I have been sitting on this blog post for quite some time. I started it back in the summer and it has shadowed my thoughts nearly every day since. I've struggled to find the words to say what I want to say, but I've realized that words are words, and it's the feeling you're left with after reading them that matters. Coming down from another whirlwind💫🌪️ semester, I've quieted my mind a bit to write. What follows is a rumination, a roadmap of my summer and fall semester–and above all, a love letter.
I spent several months trying to figure out what to make this one about. It finally came to me as I was reading on the front porch swing one June afternoon, my only company Stevie Nicks and the words on the page.
Words.
Spoken, sung, written, buried, shouted, whispered. The ones we think but never say, the ones said without being said at all. The ones we trip over, the ones we spend days putting together, the ones that die on our lips, the ones we treasure forever.
Based on this blog, you'd think my preferred medium would be written. But it's impossible for me to choose between the songs we sing until our voices give out, the vulnerabilities and hopes and humor we share with another under the comfort of tangled sheets and 2am darkness, the initials etched on park benches and notes scribbled in the margins.
I'm sitting here thinking, Am I really about to write about words?...The answer is yes. I am going to write about words and the power we give them. Nothing none of you don't already know...but perhaps something some of you don't think about enough. I suspect a lot of us take for granted what it means to use our words.
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The Idiot by Elif Batuman was my favorite read of 2023. A bildungsroman loosely inspired by Dostoevsky's novel of the same name and an easy five stars. In her freshman year of college, our protagonist meets and falls in love with a guy in her class, and she sees him in everything. When she learns something new, she wonders what he would think about it. When she finds something funny, she wants to hear his laugh, too.
It was so hopeless and relatable you couldn't help but feel your own heart's wear and tear. I can't see a light blue Subaru Outback without remembering (fleetingly! So fleetingly) the guy I liked through all of middle and high school. I hear a great guitar run and can't help feeling amused by how head over heels I was for a guy I liked more in theory than in-person. I sit across from the same spot he sipped his beer while I ate my tacos on a summer afternoon in Indy and wonder if he ever thinks of that day as fondly as I do.
All of this to say that I am reminded of my love, lost and found, in the trivial and the absurd. Not just the major or the predictable. And Batuman gets it. Her words made me feel that I was in good company, and that is one reason I love writing so much. It lets you know you are in good company.
I fell in love with reading the day I picked up my first Magic Tree House. At six years old, I couldn't believe such a magical piece of architecture existed to whisk me away to medieval castles and ancient pyramids. Now, of course, I realize there is such a thing as portable magic: books. Corny!!!! Idc. It's true. The words we write are the thoughts we have, the kinds of people we are, the ideas we turn over in our minds before we decide–if we decide–they are worth sharing with others.
When someone tells you they are a reader, you can immediately intuit a few things about them:
They want to hear what you have to say. Picking a book off the shelf, reading its summary on the inside flap, perhaps perusing its GoodReads reviews with a critical eye, deciding whether to add it to the home collection. This is serious stuff. When a reader decides to take you home with them, trust that they are keen to learn everything about you there is to know. From your first-page dedication and favorite figure of speech to your prose and author biography on the last page.
They understand that good things take time. Although that first-sentence hook is often a sign of what's to come, first impressions aren't the end-all be-all. There is character development. There is the inevitable conflict that tears a hole in our shiny plans, but the way we sort through that conflict is how we develop. There are books that antagonize you with slow-burn, prolonged rising action, acute detail (do we really need to know about the golden specks in his eyes?)–but a seasoned reader understands that these details, when done well, are what distinguish a good read from a great one. And always there is the good old plot twist that shows you all you needed was a bit of patience to see it through.
They appreciate the art of subtlety. As with a well-written story, people contain layers, nuances, lessons, maybe a metaphor or two if you're lucky. Getting to know all of this is exhilarating, like hiking a new trail or finding a new favorite author, but it's the in-between moments that create the fine lines of a relationship. A reference to an old conversation to show they've been paying attention, a hand towel laid out the night before because they will still be asleep when you're back from the gym to shower, a joke perfectly tailored to your humor, everything bagels already in the bread basket when you're back home on breaks. There is a certain challenge and satisfaction in reading between the lines, in knowing someone so well that you know how to remind them of how big your affection is with something as small as a gesture.
