I’ve come to expect autumn to sweat. Every year, I’ve feigned surprise at how unseasonably warm the onset of fall would be. But at what point can we admit it is, in fact, seasonably warm. This year is no different. Suspended in the languid heat of our early October weekend, Grace and I had settled on cooking a mushroom risotto for dinner in the cozy cabin that proved to retain heat far too well. We both knew how laborious the act of cooking a risotto would be, and yet, we trusted it was worth the effort. Taking turns stirring, we perfected our unique rhythms of back and forth draws of the wooden spoon as our faces flushed red collecting a buttery, bouillon seasoned facial. Soon enough, dinner was served.

We traveled light for our (mostly) phone-free weekend up in a lakeside cabin in Wisconsin. With plans of reading, writing, cooking, and walking around the one road town nestled between cornfields, there wasn’t a need for much else. I was in desperate need to feel, to trust that there wasn’t need for much else. Before leaving the city, I had made the decision to stop using the location sharing app, Find My Friends.

After reading Zoë Hitzig’s essay for The Drifter, “On the Grid | How Surveillance Became a Love Language”, I began putting words to my uneasy feelings about real-time location sharing for an indefinite amount of time with friends. I am constantly sharing myself – thoughts, loves, time, energy, words. I’ve always leaned towards extension. Simply, that’s the direction my soul defaults towards. Craving a type of connection that binds us together and deepens with time, I’ve sought out a life that is rich with the miracle of friendship. But somewhere I feel we all began mistaking constant connection for intimacy.

Location sharing with a friend was initially borne out of safety. It made sense to use it to check if a friend got home from the bar. It was understood as an innocent way to show care for a friend’s well-being. And of course, I did. So perhaps, my care would later look like me checking to see if their flight landed in whatever city they were traveling to. Again, just to see if they made it safely. And sure, sometimes my curiosity would get the best of me, and during a normal day, I’d check the app to see if they were working from home or the office. And ok, I admit, there have been times where they’d be late for our dinner plans so I’d check to see how far they were. Surely, if they were already twenty minutes late, they should be around the corner. Right? But no, they just left their apartment!

At my most extreme, my mind would begin creating an unfair narrative about why my friend was existing in a certain place without them explicitly sharing that information with me. Leaning towards irrationality, I’d settle into unsubstantiated absolute truths about our friendship from interactions that didn’t even happen. Naturally, my brain would try to fill in the holes of the story instead of just waiting for my friend to arrive, and I’d begin placing undue weight on minor inconveniences from the past. These manufactured grievances would rob me of being present in the friendship. And as they’d fester, would these qualms ever be extended back to my friend in conversation?

A false sense of intimacy has been created through location sharing apps. We are made to believe we have reached a certain level of closeness or trust when we give our loved ones permission to track each other’s movement patterns. Though it has been normalized as a harmless feature, it has the ability to question the quality of our closeness with someone. When taking a step back, I can see that sharing this constant flow of information doesn’t make me more connected with someone. In fact, I am not spending any sort of quality time with them. I’m simply coming to deluded conclusions that make it impossible to practice any sort of mindfulness in the relationship.

Our privacy and autonomy are sacred. We aren’t entitled to knowing everything about each other. My most precious relationships aren’t measured by whether we have perpetual access to each other. Rather, the intimacy in our friendships is a marker of the trust we have built, respect we extend, and love we share. Therefore, I want to opt out our friendship being a data point.

I want to be in a world where my friend who is late to dinner has the opportunity to show up and let me know why. To explain that x happened therefore z got in the way and ultimately were the cards they were dealt with for the day -- to tell me about their day. I want to create space for the intimacy of a conversation. Which, in turn, opens room for nuance, something that is tragically lost through virtual communication. Perhaps most of all, I want to savor missing someone. Looking at the door of the restaurant and waiting in anticipation for them is just reminder of my love for them.

Autumn, even in its seasonable heat, calls for a shed. And here I am, attempting to shed my understanding of the false intimacy that location sharing apps have created. I want to make room. Need to make space. And with that space, I can interrogate what it means to be in relation with someone, what it means to share the intimacy of knowing someone. Instead of asking how I can stretch beyond my capacity, maybe this is a space where I can contract to ultimately reduce my need for information and slow down. So I can savor the arrival of my friends.

We can, in fact, find small ways to opt out of the mindless stress that an influx of information puts upon us. Even with something as deeply powerful as the surveillance state we are already entrenched in, there are places where we can choose to release even a little bit. Perhaps, this may feel like an insignificant move on my part. But even this miniscule act of pushing back against becoming a mere data point for big tech who are only concerned with control and sales is worth it. Sustaining intimacy that is not bound by data is worth it.

The next morning, Grace finds me on the couch reading. She nudges a mug of white tea silver needles, a special leaf that is delicate and precious. The mug is almost too hot for the day ahead of us. But still, I bring the cup, steeped with love and thoughtfulness of my dear friend up to my face. This friendship has changed me. I want to make space for its arrival this morning, so I allow the breath of steam on this hot day to warm me, to be something I am grateful for. If I am to slow down and witness the brilliance of our friendship, I cannot wait for the perfect moment. I simply must set the book down and drink the hot tea.

I can’t be a singular expression of myself
There’s too many parts, too many spaces
Too many manifestations, too many lines
Too many curves, too many troubles
Too many journeys, too many mountains
Too many rivers, so many

-Solange

In tune with a broken record, I’ve been screaming into the abyss for my life to slow down. Without fail, the rate at which I’ve moved has only increased with intensity. More social plans, more commitments, more passion projects, more work responsibilities, more personal goals, more hobbies, more more more. Like a blur, I have moved through entire weeks without really even being there. Simply skimming the surface of one thing to another without much thought. Not really gripping the ground beneath my feet, not really feeling the water hit my back, not really noticing what I had been looking at — especially, if it was right in front of me.

While this time hasn’t been entirely mindless, it has been overwhelming. In an effort to reconnect with myself and reset the pace at which my life was moving, me and my dear friend, Grace, spent a weekend up in Wisconsin. In a cozy cabin by a lake tucked away in miles of cornfields, we sought out quiet and renewal. We wrote and read and cooked and laughed and tried our best to unplug while being with nature. While I don’t have control of most things, I do have the ability to accept that if something is not working in my life, then I must at least one of the variables that shifts, changes.

Our beings are malleable. This essay series (one each month starting this October!) explores musings I gathered from my weekend in Wisconsin on previously accepted truths that I am challenging in an effort to live a life of more mindfulness. I anticipate these musings to take different shape with every season of my life, but for now, these essays are a meditative shedding to create space for something new.

Now, would you like to come in for tea?

It’s our last night in Porto, and I lock eyes with him.

If you asked me to pick out that man from a line up, I sure as hell couldn’t. So sorry to that dear man, but this isn’t personal. It’s not that he wasn’t attractive. Actually, I’m confident he was gorgeous. Afterall, I have good taste. Nor was it that as our bodies got closer, the day’s sweat caught up to him and wafted its earthy stench to my nostrils. That was all but impossible because the space between us never closed. The truth was, I never approached him. This man and I never spoke. We locked eyes, smiled, and I walked away. That was that.

