting it seems.

the fluidity of affection is such a liberating idea, i think. why should the boxes matter? let the colours mix. let the lines disappear under messy layers of waxy crayon until there is no image, only a multi-coloured and smudgy fresco, and let there be no logic, no conscious technique in this process. the result is like a heart, full, crowded, limitless, but not heavy. like a sack packed full of cotton with no gaps in between the layers, with no way to detach a single fiber from the whole mass.

all of this to say–there are infinite undefinable loves that exist between romantic and platonic. i am convinced of it.

ps: happy december :D

special feature - spotify wrapped (!!)

is there anything more beautiful than statistics about the art you consume? i think not. i love how i can pin-point the exact locations and times i had each of my top songs on repeat, and i love how i absolutely did not see some of my top artists being on the list. i’ve said it before, but sometimes, the music you listen to knows you better than you know yourself.

my favourite reactions that i’ve seen from people about their wrapped so far -

this is my favourite band i am completely unsurprised by this list it’s the same artists i’ve had on top for four years
i don’t know how this song got here
i accidentally put this on repeat for a day this has skewed everything
i share my account with somebody else i’ve never heard of my top artist before

anyway, here’s my wrapped for 2023 -

if you were here last year, you might remember that my top artist has, unsurprisingly, remained the same. it’s such a charming consistency.

please please share your wrapped stats with me as well, it gives me so much joy. i’m adding it my joy list right now.

A Picture! A Video!

it’s a slug of some sort. of what sort, i couldn’t tell you.

English Recitation Competition

Notes On The Art Of Poetry, Dylan Thomas

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I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books,
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,,,
such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
such and so many blinding bright lights,, ,
splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.

Arrangement, Missy-Marie Montgomery

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Put a few words together prettily and it’s possible
to fall in love.
Move your hand slightly and I’m yours. Or gone.
And think of what can be done with flowers
or paint. I take back
what I said in my message yesterday,
the one saying I had printed and folded each message from you
into a boat, and now had a fleet of origami ships on my desk,
all of them sinking, none of them, I said,
seaworthy. That was mean.
If I think of them differently—not as vessels,
not as anything that might save a life—
but as smooth stones or carved chess pieces,
something I might hold to comfort me,
something I might put in my mouth,
then perhaps I can continue to pass the time this way.
The way I want you
just a detail, just a thing that can be carried.

The Poem Cat, Erica Jong (read the full poem here)

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The poem is a dance
between poet & poem,
but sometimes the poem
just won't dance
and lurks on the sidelines
tapping its feet-
iambs, trochees-
out of step with the music
of your mariachi band.

If the poem won't come,
I say: sneak up on it.
Pretend you don't care.
Sit in your chair
reading Shakespeare, Neruda,
immortal Emily
and let yourself flow
into their music.

Go to the kitchen
and start peeling onions
for homemade sugo.

Before you know it,
the poem will be crying
as your ripe tomatoes
bubble away
with inspiration.

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The Good Side of the Internet

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