They have a good sense of themselves. To stare up at a shelf with hundreds of spines, genres, authors, time periods, writing styles, endings and not feel overwhelmed, a reader must be armed with at least some idea of who they are. This skill often translates to the rest of life, wherein the well-read understand their needs, enjoyments, dislikes, reactions. For the rest of us, it's refreshing to be with people who have a bit more in their back pocket than we do, whose perceptiveness and steady nature complement our own indecision and uncertainty. Make no mistake; we all doubt ourselves. But a reader often has a good head on their shoulders, and you'd do well for yourself to befriend a few. I have found they are exactly the kind of people you want in your corner.
A book is a wonderful thing. A warm embrace and a hand tucked affectionately around your waist, a good friend, a soundless show of support, a way to better days, love printed and bound for you to hold to your chest which is as close to the heart as you can get.
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It's a toss-up between books and music, but I think music pulls ahead at the last second. It's so universal and moving but also fun and uncomplicated (if you let it be). You feel the rhythm if you want to ignore the words. And when you're ready, when you need to feel understood, the lyrics are there patiently waiting for you.
How songwriters are able to take a feeling and hold it in a single line of lyric....I'd argue that music does for you what books can't. Books ask you to sit with them and examine (appreciate) the prose, the syntax, the punctuation. With music, you can close your eyes and understand, still, the artist's meanings and nuances.
Music is a bridge to those you might not otherwise get along with, to yourself, to life. It is feeling a piece of your heart ache at 2:28 of Fleetwood Mac's "As Long As You Follow." Appreciating all nine minutes of "I Gotta Find Peace of Mind" (thank you, Ms. Lauryn Hill). Anticipating the build-up to the beat switch in "Pyramids." Hitting play on Chronicles of a Diamond and knowing you are in good hands for the next 42 minutes and 57 seconds. Listening to "Changes" and understanding that Pac is giving you a history lesson, a great beat to walk to class to, and one of the most lyrically compelling songs you could add to your music library all in one. Hearing Tears for Fears' best song (I don't even need to name it. You know it.) and experiencing nostalgia for a memory you can't quite put your finger on. Sipping on your Sunday morning coffee to "Nobody Knows" (The Lumineers) before pulling back the curtains and welcoming the world back in. Watching the leaves rediscover their glorious autumnal hues to the soundtrack of Mazzy Star, The Smiths, and Tracy Chapman. Curling up with a good book by the Cozy Fireplace 4K, Etta James and Curtis Harding on rotation. Summer driving with the windows down, breeze in your hair, Joey Bada$$ and Mac in the queue. Feeling in Sade's "By Your Side" the longing to love and be loved that you know as well as you know yourself–letting yourself be reminded that countless others know this feeling, too. Living through the changes and seasons of your life and finding that music is with you every step of the way.
For all our dimensions and contradictions, music manages to contain it all. And so beautifully at that.
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The words we say are a lot messier than the ones we write or sing.
I often wish I were as eloquent in conversation as I am in my writing. I know I am not. I forget my words when I'm nervous and trip over them when I'm excited. I find that sometimes comfortable silence says what conversations can't. My gratitude for the people in my life is never done justice by thank yous, no matter how profuse–because what I really want to do is shrink them all and keep them in my pocket forever. A long drive, eye contact over the rims of coffee cups, a light left on for you to come home to–these all do a far better job of conveying love than words ever will. Well-spoken is overshadowed by what could have been better-spoken. Words I wish I'd written. Words I wish I'd said.
But we often forget that words are allowed to fall short of the feelings and experiences of being human. That, itself, is very human.
One of my new favorite words is grok. It conjures images of troglodytes and Marvel villains, but its meaning is quite pleasant: to understand profoundly and intuitively.
We experience our emotions as fully as we know ourselves–and words give us the opportunity to navigate, examine, articulate, feel them more deeply. But they are not essential to a feeling. A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet. You know you love someone without poetic references to the stars. You know your heart without having to explain it to anyone else (although it is one of life's greatest privileges to be understood by another and to be able to return that gift). You know your grief and melancholy without a fill-in survey to quantify the heaviness of your heart. You know the way someone makes you feel, whether your heart skips or sinks, whether the minutes feel like seconds or hours, whether you are able to vocalize just how much they mean (or don't mean) to you. Life goes without saying.
And yet.