Early 2000s romcoms laid the framework in securing the love of your life through magnetic produce aisle banter or a happenstance coffee shop bump in – the meet cute. Even with a steaming vanilla macchiato spilled all over a freshly starched white blouse, the chemistry was impossible to resist. And so, we all are well versed with eating up every last corny bit. Hollywood executives knew they could serve us the exact same movie in different flavors. They had an effortless cash cow on their hands. The tried and true formula of a meet cute was something along the lines of two conventionally attractive people meeting each other in a charming yet low stakes way; circumstance like a party hosted by a mutual friend or an all hands meeting at a new job keeping these two in each other’s orbit; some sort of conflict that could have easily been avoided by the most rudimentary level of communication; and finally, true love solidified for the rest of eternity as the screen fades to a revolving scroll of credits.

The meet cute is an art that requires surrender. While Hollywood executives have figured out the math that keeps people watching their movies, there’s a bit more to it. Us everyday people lost in our daydreams need to accept that this awkward yet endearing encounter cannot be manufactured. One plus one does not equal two. To surrender in a meet cute means to completely relinquish the need to control it. The where and when cannot be molded to fit a preconceived fantasy. The meet cute must be organic, void of any preparation or anticipation. You cannot go into a night believing that the moment will happen with the person. You just need to be open to the possibility of something breathing new life when you least expect it.

A couple years ago, what was supposed to be a girls trip to Paris became a solo adventure. Despite the initial frustration, I opened myself up to the possibilities of what changed plans could become. While exploring the city, I walked around with a pickpocket proof crossbody purse equipped with the usuals: phone, keys, wallet, and, of course, a novel. With the entire day of exploring ahead of me, I couldn’t help but envision wispy vignettes of the day tinged in a sun kissed glow. A leisurely breakfast at a bustling cafe. Vintage shopping in Le Marais. Finding a shady spot at Jardin des Tuileries to rest my legs and lose myself in the compact paperback I’d been carrying around all day. And of course, seeing all of the historic sights.

After I made my rounds by the Eiffel Tower, I continued onto the Arc de Triomphe. Taking my role as a tourist seriously, I snapped multiple photos of the monument from the same angle. Surely one would be perfect in my new collection of the same place at the same time. Once I was satisfied with inundating my dwindling phone storage, I turned around to the crowd I was amongst looking for someone to take a photo for me, someone who understood the importance of multiple shots. In these moments, I typically would scope out someone relatively young who gives off the aura of knowing their way around an iPhone camera. Someone who won’t cut my feet off, who will hold the phone at a flattering angle, and absolutely someone who knows that zooming in isn’t a viable substitute for physically moving their body to capture the moment. And there he was – a tall man in a white shirt who happened to be smart enough to wear a crossbody bag himself and handsome enough to catch my eye. Naturally, I asked him to take a photo for me.

An overlooked aspect of the meet cute is extending effort. This may seem counterintuitive to the aforementioned necessity in not controlling the moment, but a meet cute doesn’t just fall into your lap. Yes, it is unexpected, but you still have to have the audacity to catch an eye then ask what someone is drinking while they pensively look at a drink menu. Part of the thrill is being willing to face rejection. This requires confidence and game. Luckily, I had no shortage of either in Paris. After the beautiful man humored me, I looked at the photos with him, allowing his tall frame to shield the screen from the sun’s glare while I leaned into him. While inspecting his work, I asked which was the best picture of me. I let him take his time drinking me in – I had nowhere to be. Once he picked his favorite one, I let my hand linger while retrieving my phone, said thank you, and started to walk away. He quickly called out and asked what I was doing for the rest of the day.

Our first date in Paris commenced. On my private tour of the city, in between pointing out monuments and museums, we spoke about our families. His from Senegal and mine from Tamil Nadu. His little sister and mother still in Senegal, the majority of my family back in Tamil Nadu. His life in Toulouse, my life in Chicago. We fell into an easy rhythm as we passed our lives back and forth allowing the other to hold these facts for a moment. Facts turned into teasing and banter, and before our eyes, the making of a beautiful first date had unfolded before us.

Of course, we had our clumsy moments that all meet cutes are known to have. After walking around in the sun for a while, he suggested to take the train to a spot he loved. He had already gone through the metro gates while my metro card buzzed an error at me. I had to circle back to the ticket vending machine, wait in a long line, and buy another pass. Panic surged through my body when I couldn’t spot him beyond the gates. Frantically, I charged through the gates looking for him. I was overwhelmed by the mass of people and had begun to believe he had took a run for it. Just as I was accepting our date had ended, there he was – handing me his phone to show me a lovely spot on the Seine for drinks.

As someone who relishes the meet cute, I find it so difficult to take dating apps seriously. Everyone is, supposedly, on these apps to meet in some capacity – a casual, physical hook up, a long-term relationship, or, my favorite, to figure out their dating goals. At its core, people are just seeking connection because we are humans who crave intimacy, security, and safety. But where I feel these apps fall short is its users knowing that there is an endless supply of matches to come. The stakes are so low, and, in turn, the bar is even lower. Decorum is unrecognizable. Shallow conclusions about a face on a screen are prematurely drawn based on height or profession. Hasty annoyance sets in when someone’s location requires a train transfer. So naturally, it’s easy to abruptly end a conversation, never respond, and move onto the next.

Long before the advent of dating apps like Hinge and Tinder, there was the phenomenon of Craigslist’s Missed Connections. I admit, this was a bit before my time. My extent of using Craiglist was limited to finding summer apartment sublets while in undergrad. Though I had come of age just as it was ushered out of mainstream consciousness, I believe my understanding of this time holds true. This sliver of the internet held a space for the original yearners. Now I’m sure there were people who misused Missed Connections and threw dignified behavior to the wind, but there were also people who had pure intentions and moved with intention. Someone would have their in-person meet cute and allow it to be just that. No phone numbers would be exchanged, no dates were set. But soon enough, some mix of longing, curiosity, and regret would settle in. They wouldn’t be able to get this meeting, this person off their mind so they would take to the world wide web. They’d write about the beautiful woman at the bodega who wore the blue top and frayed jeans and locked eyes with them in front of the candy display. Or the man with a basset hound at the dog park at 7:30am last Saturday morning that was generous enough to share his dog treats. In short, these people had their meet cutes, and they wanted more.

But this is where we go wrong time and time again. Perhaps the part of the meet cute where most people really miss the mark is failing to realize that the romantic ending is not necessary. A successful meet cute isn’t marked by the longevity of a relationship. As my Parisian date got the bill for our drinks on the Seine, he asked if I wanted to come out dancing with him and his friends later that night. They were catching an Afrobeats dj set not too far from where I was staying. I, of course, thought about it. I considered whether I should Uber or save money on the train. I wondered if I had brought shoes that were equal parts cute and comfortable enough for dancing. I envisioned him with his hand on my back while introducing me to his friends, all who had already heard about me during their pregame. He would be a brilliant dancer, always on beat. He would remember my drink of choice as well as know exactly when I would need water breaks. He would ask me to text him to make sure I got home safely. He would, he would, he would. But I had a 6am flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Nice – I couldn't negotiate a late night out. But still, I began bargaining with myself. Maybe he could meet me in Nice. Or perhaps he would join me on my final leg of my trip in Cassis at a cliffside beach. The hypotheticals were never ending.

