My drafts file, at this point, is one giant mess of different versions of the same story about Love that I just cannot bring myself to post because who bloody cares and what on EARTH would I say?!

I remember being quite young when I started to wonder why every single song ever sung on the radio seemed to be about fluttery, sexual feelings between some man and some woman — I was sitting right between “Hey, Soul Sister” and “I’m Yours” in the front seat of my mom’s car, just barely tall enough now, feeling grown and smart.

And I think around then, sat in that seat, I resolved to never ever write about love for there cannot possibly be anything more to say on the subject.

Well,

so,

just as I continue to hope that I stumble across some mystery lover who is all of the things I love about everyone I have ever loved and none of the things I hate,

I hope this is my perfect love post, with all the best pieces of all my love drafts.

Because if it is not perfect,

Why do it, right?

“The loving person has no need to be perfect, only human.” — Leo Buscaglia, Love: What Life is All About

Some nights ago when I had the thought,

Wow, I love this moment so much

it occurred to me that some months before that moment, I had the same thought — the same kind of

could this really be the very best moment of my life?

type of moment

and if that moment was in fact the best moment of my life, could I keep it forever?

and so the thought goes as follows:

if someone were to request that I recall the best night of my life, i would tell them about the night when i was with not-quite-strangers-and-not-quite-friends, outside, having watched the sun set and having danced under blue lights, and so now it’s long after the sun has set and we are singing and there is a guitar and I’m not drunk but I’m not dead-sober and I’m not thinking about added sugars or tomorrow’s wake-up alarm and I have danced some and now I am sitting and smiling so uncontrollably large and I haven’t yet had the thought,

“I’m really going to miss this moment when it’s gone,”

but those damned words are sure to creep onto the tip of my tongue soon.

(I do believe that those best moment of my life moments end at exactly the point where the desire to freeze the moment begins)

and so the thought then, naturally, continues:

if i love music and being outside and singing and laughing and feeling free from judgement then that just means that the person with whom I try to build a life will know how to play music and will enjoy the outdoors and might even be a good singer and will have the most gorgeous, unafraid smile and they’ll be a free spirit and they’ll never judge me and I’ll never judge them. And that’s it. And that’s how I’ll know the person!

but because I oftentimes find it more helpful to inspect the hard and tangled knots

as in

this is (K)NOT what love looks like,

perhaps the thought continues like this:

there is a way that I dance in the kitchen when I am high and alone and that way is nothing short of miraculous and I don’t think that version of me is meant to ever be shared with anyone else. There are shapes I take that will never be known by anyone else. And so just because you can’t see my dance moves does not mean that it’s not love

and I would love to have a wedding one day — one with a disco ball. and maybe we’ll all even jump into a pool fully clothed and if i’m the luckiest in this whole world, there will be one moment of that collection of moments that is only for me and mine and no one else.

and also perhaps not

And I remind myself often that I am lucky beyond belief to know the friends I know, to have them within reach, to know I’m being actively loved. And I think these friend loves are not accessory loves. And I think it’s as simple as

I need my friends forever…

to have and to hold

I can’t tell if I feel different each day or if I just feel different than I used to feel while I still remember feeling that way. Either way, this whole getting older thing is, I think, just a gradual acceptance of the many selves that split off and stick around for a little while, the fact that I can feel so uncertain today about what I knew to be true yesterday, only to forget I was ever bothered tomorrow.

I know that solitude is different from loneliness. What follows are the only words I have for proof:

My solitude wafts up from the coffee I press in the morning. It smells like the multi-purpose spray I use in the kitchen because I enjoy taking care of my things. It smells like the candle of my dreams and it smells like the body scrub I use on Sundays.

My solitude is sung by Maggie Rogers. It sounds like a deep exhale at the start of class, mine shared with others, oddly enough. It sounds like my screaming kettle two hours before bed and it sounds like the timer that goes off to tell me I can stop meditating and it sounds like that silly door that flitters under the air vent.

My solitude tastes like Fix and Fogg Almond Everything Butter, honestly. It tastes, also, like the gut health supplement I’ve been taking for some weeks now. My solitude tastes like my own sweat, too.

My solitude lifts in my buoyant hips in the final downward-facing dog of a strong practice. It feels like popcorn kernels stuck in my teeth. It feels like the tingling on the bottoms of my feet at the end of a day of walking and cleaning the house.

My solitude looks like the sparkling bay as I drive over the bridge before the roads get busy with people trying to get places. It looks like rainbows on the floor. And dirt swept into a pan. It looks pink these days.

Until You Know Better

Share Silence

Kill the Desperation for Normality

Great Artists Steal

Pay attention to what you pay attention to

“It goes if you let it.” – Olivia Dean