Our words are some of the best stuff we've got. There is little else I enjoy more than a good cup of coffee and the right company. Sitting (preferably outside) for hours, talking about nothing and everything. About the tattoos that we have and the ones that we want, about the stories behind our scars (the ones on our skin but if company is good enough, the ones on the inside, too), about philosophy and the ideas about life we think we've got figured out at 21 (so old and sage), about good books we've read and lines we still think about, about what's growing in the garden this summer, about the music we've added recently and the musings we've been waiting to share with someone else, about race and gender and religion and the turbulent nature of the geopolitical landscape (you will never guess which Pi Kapps member lent me this last phrase). About favorite soups and Mom's ceramics class and biggest pet peeves. About the best meals we've had and sex and the art that speaks to us. About the movie we saw last weekend and the best hikes we've done, about the secret ambitions and insecurities we harbor and the hearts we wear on (or tucked safely under) our sleeves. About past relationships and controversial opinions, about the guy who gave his girlfriend flowers at work today (I almost clocked out and left), about the name of your grandma's old cat and the things we saw on the internet that made us laugh in bed the night before.
About hometowns and favorite home-cooked meals and childhood pets (there's Crush, and Maggie, and Lucky...How our minds decide to remember the most mundane parts of getting to know others). About the summer internship we hated but owe because it brought us to each other (and wine nights on campus), about the dim sum place back home you've been meaning to try and the kind of house we want when we're older, about the awesome goal you scored over the weekend and the guy in Farmhouse who said something controversial in class today. About our frustrations, small victories, self-realizations, trivialities. About our days at work, the tulips that have started to come up early this year!, about something you heard or read (you can't remember) months ago that has stuck with you. About drinking less and the New York Times article from the other day and the awesome jacket you thrifted over the weekend. About the habits we want to kick and the ones we'd like to pick up, about the love we've found and longed for and lost along the way, about the memories and moments and conversations and relationships that make us so much more than the sum of our parts–a composite of the wonderful and painstaking experiences of being human and alive.
We hold these words close to make the fire burn warmer and the days spent with loved ones last longer. To live is to continuously find beauty in the mundane. The words we say to one another are some of the easiest, most abundant reminders of this.
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Last section: the words we keep to ourselves.
Thank god for the Notes app! So, too, for this blog and for the people in my life who ask me what's on my mind–because they know what I look like when I'm thinking and because they are the best kind of people to keep in your life.
It has been a long year. Finding footing in new places, drying the tears of someone you love and understanding the road that lies ahead, grief on a Wednesday, goodbyes said far too early, sleepless nights, a friendship through the wringer, the guy you liked coming back from the summer with a girlfriend, violence in our schools and our streets, feelings of inadequacy, questions unanswered futures uncertain words unsaid connections undone.
But there is no time for sulking because, as always, the good far outnumbered the bad: Feeling at home in new places, memorable meals, late nights with the best company, the whole family together in one place for the first time in no one can remember how long, new friends and new tattoos, the best roommates taking you out to ice cream the night he told you he had come back from the summer with a girlfriend, bars after 2am, the comfort of a good routine, a nice summer tan, dates with men who smell nice and others with just a good book and the corner table in a crowded cafe, nature adventures and interesting classes, coffee gone cold because the conversation was that good, turning 21 and being reminded just how lucky you are.
There are the every-day moments, too, and I am learning to find the value in these also.
It's winter again: the bathroom mirror steams up from our scalding-hot showers and blankets are piled high because the heat doesn't always work in our old apartment (we love it in spite of). We hurry on the walk between classes to minimize the sting of the cold on our cheeks, sometimes but rarely looking at the people passing by or holding the door for us to awkwardly speed-walk through, spilling coffee down our wrist and sleeve in our haste. This is what the living do. Grocery shopping on Sundays. Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. Asking the employee if they have more of the creamer that you like in the back (he checks. You're in luck; they do.) What you called that yearning. What (or who) you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to text or not text, a sign, a kiss–we want more and more and then more of it.
We all wish to be loved, to be understood and seen exactly as we are but also for who we might become. And yet we find it impossible to believe that we are deserving. This is what James Baldwin says.
Or perhaps we don't want to believe we're deserving. At our age, a part of us craves the melodrama and angst of rejection, because it's easier and it fits who we feel we are. Yearning is your traditional, bone-in 20s.