In its essence the meet cute is just that – a cute meeting. It isn’t a commitment for life with a joint bank account and two kids in matching outfits. It isn’t Sunday dinners with your folks or boardgame nights with your college buddies. It isn’t even a second date. It’s just a sweet, unexpected instance of meeting someone where your instant chemistry leaves something in you hopeful. It’s the intrigue in each other that wills a genuine want to step inside each other’s worlds, even for just a fleeting moment.

Though my time with him was short, it was important. I believe we are changed by every person we come across, no matter how limited our time together may have been. So I have gratitude for this man in Paris. And for the man in Italy who showed me Rome from his family home’s rooftop. And for the man in Ireland who tapped his foot along to the folk band playing at a pub in Killarney. And for the man in Chicago who I met at a jazz bar and later freefalled into something I still have trouble putting into words. I may never meet those European men again. On days when I am especially wistful, I find myself wondering how the man in Chicago is doing. Curious to know if the time in between has softened his frustration just as time has done for me. I hold myself with extra tenderness at these moments – it’s okay. The wistful longing can exist without having to reach back and pull something to where I am now. All of it, no matter its shape or sound, was plenty.

I turn to Caitlin as we arrive at our hotel’s street and ask, “What if we have just one more drink? One last hurrah to this Portugal vacanza?” Caitlin, of course, obliges. The square is as lively as we left it moments ago. People spill out of bars and get caught up in the joy of the street performers. Each song coaxes a thread in us to loosen up and sing along, at least tap a foot along to the beat. Caught up in the romance of it all, the night above us feels endless and like something I’m willing to have the audacity to allow in.

It had only been minutes since I saw that beautiful man with his friends at the square, but he’s nowhere to be found. He left so quickly one may wonder if he was there at all. But he was. Caitlin and I settled at a table and drank our pair of Super Bocks al fresco. We recounted the evening, the trip, the way our lives have been changed. I know our time was enough. It was plenty.

The Boston Celtics have an illustrious lineage of head coaches from pioneering Red Auerbach, to legendary player-coach Bill Russell, and the controversial Ime Udoka – but absolutely no one exhibits their passion, commitment, and competitive nature quite like Joe Mazzulla.

In press conferences, Mazzulla often appears blank-faced, almost bored, as he responds with his signature matter-of-fact demeanor. In last year’s first round of playoffs, when a reporter asked Mazzulla what it meant that the Celtics were up 3-0 against the New York Knicks, he said, “It means absolutely nothing.”

It’d be easy to chalk him up as outrageous and as someone who just says things for the sake of shock value. However, that is as far from the truth as possible. Rather, what his short, quick personality tells me is that Joe Mazzulla is a beacon of discipline and discernment.

What you need to understand about Mazzulla is that he is here for one reason – for the Celtics to win another NBA championship. Compared to putting up another banner in TD Garden’s rafters, the rest falls to dust. His purpose is to lead this team with laser focus. The details are only distractions. And what he understands so clearly is that distraction leads to derailment—something the Celtics cannot afford.

When the Celtics were up 3 wins against the Knicks, he was quick to say it meant nothing. Because at the end of the day, the Celtics still needed one more win to move onto the Eastern Conference Finals. And that win was not promised. It didn’t matter that the Celtics were the number-one seed. It didn’t matter that the individual player stats were impressive. It certainly didn’t matter that Boston was known as Banner Town holding 17 NBA championship titles. Joe Mazzulla knew they still had something to prove.

At the time, many basketball fans were quick to say the Celtics had an easy run to the championship, especially because the Knicks suffered from a series of injuries that held them back from their full potential. But the Celtics were also down their 7’-2” Latvian big man, Kristaps Porziņģis, who was instrumental in the regular season. The same people went on to lament that it was an unfair run because the Celtics had a deep bench. But what part of developing your bench players so that they are able to compete against another team’s starting lineup is unfair? Is that not just focused strategy accounting for the fact that injuries in basketball, especially an 82 game regular season for the NBA, are inevitable?

Joe Mazzulla’s approach to the game is void of fanfare. You won’t find him hooting or hollering. Nor will you see him hanging back and trusting things will just work out. Rather, you will see him understand that no win is given. Winning is earned and fought for through rigorous discipline and discernment of what matters. His approach carries a reverence toward the history behind them and goals ahead of them. And this is done by blocking out the noise.

In yet another unprecedented period in American history, we don’t have time to get caught up in the tumultuous noise of the news cycle. There simply isn’t enough energy in us to keep up with the cacophony. I do not say this from a scarcity mindset that undermines our ability to rise to the occasion. I say this from a place of love and necessity. We have seen what a Trump Administration is capable of: the onslaught of executive orders deeming entire populations invisible, stripping marginalized people of their rights and already abysmal social securities, and generally making every single bit of life harder to live. And now, in real-time, we are bearing witness to people who have legal protections to exist in the United States being kidnapped, detained, and made examples of by an administration that is outright stating dissent as grounds for expulsion. All of this is nothing short of horrific, and yet, what part of this is surprising?

It serves the oppressor for you to spiral. This is how they create a power dynamic that keeps us down and hopeless. As we are inundated with information while attempting to stay informed, our brains operate in overdrive without any meaningful moments of reprieve. Inevitably, our minds, bodies, and souls give out. But since we are stuck in a pattern of being glued to the never-ending news cycle, we continue consuming it without exercising discernment. We become distracted by clickbait, which has become almost entirely rage bait at this point. And in the process, we find ourselves paralyzed in a deeply vulnerable position. Our brains shut down. The goal of the oppressor has been met. We are too exhausted and overwhelmed to be useful. And it is here that the oppressor is able to harm us even more.

To overwhelm well-meaning people is a tried-and-true tactic of oppressors. It is meant to send our nervous systems into panic with no way to cope, to regulate. We are stuck in a manufactured crisis that often results in a numbness. And while there, it becomes an insurmountable ask for us to pay attention to the atrocities beyond our immediate lives. We are pushed toward the edge of the cliff. The precarious drop-off point where losing our footing is a devastation we cannot risk. And while here, a part of us is desperate for someone to come and save us because we are too tired to find our way back to safety. But what happens when even those claiming to fight the oppressor offer more distractions instead of viable solutions rooted in direct action?

On April 1st, Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, spent a record-breaking 25 hours and 5 minutes delivering an impassioned speech on the Senate floor. It’s important to note that this was not a filibuster because it wasn’t attempting to block a specific bill or electoral nomination. It was a really long speech. Some could argue this extemporaneous speech was a symbolic moment that publicly denounced the Trump Administration's insurgence of inhumane policies and drastic cuts to vital services. At various points while speaking, Senator Booker used his time to rally the American people.

While this is an impressive display of mental and physical fortitude, I am left asking, “...and?” During his speech, even Senator Booker said, “My voice is inadequate. My efforts today are inadequate to stop what they are trying to do.” While, yes, this could be seen as a moment of protest, but I do question what the purpose of this supposed protest was. I more so see it as an elected official who was voted into office speaking up for his constituents regarding some issues that affect them. To me, this is merely a part of the job he gets paid by taxpayer money to do. I want to be in the camp of people who were moved by this, but ultimately, this speech falls flat because there was no real action from him after he concluded. The length and passion of the speech feels like a political theater distraction rather than a mobilization toward any concrete action items that would improve people’s material conditions. If anything, Senator Booker’s speech just reminded me how electoral politics will not save us.

