Like the countdown to Christmas onward from December 12th, it sounds good on paper but anyone who knows anything about how time has a way of passing does the math to find, somehow, today is only one day closer to tomorrow than yesterday was and that seems impossible and requires far too much presence.

I release the fear of being misunderstood in exchange for the opportunity to offer someone, somewhere, comfort and healing in these words.

Properly leaving home was a thing I had to do because I started to feel overgrown,

like a lawn with weeds,

beautiful weeds, like the ones I always think are on purpose,

but still,

in a place where people had stopped asking me about myself because they already knew all there was to know. It felt dangerous to stay somewhere that no longer required me to introduce myself because how on earth am I ever going to tell my own story if I struggle to distinguish my voice from yours? Even if you are someone I know and love and even if you are singing my praises — your voice is not mine

and that mattered enough for me to move and go —

the promise of anonymity like a siren

like the one whose song you cannot ignore.

and with anonymity came the creative license I sought and also aloneness and also loneliness and there is a difference between the two but I think it is mostly cultural.

As in

Americans seem to value the opposite of aloneness and I do not agree that that is what is meant by community as a sacred circumstance but I think we like to imagine it is all the same but

I believe true community holds space for aloneness and in my imagined pathway forward, in this life I am creating, there must certainly be space for me to be alone with myself — in community with myself, that is.

I know, now more than ever, that being known is not merely being in a place where people know your name —

being known by others is being in community with people who allow, encourage even, your past Self, your present Self, and your future Self to sit side-by-side, sometimes getting tangled together, in knots.

being known by others is not being with people who make you feel like a parody of yourself, constantly scrambling to have and do things that their version of you should have and do. While sometimes it is nice to let others do the decision-making, being known is not the same as letting others write your whole entire story —

Maybe just let someone else decide what to get for dinner? instead of where to move or what to study or who to marry? Idk!

And while there are glimpses and glimmers in smiles and conversations, I do not always feel especially known here in this new place because how could I? Visitor-status is inherently flimsy, flexible, ever-changing, shape-shifting; I must, at times, remind myself that that was precisely the point, after all. I am learning to bring my own solid ground, to be my own solid ground. Most of the people with whom I work were born and raised in this country, some even right here in this very city and even if they did not flat together at uni, which of course some of them did, they mostly all have a passport with the same cover on it and if war has taught us anything it is that country is kinship —

right?

Anyway

I chose visitor status when I decided to come here

and I am about to visit home

(that countdown to Christmas day is actually just a countdown to the Florida State vs. Miami football game)

and I have to say “visit home”

not “go home”

otherwise people think I’m not coming back

but, come to think of it, I do not know whether it is the “Go” part or the “Home” part

And it is already starting to get confusing,

the “Home” thing

Anyway

The smell of brown rice cooking on the stovetop reminds me of weeknight family dinners, balanced and healthy and my dad always just had to do some washing up before he sat to eat, the way I do now, and so his food had to have gotten a little bit cold, the way mine does now.

what kind of paradise would this world be if porridge never got cold and ice cream never melted?

The smell of this salted caramel candle reminds me of Christmas time in Florida; specifically of my favorite shop on the island just over the bridge from mine

my island, that is

Also caramel just reminds me of my mom.

This candle is like sitting with my mom after dinner, on our comfortable couch

this couch in this flat is impossibly uncomfortable

the cucumber salad that I make these days is my Sethi’s recipe

I add chili flakes and remember how my Sethi never preferred spice

or salt

Once, maybe more than once, she returned a rotisserie chicken to Publix because it was too salty and she swears that the deli was grateful to her for her feedback

and the scarab tattoo on my finger is my sketch of my Sethi’s pendant

and I oftentimes think about how I’m not supposed to swim for at least two hours after I eat because that is what my Sethi taught me and ignoring her advice was part of our game but now I abide by her rules

even when there is no pool out back and it takes me 90 minutes across three buses to get to the ocean on the beach I most enjoy

and the beach here makes me think of the beach at home and how I did not think that I needed the beach but now I know how much I do because I do not rinse the salt from my hair or my skin before I go to work; I keep it, like a secret,

the salt,

and I did not think that I was near-sighted but I’m finding that clarity accompanies distance, that the two are inseparable,

clarity and distance,

and so maybe I should get my eyes checked

and for as much as I think of her, I don’t call my Sethi even nearly enough.

I’m sorry for that.

and isn’t it somewhat silly the things we remember now? the things we would have sworn were useless before?

The things I am certain I will remember forever are often restless little things, taking flight almost immediately, and what perches in their place is the smell of brown rice cooking

and salt

and caramel

and salted caramel

xx

Until You Know Better

Get your eyes checked, for real, maybe?

Ask your flatmate to help you get the glass out of your foot or apply muscle rub to that spot on your back that you cannot quite reach

Affirm: I find fluidity. I move as the ocean moves.

Great Artists Steal

In NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, she writes, “Stina also said leaving your country is like dying, and when you come back you are like a ghost returning to earth, roaming around with a missing gaze in your eyes.” Bulawayo accomplishes a specific truth using the voice of a child to tell this story, unadulterated and poignantly unfiltered.

Read Rachel Cargle’s, A Renaissance of Our Own — it should be noted that I have not yet finished reading but Cargle’s unlearning and reimagining is guiding me in this moment

Listen to Condé Nast Traveler’s Women Who Travel podcast — and then keep listening whenever I land my dream job as editor and host of the show 😉