I don't want to believe it's true and yet I look at the people in my life–whom I adore and admire and think about constantly; whose sandwich crusts I would cut off until their teeth fall out and whose stories I will never tire of hearing. And I realize I am quite certain that they have no idea how deeply I love and care for them. That if I could give them any gift it would be the ability to see themselves as I do. To never question their talents or dreams. To forgive them their shortcomings and failures. To cherish the weight of their body and depth of their desires. But I know they do not see any of this just as I struggle to see it, to believe that I am deserving of such a steady and enduring love. I suppose this reckoning means there is always a part of us that is ready for love and another that is woefully unprepared.
I saw a study that found that one of the only times two heartbeats synchronize is when you laugh with someone, and it happens even when you're not physically close. A dad and his young daughter came into the cafe last week and I overheard him explaining to her what espresso is. I recently paid a visit to the family I stayed with over the summer and the wife told me that her husband kept saying, "Kate's coming home!" - a reminder that there are moments small to you but never forgotten by someone else.
What a marvel it is to know that no sunset is the same, that a raindrop contains worlds, that the moon you see is the same moon someone halfway across the world sees. By the same token, it is our individuality and intricacy–but also our universality–that makes us distinctly human. We reside at the confluence of our race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, ability, and I am struck by the innumerable variations of the human species. By the fact that in each of us lies the nuances of a million sunsets and complexities of a dozen raindrops. But at the same time, that, fundamentally, we are people who share the ambitions, hopes, insecurities, longings, passions that make us all human. It is my hope that you appreciate this mosaic of life–that you go forward under the same moon.
More thoughts that never make it onto paper or into conversation: One of my biggest fears is being lukewarm. I love it when authors use em dashes and people text with semicolons. The line "we like in order to be liked" sounds nice but I think misses the mark. Sometimes we just like. Why are proffer and offer both words? How lucky I would be to find a love like my parents'. I love seeing people shuffle back to their tables to preserve the art on their lattes, teenagers giving in to family selfies, and dogs sticking their heads out the car window. A cow is a cow even if you call it beef. There is a beauty in unpicked flowers; I am learning to apply this adage to the rest of life. I love the ambiance in my room when my salt lamp is the only light on. His curls make me want to die and I love the thought of running my fingers through them. I tear up every time I pull out of the driveway to head back to campus after breaks; the image of my parents waving goodbye from the front porch hangs framed in my mind. My olive ranking: black, kalamata, green. I wish I were good at singing and painting, but I know I'm good at plenty else, and I love that I can wholly enjoy these things without being good at them. Brown eyes are the sexiest. The phases of the moon are a beautiful reminder that we are whole but are always given chances to change.
The words we keep to ourselves are as important as the ones that make it out into the world. They're not always interesting (see above), but they are yours and that makes them incredibly worthwhile.
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My freshman year of high school, I stumbled across this: "As long as you know who you are, you can write about anything you want." I've since realized that writing allows you to figure out who you are, too.
Words allow us to find our way to each other and back to ourselves. They don't have to move mountains. They don't have to be poignant or quotable. They just have to mean something to you. When you choose your words, you don't even have to choose carefully, because we are afforded the luxury of understanding the feelings and subtleties beyond the words we choose.
What's in a name? A look of affection passed between lovers, a dad teaching his daughter how espresso works, a boy who outgrows his jeans and his childhood bed but never his love for his dog, a sunset, a car ride with your sister, the growing pains of age, the loss of youth, your mom's grief that you wish you could lessen, weariness at the end of a long week–and about a million other things. Words can't capture all of this life.
But they do allow me to vocalize how thankful I am. For the friends to whom I owe all the good times, for my family who reminds me that home is where the heart is, for the life I've built for myself and the comfort of routine, for those who shake up that routine and remind me I'm not getting any younger, for the misses and the victories and all the mistrials along the way, for day-old coffee and Harry Potter reruns, for the perfect songs and bite of January wind to remind me I am alive, for words that make me feel. And for you, dear reader, for taking the time out of your day to read mine.
My hope is that you put yours to good use this year. Or not. Words are there for you to get right but also to get terribly wrong. Either way, they are yours and that will always be the case. I hope this year brings words in every sense, five-star reads, excellent albums, and love in every corner of your life. Mine always. x
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