On April 6th, Amer Rabee, a 14-year old United States citizen from New Jersey, was murdered by the Israel Occupation Force (IOF) in the West Bank of Palestine. Senator Booker put out a statement expressing his condolences to Rabee’s family. All the while, he failed to acknowledge the ongoing Palestinian Genocide that Israel is carrying out. And he failed to acknowledge that the United States is complicit in genocide and complicit in ending a child’s life. But what feels most sinister is that he has continuously voted to arm Israel with American weapons paid for by American taxpayer dollars to exterminate Palestinians. In other words, the United States is supporting a genocide through votes such as the one Senator Booker casted. Talk is cheap when votes cost people so much. If you are unwilling to hold yourself or your colleagues responsible for atrocities you are cosigning, speaking for 25 hours and 5 minutes only means you are a spineless cog in this political machine.

It is here I implore you to not take these political grand gestures at face value. We will continue living in the same tired cycles that allow elected officials to do absolutely nothing and then hit us with texts and emails asking for us to donate a humble $5 to them. With all the respect they certainly do not deserve, not a single penny of mine will go toward any American politician’s campaign until I see them begin working for me and my community rather than upholding the status quo. While politicians on both sides insist on playing in our faces, may I suggest we tap into that aforementioned discipline and discernment from Joe Mazzulla?

We have the ability to take a big step back from the news cycle. Now is a better time than ever to develop the skill of avoiding the ominous doomscroll. Along with being vital in preserving our vigor, it is the kindest thing we can do for our bodies and minds – to exercise the muscle that is a part of your body that begs you to listen to your body. There is only so much you can take in before you tumble toward an overwhelmed state, and, as the kids say, crash out. And these crash-outs look like a lot of things – fighting fights in the comments with trolls, posting endless infographics and carousel posts without reading them, and falling for clickbait articles. A healthy step back allows you space to determine what your relationship to the news and social media is. And it is here we can begin to re-engage with this information with clarity.

And perhaps even more foreign to some is the necessity in taking an even larger step toward each other. My energy and time is finite. I have a choice in whether I look at my phone in rage or look to my people with hope. This choice allows me to hone in on my purpose. At the end of the day, these dastardly policies being enacted are meant to harm both the material conditions and psyche of marginalized groups in any way. Real humans. Real lives. Real universes. The way I see it, I can watch devastation or I can, even in small ways, care for these people. I still have to work, take care of myself, maintain relationships, follow my dreams, and live out my desires. These are necessities for me. These are non-negotiables. So, how can I sustainably build community care into my life? Rage posting isn’t it. Rage consuming isn’t it.

These days, I’m reflecting on what it means to be with my community in meaningful ways. How to give without the expectation of getting something back in return. How to give and trust that I will be held when I need it the most. I’m also reflecting on my personal relationships — romantic, familial, and platonic. How to push past ego when extending apologies and forgiveness alike. How to remember that these people I am intimately connected with are trying their best. And I will try my best to accept them where they are at and let go of the rest. Through these moments, I hope to continue exercising and strengthening my muscles of discipline and discernment in a way I’m incapable of doing behind a screen.

This past season, a reporter asked Joe Mazzulla for his thoughts on NBA halftime. In true Mazzulla fashion he replied, “If it were up to me, I wish we would ban halftime. I can’t stand halftime. I just don’t understand it. I guess I do from a business standpoint, but I hate it. It’s useless.” There will always be distractions attempting to deter us from the real matters at hand. There will always be loud headlines, louder voices. But it is up to us to focus. Real worlds, real universes are at stake. The thing is, a better world certainly is possible. But we need you for that. We need your energy and your vigor and your present mind and body.

Inevitably, every writer faces some sort of imposter syndrome. For us writers who are traversing non-traditional paths to exercise their craft, it can feel overwhelming and daunting trying to trust we are capable. Learning how to move beyond our doubts and fears in order to harness what was once considered a weakness as a key part of what makes our words their own is key in finding our voices.

Writing alongside Alex Lewis is a gift. Anyone who has done so knows he reads and responds with a thoughtful, tender heart. He has held a mirror up to me countless times imploring me to see what is not always clear to my eye. To be known by Alex is to be seen by Alex. Having him in my writing community has helped me both grow confidence in my pen and ground in the knowing that my work is necessary.

For part two of our conversation, we explore what it means to be a writer, imposter syndrome, and why we must trust that we are the only people who can write the piece.

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Alex: You had mentioned earlier in the conversation about how you wanted to write this poetry book. I'm curious–why a book? Why did that feel like the natural next step?

Shivani: Part of it came from imposter syndrome. I'm not a writer by training. I work as an engineer where I do a lot of cut-and-dry technical writing. My creative writing is self taught. When I moved to Chicago in 2022, that’s when I gave myself permission to trust this was an important part of my life. I wanted it to be prominent for me.

In Chicago, there's a huge poetry community, a huge writing community. While it was brilliant, I also felt like everyone had published in journals or anthologies or even had their own books. So it felt like I wasn’t a writer unless I published a book—which is part of why I felt like I needed to write a book.

Another part was, I wanted there to be a culmination of my work somewhere. But as I was putting this book of poems together, I realized I wasn’t really interested in doing that anymore. I still write poems. I love poetry. I am a poet first and foremost. But I gave myself the allowance to let go of things that no longer feel aligned with where I am, my goals, and what I want to do. Releasing the idea that a book makes you a writer has been huge. It’s allowed me to explore different types of writing like freelance music and culture journalism where I have interviewed musicians and writers I loved just because I want to. My writing journey has flowered where it needed to.

And now, I’m writing my first fiction novel, which is really exciting. I think it’d be easy to feel like all the poems and essays that haven’t made their way to a book are just abandoned or that I’m starting all over again. But there’s this quote by Toni Morrison: “ Struggling through the work is extremely important – more important to me than publishing it.” So while yes, those poems were years of my life, I know that, without them, I wouldn’t be able to write this novel. It’s the idea of no love is wasted time or energy. It’s always valuable. It’s always important. You’re always learning something from it.

Alex: I think you found excitement within this work. You found something that wasn't necessarily there when you started. But over time, you found these different themes that continue to show up for you. Like you said, this story that you were continuing to return to and navigating your way through.

Shivani: And I know that you had written a book last year for your grandmother that was a collection of essays. How does it feel meeting a goal like that, especially after sharing it with someone you loved so much and who inspired a lot of the work in it?

Alex: It feels enough and not enough. The “enough” piece was writing that book for my grandma who told me, ‘Hey, I want to hold your work, hold your words in my hands, before I die.’ [She is] someone who means the most to me, who was always willing to do whatever she could to help me feel comfortable and to make sure I had what I needed, even still as she just celebrated 90 [years old]. She was just telling me the other day that she’s seeing the stuff I've been writing and keeping up with it. That’s really cool for me. So, it felt like that’s the easiest thing I can do – to fulfill this wish, fulfill this promise. The writing is already there. The words are already there. I already have the words that I can include as part of this book, this collection. That’s easy.

For me, [the hard part] was ensuring that I stayed on top of it and made time for it. What I knew I’d be most proud of handing over [to her] required me to sit with my older essays and edit them. Nothing crazy. Just smoothen out some of that older writing. I’m sure, months from now, I’ll look back at stuff I’m writing now and probably want to write that differently. For where I was at that moment, I wanted to sit with some of that older work and pull it up to the quality of the writing that I had started to do. Being able to receive that message from her that she received it – that was really cool to do the thing I said I was going to do.

