season two
from: home
in a candle-filled apartment a group of friends are celebrating the first day of autumn and the homecoming of a friend. a storm is brewing outside, the smell of rain streams in through the open window – clearing the miasma of pungent wine and cooking from the air. candles are flickering and curtains are ebbing and flowing; bright white light flashing the room every minute or so. outside the storm is raging but inside the warm apartment the inhabitants are occupying the eye; the calm clear center. they’re playing a game, these friends, at the request of the recently returned friend.
write down one thing you want to leave behind, one thing you want to welcome, she instructs them, handing out scraps of paper. one thing you want to leave behind in the lightness of summer, and one thing you want to carry with you into the darkness of fall.
her friends are thinking with pens in their hands, tips against lips, taking the game with varying degrees of seriousness. in her own slant, hurried handwriting she writes:
i welcome northern europes best, leave southern europes worst
and this, she thinks, marks the flip of the coin, the change of the seasons, the turn of the tide.
enough metaphors –
as always the her is me and the writer the subject.
changing the narrative from third to first person i want to say, after a time of silence, that i am back in the city i set out from. back in the same city where i, one and a half years ago, wrote about deborah levy being too rigid to share a day with someone.
i dont want to linger on what has passed (another letter, another story), instead i want to pick up this thread, this train of thought i started so long ago.
in the essay, i wrote about me being too fixed and high-maintenance to be able to share a day with someone, to just pootle along. but as a consequence of my new living situation, sharing a house with many many people (another letter, another story), im finding myself spending my days having to share – with people, persons.
but these last three weeks, especially these last two glorious sundays, are proof of the fact that i have been proven opposite: that i can spend an entire day with someone.
(if that someone is you)
because those sundays passed like sundays should: days where you wake up with one idea of how your day should go (late breakfast, laundry, cleaning, responsibly preparing the week ahead), but then providence appears – fate intervenes: the day is rearranged. it unfolds as it was meant to, all along; you just weren’t meant to know about it beforehand.
those sundays unfolded like that. the schedule id planned got wiped clean and thrown out, a white slate that was refilled with a long, languid day outside in the sun: a hangover-breakfast in the garden, where we were lucky (read: fast) enough to grab the two best seats below the sun-filled tree, huddling close over shared chocolate milk. a bike ride into the forest: hiking, grilling – basking in the green and warmth. climbing trees and biking home in the pink blushing dusk. us two, ahead of the others. me high on hubris speeding past but coming to a sharp stop on top of the hill because of that glorious view, those rolling hills and that low slow-setting sun piercing my heart. i didn’t even hear you stop but i turned, looking over to see my wonder reflected in your eyes and you – taking my picture.
on our last evening together you told me: i can do things with you because i know you appreciate, you notice, the same things that i do.
that second sunday echoes the same sentiment. it was the same situation: waking up with one day in mind and walking into another, completely different. (this sunday is another story, another letter, too) but it ends, after much hard-to-be-described experiences, with me; sitting outside, in the afterglow of a trip. this self has found a painstakingly precise hard-to-decipher note from a higher self. it was written after a long reflection on relationships, and the kind of people you should build relationships with (platonical and otherwise). after deciphering the scrawl more belonging to a second-grader than a literature university student, the stoical advice of what kind of people you should collect in your life were: ”the ones you like being close to.”
and its this, this small, seven-worded realization, that set my head spinning.
because its me, sitting in the kitchen until 11 am writing poems about you as my morning coffee grows cold beside me. because its me: pathetic, poetic – lingering on the front porch just in case you’ll happen to walk around the corner. because its me, at drawn out breakfasts insisting on a second, third cup of tea just to sit across from you while you finish your eggs.
when i have good news you are the one i want to tell it to. it is your reaction i imagine, your smile stretching all the way up to your eyes. there’s not a lot of people who can move with the same kind of grace and stability in the world, and at the same time be open, curious, and flexible.
i know ive told you this.
but i need to tell you this too:
there are synchronicities between us.
before you left you said you’d hidden the remaining stash of weed for me under a loose floorboard in the attic. without any instruction, without knowing where, i found it on the first attempt: in the back, towards the river, fourth floorboard from the wall.
because i know you.
just like i know that at the kitchen table, around a big group of people, just as ive finished my cup of coffee and am at the cusp of realizing i want more; you will have already stretched across the table towards the pot and started re-filling my cup.
because you know me.
and it is this, knowing me, knowing you –
writing about it is the best i can do.
because just like that fleetwoodian drama: stevie, lindsey and her. it is: me, you and her. and i dont want to be the one getting burned, the one left in the ashes writing poems about the house catching fire.
but i do have to admit that some of the very best lines of music history came out of that very same ignition:
I'll follow you down
'Til the sound of my voice will haunt you
You'll never get away from the sound
Of the woman that loved you
maybe you’ll never get away from the sound of my fingers smattering on the keyboard from the room across from yours. maybe, in your memories, ill be the one left lying on the roof. scribbling in my notebook about people i like being close to.
people, that i now know, i can share my days with.
ive never written a love letter to a person before, i realize
as im finishing this one up.
im finding it is much more frightening
much more intimate,
than writing about the material:
cities, places, experiences
but without risk life is boring
literature is boring –
as i recently read.
so here’s to taking risks
and being one of the lucky ones
documenting, as ava williams
recently reported.
but that’s enough for now.
see you in the next one
love,
e.