of messy and unique amalgamations
people and me and people who make me
this week’s Thought (singular)
sliced apple tastes very different from diced apple. why. is somebody looking into this. it’s a scientific breakthrough waiting to happen.
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 they really get into the novel they’re reading. thank you for joining us. may you be so engrossed that your meals are late and your sleep schedule gets messy and you emerge after the last page feeling so very alive.
hi
a message i received from a friend a few weeks ago -
if you haven’t already can you write about how we’re all made up of bits and pieces from every person we’ve ever met and how i am a messy but unique amalgamation of these pieces
the message, along with a follow-up discussion about whether our reserve of profferable love is bottomless, spawned today’s issue. if this topic sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because i’ve explored something like it previously -
but, as always, i have more to say, and, as always, not very coherently.
what follows is fragments of my own interpretation interspersed with bits of media that explore these ideas, of our selves being a messy mixture of all the people we’ve ever met and the potential infinity of our stored quantity of love-to-give.
i adore the moment when i unconsciously start saying something a friend says often. when i start using an abbreviation that i never used earlier, but suddenly can’t seem to stop including in every message. it’s like they’ve wormed their way into my patterns through no effort on either side, so inconspicuously, until they’re settled on the tip of my tongue when i speak and the pads of my thumbs when i text.
Mistki for Genius Verified, breaking down the lyrics of “My Love Mine All Mine”. i urge you to watch the full video, but specifically the last few seconds, where she says, “… but as long as i hold onto my love, no one can take it from me. I can give so much love, and it won't take away from me, like it's just this unlimited resource.”
there is no debating that our personalities are shaped in a million infinitesimal ways by the company we keep or, at one point, kept. if i am a complex system, one afternoon spent with a close friend will have a non-linear impact on me. that friend will modulate something in my core. something will jolt out of place or settle in a very satisfying groove. and there it shall remain until somebody else comes along to unceremoniously modify it. it’s a personal, twisted butterfly effect. the impact of a good friend on my person is devastatingly lovely.
the lyrics of Colours Of You by Baby Queen
I'm covered in the colours of you Every single hue Of purple and blue Covered in the colours of you
when i recollect a specific time period - chemistry in 12th grade, music class in the summer of 2017, apartment badminton when i was six years old - the memories are crowded with the people i experienced those things with. we’re a social species, of course, but there is more to it than that. the memory simply won’t exist as it does without the people. and nobody has the same combination of people in their past. nobody has the same combination of memories as i do. and if memory (nostalgia/reminiscence/evocation) tinges all my tendencies - as i’m sure it does, in all of its messiness and education - then all my tendencies are unique.
a poem i found in an old google docs draft, obviously written with a lot of teenage angst -
i am realising that my friends never loved me as much as i love(d) them that my love was being poured into a bucket with holes that now i’m left with a pool of my heart at my feet and it is red, red, red that i’d rather metaphorise than face, sensationalise than cope, write than feel
so then, how can we be anything but messy? if we’ve established that we are creatures of habit and that our habits are dyed in our unique combination of memories, how can we not be a hodge-podge palette of paint and textures and inconsistencies?
the anatomically correct human heart bottle, Sangre de Vida Corazón Blanco y Reposado Tequila
all of this to say - every person i have had the privilege of spending time with has had something to do with who i am. every friend has influenced some aspect of my personality. there are infinite unique permutations of people to meet in a lifetime. we’re all made up of bits and pieces from every person we’ve ever met. i am a messy but unique amalgamation of these pieces.
ps: happy november :D
English Recitation Competition
If Spirits Walk, Sophie Jewett
If spirits walk, Love, when the night climbs slow The slant footpath where we were wont to go, Be sure that I shall take the self-same way To the hill-crest, and shoreward, down the gray, Sheer, gravelled slope, where vetches straggling grow. Look for me not when gusts of winter blow, When at thy pane beat hands of sleet and snow; I would not come thy dear eyes to affray, If spirits walk. But when, in June, the pines are whispering low, And when their breath plays with thy bright hair so As some one's fingers once were used to play— That hour when birds leave song, and children pray, Keep the old tryst, sweetheart, and thou shalt know If spirits walk.
To Be Alive, Gregory Orr
To be alive: not just the carcass But the spark. That's crudely put, but… If we're not supposed to dance, Why all this music?
Evening, Dorianne Laux (read the full poem here)
There will always be silence, no matter how long someone has wept against the side of a house, bare forearms pressed to the shingles. Everything ends. Even pain, even sorrow. The swans drift on.
Flare, Mary Oliver (read the full poem here)
When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider the orderliness of the world. Notice something you have never noticed before, like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb. Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain, shaking the water-sparks from its wings. Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no. Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also, like the diligent leaves. A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life. Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away. Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance. In the glare of your mind, be modest. And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling. Live with the beetle, and the wind. This is the dark bread of the poem. This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.
The Good Side of the Internet
… has been permanently shifted to The Good Side of the Internet. subscribe for many many links at the end of each month, and tell your friends about it :D
this week’s Song
That’s All Right (Håkan Hellström edit) by Laura Rivers
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3
yes? no? maybe? let me know!
I just want to say that I adore the way you format your letters. It's always such a pleasure to see you in my email inbox. I once wrote about the very same topic but I think I was much more melancholy about it so I'm glad you've been thinking about the same thing with a much more positive spin. Happy November!