The “not enough” piece connects back to what you were saying about moving to Chicago and folks already being published and feeling like the only way this matters is if [I publish] a book that’s shared broadly. For me, I know deep down that’s not the truth.

Of course, people ask, ‘Yo, you wrote this book. Where can I get it?’ To me, that is more a product of how we’re conditioned to think about what type of writing matters. It’s less about us as writers because obviously this work that we're doing and we're committing ourselves to is meaningful. It’s more a matter of how we tell people meaningful writing has to show up in book-form since that’s a lot of people’s primary interaction with good writing. But good writing exists whether it's in a book or not. Even for writers we know that aren’t doing the freelance thing or are doing the circuit of trying to get published, that writing is still important. I just hope people can still see themselves as worthy of being called a writer and worthy of considering their work as meaningful even if they have no aspirations of writing a book or pursuing some form of traditional publishing.

Shivani: It’s important to remember traditional publishing is a business, and it is not always the best writing that sells. It is what is the most marketable, what is going to make money, what is going to get into bookstores. There are so many moving parts. I think part of the want to be published comes from a sense of external validation. The idea that if my work is published then someone likes it. And if someone likes it, then I'm being seen—which is huge, especially when you're writing about something personal, which is also why that rejection can be so personal.

I used to submit [to writing journals and magazines] so much a couple years ago. It would just be rejection after rejection after rejection. And the editors of these publications didn't have the resources – the time, the energy, the money – to tell me what it is that's not working. So then, it felt like it was just me that wasn’t working.

But more and more, I’m learning that I write because I need to, I want to, and I love to. And I also have the ability to connect with people through this writing. How special is that? Whether they read everything that I write or just some of it – it’s wild. I don’t take that for granted. I ground myself in the fact that this, in and of itself, is a miracle. And that is enough for me.

Alex: There’s clearly something here that we’ve been able to find that makes sense for us. You could look at athletes like Kevin Durant. The game comes so easily to him. There’s an innate connection to the game. Yes, he works hard. And yes, he is one of the greats for a reason, but there are certain things about his game, how he shows up, how he’s gifted that are simply just there like some kind of act of God.

For us, as writers, people who choose to come to the page and see where it takes us, there is something really beautiful and brave about doing that. But there’s also this sense of confidence and this thing that is intangible in knowing we can do it. I know that I can keep coming to the page. I am confident that I am going to have something to share because I know deep down within myself I can do this. I know that I will be able to find the words that are necessary for me, that I’m going to be proud of, and that have the ability to impact somebody else. There’s something special about knowing who you are and knowing that I am capable of doing that work that would make a book, stand on somebody’s website, be in somebody’s newspaper or magazine.

Shivani: To me, being a writer is so easily romanticized – you make a cup of tea, you have beautiful light shining on your desk. And yes, have your rituals, have your traditions. But understand that, at the end of this, it’s work. Are you going to hold yourself responsible? Have discipline with your work? Have consistency? And will you understand that will change as you change, as the seasons change, as life’s demands change? But most important, do you have the audacity to trust yourself? Because you can do it, you are capable of doing it. I think that space is where something otherworldly is possible. And then that’s where it feels very tangible that, yes, I am the only person who can write this piece.

Immediately, I’m met with naked bodies. The women’s locker room of King Spa, the Korean day spa in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, is busier than I had anticipated. But it’s a Friday afternoon. Of course, we all have the same idea – ease into the weekend a few hours early, likely at a discounted rate thanks to Groupon. On the walk to my assigned locker, I take extra care in keeping my gaze balanced between the terracotta tiles beneath my feet and forward, zeroed in on my destination. My vision is purely utilitarian here. Nothing more than a means to get efficiently from Point A to Point B. In my peripheral vision, the diversity of bodies – race, age, size – feathers out of focus. It is my respectful offering to the women around me. It feels indecent and presumptuous of me to dare to allow my eyes to linger over their vulnerable bareness. It’s as if I’m infringing on their privacy – rights that weren’t explicitly signed over to me.

Once at my locker’s alcove, I mentally note my plan for the day. Get dressed for the all-gender sauna rooms, spend a few hours sweating, return to the women’s locker room to prepare for the wet spa. And so, I strip with strategy. By my third visit to the spa, I naturally have developed a system. First, I take off my top, something uncomplicated to remove. Under it, I’d remember to opt for a comfortable sports bra. I need something I can sweat in, something that won’t poke or jab into my flesh, something that doesn’t mold around my breasts or lift them to an unnaturally higher landing on my chest. Then, I pull the spa’s oversized branded pink cotton t-shirt over my head in one swift move. It settles on my frame like a dress. Swimming in it, I feel like a child in a nightgown. Finally, I take off my bottoms, a garment that’s easy to slide off, and slip into the matching pink cotton shorts that hit below my knees. I adjust the elastic waistband to a comfortable home on my body before turning to the floor length mirror tucked in my corner of the locker room.

Instinctively, I hold my arms out and languidly swing my hips side to side watching my body both exist and disappear in my matching pink set. It’s hard not to feel silly when looking at my reflection. I am there, but I am not; the act of swapping a garment of mine for a garment of theirs prompts a peculiar transformation. But my calculated effort feels a bit trivial. Because once I am done sweating in the sauna rooms, I will head back to the locker room to disrobe for the wet spa. Soon enough I, too, will be another naked body.

-

I see everything. It is impossible to enter the wet spa – an intimate space with low ceilings holding four bubbling hot tubs, a cold plunge backdropped with a dramatic waterfall, and an enclosed steam room – where everyone is naked and not see it all. Breasts that are perky, flat, askew, wide set, rounded, inverted, removed, enhanced. Butts that are muscular, jiggly, cellulite streaked, square, bubbled. Stomachs that roll and flatten and bulge covered in skin that is tight and firm and saggy and stretch marked and wrinkled and and and. Earnestly, I believe every inch I see is beautiful in its own right. I allow space for my innate curiosity to waft around without shame; my eyes linger on these bare bodies for brief moments. And other eyes extend me the favor.

Each time I have made plans to go to King Spa, it is on the heels of a romantic ending in my life. It feels too perfect to be a coincidence. It’s as if my subconscious and the universe have conspired together. A meeting of the wisest minds where they look at each other with knowing glances – they see the ending before I do. This intervention toes the delicate line of being a gossip session. I imagine my subconscious bringing up the red flags. Something about how he had no problem with showering together but felt holding hands was too intimate. The universe will then mention the guy before him who described the type of woman he wanted to marry on one of our dates, attributes that I clearly did not fit. And my subconscious and universe will lose their shit thinking about the last guy who stood me up on a date where I spent a whole day making him eggplant parmesan – homemade mozzarella and a six-hour sauce I ate alone.

Despite their animated volleying of my genuine heartbreaks, I know that they both just want the best for me. But despite their warnings, I make excuses for these men because I want to see the best in them. And so, they gather their powerful forces and drop “King Spa Day” on my calendar.

Up until now, the only people who have seen my naked adult body are men. I don’t frequent nude beaches. I opt for an enclosed stall at the gym. My friends and I turn around when changing if we are getting ready together. So I suppose this is normal for me as a straight woman in the U.S. But the realization that my body has never existed in its candid form with another human unless something sexual was desired from it breaks my heart.

To me, sex is a beautiful, spiritual experience of give and take. It’s exciting to learn how to move with someone else’s body. What is preferred, what is wanted, what is vocalized, what is understood. The joint discovery through intimacy is sacred to me, and yet, I’ve been left feeling empty at the end. While I don’t regret sharing myself like this with these men and do have deep gratitude for the people we were then, there is still a part of me that feels deep sadness for how, in the aftermath of an ending, I’ve seen the inequity of the relationship.

As I thaw in the heated pool, it occurs to me that my body, the vessel that moves me through this world, in its most vulnerable state has only been witnessed by men who have failed to see me. And in turn, I feel like I lose a part of myself in the process that takes a great amount of time and effort to recover. It isn’t because they were horrible men set out to use me for my body. Or that they had sinister ulterior motives rooted only in their desires. But rather, it’s because there was a lack of awareness of what sharing my body in its most vulnerable state meant to me. As I was willing to share the entirety of my being, they had one foot out the door. How could they truly see me if their entire self wasn’t there to begin with? How could I begin to explain the gravity of this experience with someone who was unable to hold the whole of me? But I only come to terms with this in the aftermath. I see that they only met a version of me that felt manageable to them after the fact. I step outside of my body and witness someone who is devastated, inconsolable, and furious at this realization: my naked body has never actually been seen.

As I submerge into the water of the wet spa, I make space for a cleansing. In the absence of erotic desire from men, I feel disarmed. My body isn’t neutral here. But it also isn’t sexualized. For my naked body to be among other naked bodies where nothing is asked of either of us, where nothing is wanted or expected from us is revolutionarily. No efficiency, no strategy. I am not worried about the lighting or contorting my body a certain way or tactically covering another part of my body. All of that doesn’t exist here. And so, I release. The grief from these romantic endings I’ve suppressed moves out of me and swirls in the gentle rumble of the water. There is no need to bury any part of myself.

In my most exposed form, I feel a freedom in my body that ushers me towards a state of euphoria. I can’t help but bask in it. And I see it on the faces of these women, even the ones who are still warming up to the idea of being so candidly bare. When one of them glances my way and smiles to acknowledge our shared existence in this state of leisure, I don’t feel on display. For a moment, I feel known. This place we enter together holds a quiet knowing that our naked bodies can feel seen in its entirety. Here, we heal.

At the wet spa, there is nothing to prove. My naked body can exist with other people just as it is. And that, in and of itself, is plenty. There is no need to perform or worry about how I’m being perceived. No one wants anything of my body. I can just be. And all the while, with deep reverence, I can connect to a part of myself that has yet to be seen outside of these walls. I can meet her, speak with her, grieve with her, and rejoice in leisure with her. The weight of this reclamation of my naked body is boundless.

I’m leaving home to fly back home. A strange concept to consider, one that just a year ago I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to fathom. To feel belonging so strongly in two places that I can definitively call both home. That they both feel like home. Considering this feels monumental. Almost heavy. Overwhelming.

I resist the urge to soothe this complicated feeling with my phone. I am committed to not mindlessly exacerbating my screen time. Since I had already blown past my limit at my flight’s gate – okay fine, I suppose we can call this a resolution of sorts, I attempt to maintain a compact body as I reach into my tote bag between my feet. Careful not to disturb the woman sleeping next to me, I slowly contort myself on the way down. Sudden movements at my big age prompt muscle pulls, I’ve learned. I grab Smoking the Bible by Chris Abani.

During my first winter in Chicago two years ago, my mind teetered back and forth on whether I should venture downtown to River North for a poetry reading. It was, of course, already dark. It was a work night. Undoubtedly, it was frigid. The train ride was long enough that it felt more like a journey, less like a quick trip. But there was a poet reading that night who I had a peculiar connection with. She, like me, was an Indian poet. She had lived in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, the Indian state my family is from. While I had only visited Chennai a few times, we both shared the same dust of its red dirt beneath our soles. Likely, felt the same stones cool our feet midday at Hindu temples, a place I have found refuge in, peace in.

But perhaps my favorite connection – she had written a poem based on another poem by Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop, a Worcester, Massachusetts native like myself, was not a favorite poet of mine. In fact, I was only familiar with a slim selection of her work. But I remember the distinct delight of discovering she was from my hometown. The delight of uncovering this other poet’s connection to my Chennai and my Worcester was enough for me to put on a pair of my favorite jimmikis and cocoon in my parka.

An affirmation I have been telling myself lately is that “I am exactly where I am supposed to be”. I repeat it out loud and tap my heart to steady the anxious stories that worm into me. It nudges me towards a cadence that slows down the races my mind leaps into, ones that only burn out my knees and send my shins blazing. It would take some time to understand the extent, but on this night, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Along with the poet I had been excited to see, I was introduced to the work of Chris Abani. Actually, I was taken aback by the work of Chris Abani. He read a few poems from Smoking the Bible, and I found myself in tears. Touched and changed, I sought him out after the reading.

With a newly purchased copy of his book, I approached him. Kindly, he signed it. Kindly asked if I was a writer as well. Kindly asked if he would have read my work anywhere. Kindly listened to me as I said of course not. Kindly listened more as I divulged that I am new to the city and feel immensely intimidated by the world of poetry and am just trying to find my place. Kindly, he suggested I send him an email. He teaches at a “small” school in Chicago and perhaps there’s a class of his I could audit.

During the following summer semester, I met my now dear friend, Surya. We met while I audited Chris’s writing workshop together. I was nervous. I hadn’t been in a classroom in years, and as an engineer, I, especially, had never been in a collegiate setting for writing. It was both daunting and exhilarating.

Our workshop began and ended in a blink. Such is the summer. I had learned how to ground a poem in an object. How to find that object in several lines of the poem. How to be intentional with line breaks more than I had ever in the past. How to turn a poem on its head. How to read without caveat when sharing. How to write as a writer not a reader. But perhaps what changed me the most was my friendship with Surya.

About six months later, Surya and I were both visiting family in India, her up north in Mumbai and me down south in and around Chennai. It would be my first time back to India in 12 years. The last time I had visited, I was awkward, angsty, and devastated by the insurgence of puberty’s acne. I was 15. But now, at 27 – though I came back with confidence and less misdirected fire spewing from my head, I was still quite lost. I was grappling with the existential question of my life: where in the world do I belong?

The feeling of being too much of one thing and not enough of the other is universal for people in any diaspora. I was not unique in these complicated feelings. I had wrestled with it over and over at different points in my life with varying intensities. In each era of my life, I was desperate to move through it. To move beyond it. But now, I wanted to figure out how to live with the multiple parts of me rather than despite it. For me, it felt like being in my ancestral land was vital in that understanding .

Along with her mother, Surya and I met up in Goa, a state on India’s western coast. During our time at an idyllic, cozy villa on quiet Agonda Beach, we disconnected from the prescriptions of our lives and opened up to more fulfilling possibilities. Lazing by the water, we’d coo at stray puppies flopping on their backs for belly rubs. Silly and trusting, they’d make homes on our towels, under our umbrella. One morning, we floated on a sunrise bird watching boat ride. Surya’s mom pointed out birds of her childhood. She would zoom in on a King Fisher on her iPhone and capture pixelated memories. Photos that were imperfect, but somehow, masterfully captured the serenity we all shared. By night, she’d order us fresh pomfret for dinner, the fish of her childhood in India. We’d sit with the manager of the villa that we befriended and connect over our lives, our small worlds that we discovered had multiple points of overlap. Embodying the languid atmosphere of Goa, there was only peace to bask in. Only carefree space to rest and renew.

During our short respite in Goa, Surya and I went on long, romantic walks on the beach until it became dark. On one of them, I had shared with her that I didn’t know where in the world I belonged. In fact, I confided that I felt that I may always feel like that. That my identity was too fragmented for there to possibly any place where I actually fit securely. That, sure, I feel love with people. But those people move. Things change. Priorities shift. It felt foreign that I’d ever feel genuine, whole belonging anywhere especially as someone straddling multiple cultural lines.

Looking back now, it is unsurprising that Surya held me with such care as I shared this core fear of mine. Surya is a brilliant writer whose writing mirrors the way she moves through the world – extremely thoughtful, intentional. There are details of stories that I’ve relayed to her that seem miniscule but to her are key points she picks up on and remembers months later. In conversation, when we are considering something together, I often watch her pause. Take her time. In real-time, I witness her consider what she thinks. Not in a second-guessing sort of way. In fact, her confidence is something I admire because it is built from clarity she has taken the time to prioritize. She considers something with deep reverence with what is being placed in front of her.

On our walk along Agonda Beach, she paused, considered, and then told me she believes it is possible for us, people with identities that often can feel too complex to fit in one place, to feel belonging in multiple places. Our lives have been shaped by contradicting environments, institutions, and people. Of course our beings have carried pieces of all of them, some with more weight than others, sure. After all, we are inevitably changed by everything and everyone we come across. We are the product of what has lived with and among us. So sure, in some environments, some parts of us will feel more pronounced, more seen. Some others may sit back a bit more quietly. But those quiet parts will have other environments where they are front and center. Every single part of us belongs somewhere.

A year after that conversation with Surya in Goa, I am staring at a perfect blue sky adorned with clouds. I am on this flight back home from home, and I think I am really beginning to feel what she had generously shared with me. So here, I am pausing. Considering. These parts of me were collected through the various places and people I have been changed by. Places that I have come across because I have always been exactly where I am supposed to be. How miraculous is that. Some of those parts will feel more pronounced in their places of origin while some take a momentary break. But they are always within me. I am always carrying them in this precious body of mine. And I will continue to discover endless parts of me with time. They may be shy at first. May tread lightly. But they do not have to be lost just because they have yet to find their feet. Their confidence will grow. And I trust, these parts, the old, will change others the way others have changed me.

And like clockwork, “community” is on the cusp of, if not already, becoming the latest social media buzzword. Back in November, I noticed post-election anxiety quickly seize hold of people in two distinct camps of the left spectrum – the ones who stay fairly engaged with politics, near and far, and those who somehow have mastered the state ignorance while simultaneously earnestly believing voting once every four years is the most powerful political action they are capable of. We contain multitudes, I suppose.

To combat the helpless feeling that seemed to surge in, the beloved “infographic” was, once again, thrust at our social media feeds. Quickly, an inundation of information swarmed our digital worlds. While I don’t believe one’s social media is the sole place for us to exercise our politics, it is interesting to see when people choose to chime in, to speak up. In real-time, I watched acquaintances and even some friends publicly process the election results. Loudly. Why Kamala lost. How could people once again vote for Trump. What the Republicans did right. What the Democrats did wrong. How much this country hated women. Why third party voters were the greatest evil of them all. The lackluster performance of pointing fingers and shoving each other off an imaginary soapbox to see whose rage, which rang to a tune quite similar to the qualms of 2016 and 2020, could be heard the loudest happens each election cycle. It’s nothing new, but yet, it still is fascinating to see how easily the American people fall into this tired playbook. If I sound unsurprised, well frankly, I am. But what did catch me off guard is how promptly the word “community” was mixed in with the noise.

When at a loss, we have a choice – to look inward or to look outward. Introspection is an act of examining our inner world of beliefs and thoughts, our convictions, and how we have brought them into this material world. How do our behaviors and patterns play out? How do we take our best intentions and move them into action? It can be an uncomfortable reckoning. One where we have to come to terms with how our convictions perhaps made its way to words but never to action. Or even how our convictions remained thoughts stuck behind the walls of our minds. To be willing to honestly interrogate whether you’ve been living a life aligned with your supposed ethics and morals requires great bravery that I’m not sure we are all ready to wield.

But I believe there is also bravery in looking outward. In looking towards your people, our people, for support. To trust that in our most dire moments, we can depend on one another to sustain the series of events that make up a life, our lives, that we are simply attempting to live. A group of people who will be ready to hold us and ask for nothing in return: community. But here is where my frustration lies. For all that we are willing to take, what are we willing to give?

The post-election anxiety onslaught of infographics was a lot to say the least. Honestly, it felt dystopian seeing buzzy Canva templates with zippy step by step directions on how to build and sustain community, an organic being. It became unavoidably clear that so many people had gone on for so long without any semblance of community interaction in their lives. And now, at a difficult moment, they were looking for the connection and nourishment that only community holds. Something about infographics on how to build community as a response to a dismal election cycle felt very American.

Because here we were in yet another devastating, but predictable, moment of American history refusing to look inward and rather reaching with entitled hands at something else, someone else to ground us and ease our existential anxieties. So many of us were refusing to sit with uncomfortable feelings and regulate our own emotions. The first thought was how can someone else fix this for me. There was very little, if any, questioning of one’s privilege or responsibility. Just an immediate need to soothe one’s own fears. And yes, two things can be true. Those fears that surged in could be very real and hold very real threats to the certainty of our lives. And yes, this desire for “community” post-election was born from American individualism.

I know that sounds loaded, but hear me out. We are all already part of communities. Whether it be where we live, attend to school, go to work, our social circles – these are communities. How are we finding legitimate, sustainable ways of supporting and connecting with the people already in our worlds? How are we showing each other though we may not always like each other that we deeply love each other? How are we invested in each other’s well-being? How do we feed these connections with the same zeal that we harness when we to feast on them? Capitalism and American individualism, evils that surround nearly every facet of our lives, are the antithesis of community. How are we choosing to acknowledge that and live a life committed to the consistency of our convictions despite those evils?

These are big questions, and I do not claim to have resolute answers. But what I am confident in is that, to me, community is a living, breathing thing. As it evolves, its needs evolves. Its wants evolve. So when I saw those formulaic approaches on how to be with people in times of collective grief, how to support them when we knew our government would largely, once again, not — well, it just felt odd. It felt disingenuous. And we simply do not have the time for that. We cannot turn to community from places of anxiety, shame, or guilt. Those feelings are not inherently invalid. And there certainly is a place for them. But in terms of community cultivation and preservation, they are rendered useless unless one is willing to feel the full spectrum of them. This requires those feelings moving one’s feet towards action.

As we head into the new year and set resolutions or reaffirm past intentions, I hope we all consider how consistency is vital in whatever commitments we are acting towards. When we are clear on our convictions, on the things that we stand firmly on and allow us an unwavering foundation, we are grounded. May this be what guides us towards connection in community.

I sincerely hope the shroud of electoral politics being our saving grace falls from the faces of those who still trust it is what will save us. American novelist, essayist, poet, and environmental activist, Wendell Berry, stressed that, “We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities.” There is far too much at stake for us to be falling into the stagnant trap of finger pointing and wagging every four years. I hope we can come together in consistency to show each other in tangible ways of how we care, how we love. We can so we must.

I want to believe in our world, so I will. But we must be prepared to be wildly brave in a way where we understand what it means for the stakes to be as high as they are. To say this is life or death for some is not enough. It has been life or death. We need to move beyond the digital platitudes and empty land acknowledgments. We need to understand we all have a responsibility to each other. To care for one another, to love one another. To look beyond our annoyances and grievances and step out of whatever pity parties our guilt and shame has us tied down to. Community is not a flimsy idea to be thrown around without reverence. It is an action. It is a living, breathing thing that we must approach with a sustainable measure of give and take in our everyday movements. We need to be brave enough to look inward with profound honesty and live out our convictions. We need to.

Thank you for joining me on the final installment of my Commitment Essay Series. It feels special to have ended this as 2024 wraps up. Through writing these essays, I’ve been reacquainted with where commitment shows up in my life and how I would like to show up with consistency. More than I can express, I appreciate you for joining me on this ride. See you in 2025! Love love love!

- Shiv

The sentiment is well-meaning, of course. Many friends, especially the ones who have never met him, draw out their side-eyes when I explain our relationship. Explain. Silly how this is even something which merits clarification when our intertwined nature feels so natural to us. But I understand what we share is both, somehow and somewhat, unconventional. Not many people choose to continue a relationship with a former partner with deep intimacy but no romance.

Eyeballs of these friends swivel with record speed, turning on their heads when I insist we have never slid back into our former romantic selves. No beds have been shared and snuck out of before dawn’s magnifying light. No animalistic desire has been reignited after spilled drinks, nevertheless, acted upon. That classic, cinematic yearning by moonlight does not illuminate our connection. I am used to the eyes of most settling into disappointment.

People want to believe that we are on the cusp of a grand reunion. In their minds, it’s inevitable for our feet to move towards each other, towards some semblance of romantic permanence. That, yes, after all these years, we are, in fact, still in love. Perhaps the details of our relationship don’t lend a hand to salacious tea that sustains our innate impulse for gossip, but for us, it works. So when prodded, I often smile, laugh it off. Brace a sigh and tell them, “no, really. We were together for four years and are now best friends. Nothing more, nothing less”.

We started dating in the summer of 2016 – the summer. In a time before the realities of adulthood pried us open and the unique hellfire that was the first Trump presidency was omnipresent, it was a period of time that just felt easier. I had found refuge before I knew I even needed it. So forgive me if I dwell in the nostalgia, but my God – I was 19, he was 21 – and we were so in love.

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He introduced me to Chance the Rapper by way of Coloring Book. Sitting shotgun to the boy I loved, we’d croon along to “Same Drugs”, our favorite track while ignoring Boston’s humidity and traffic. Nothing is a nuisance when you’re in love. He drove a baby blue two-door Chevy Cobalt. I learned to love the extra weight of its passenger side door that summer. My body took care in memorizing the tiny bit of extra effort it would take to open and close it. On extra humid days, it’d stick and I’d lean my body into the door to push it free, I’d lean myself into a hug that lingered just a second longer.

Our summer romance was fueled by the desire to take what little we had and run. We lapped at the unplanned mess that was Boston in stride, drinking in amusement wherever it led us. My favorite dates were the ones where we would walk the city’s four square miles without a plan but trusting the promise that an adventure would uncover itself to us. Young and out of place, we’d amble into a fancy hotel lobby equipped with just enough audacity to sip on the complimentary citrus water by the front desk. Buzzed off hydration, we’d politely say hello to the hotel’s elevator attendant. They’d be checked out just enough to not question us when we’d ride up to the top floor. Once there, we would discover something to hold our attention for a moment; a sparse game room or keypad gatekeeped fitness room that boasted an impressive treadmill or two. But my favorite unearthing couldn’t be contained by these historic hotels. On our most lucky dates, after reaching the top floor, we’d find a dramatic, winding staircase which clearly would be closed to the public. But we had the audacity to venture forward. And it’d always be worth it – the maze that was Boston would open up to us from the rooftop. A view only for us to witness.

On other nights, the magic was found underneath our sneakers on sticky bar floors. I’d hold my breath and rehearse an address in Pennsylvania as I flashed my best friend’s fake ID just to dance with my love to a string of Top 40 hits. Physically held up by sweaty bodies, spiritually bouyed by my usual, a vodka cran, I would throw my head back allowing the night to consume me. I’d submit to the bass that reverberated through us and hope the night would stretch itself taut and never snap. And it was on these nights, our luck would somehow miraculously stretch even further as we were sustained by late night pizza slices, buffalo chicken with ranch, and $10 Uber pools home. Nothing felt out of reach then. We found abundance in so little.

But every summer ends, right? Come August, he had graduated and moved back to his parents’ house in Connecticut, deciding to save some money while working his first full-time job. I was staying back in Boston and about to start my junior year. After three months of a classic, cinematic head over heels summer whirlwind, we were about to embark on four years of long distance. Hours of Skype and text. Miles on his Chevy Cobalt, my mom’s Prius. Endless coordination and communication across state lines. For the next four years, the commitment we poured into each other sustained us. Until, it didn’t.

As we progressed further into adulthood, wants and desires for the long-term came into view. While he was confidently settling into his life in Connecticut firmly dropping roots, I grew increasingly unmoored. I thought I wanted to join him after graduating, but more and more, I felt something was missing in those well laid plans.

The instinctual gnawing in me turned into a devouring. I was desperately craving space to grow into myself, to know myself. I kept telling him how empty I had felt. That I didn’t know what I needed to move through it. But what I couldn’t admit was that staying exactly where I was and continuing on a trajectory of life I had previously envisioned would not bring me any closer to myself or to a sense of belonging in this world I so deeply craved. I hadn’t yet grown the bravery to put that into words, though. But he did. He saw we were growing in different directions. And he knew we couldn’t bring each other to where we needed to go. Before I did, he had done the difficult thing of accepting that sometimes even a good thing must come to an end.

Before I was willing to admit it to myself, he had done me the kindness of understanding that neither of us were happy because we were no longer committed to a life together. Or rather, this very specific life together. In the parking lot of a Home Depot by his house he had just bought, the one I had thought we would raise our family in, I sat devastated. Unceremoniously, our four years together were now over. The baby names we chose and the oceanside home we’d retire in, were already beginning to collect dust.

Hanif Abdurraqib says, “commitment is also understanding that you aren’t just promising to love one version of a person, you’re promising to love versions of them that you can’t even predict.” I didn’t understand it then, but his action of severing our romantic ties was also an act of commitment. He saw my unhappiness and instead of attempting short-lived solutions, he knew that he couldn’t give me what I needed. He was committed to giving me space so I could grow closer to myself.

The first several months after the break up were difficult – setting boundaries, breaking boundaries, redefining boundaries. Trying to be friends too soon. Not giving each other enough space, enough affirmation, enough grace. Ignoring what our bodies were trying to tell us, abandoning our needs, Being defensive. Being combative. Being avoidant. A rinse and repeat cycle of our old patterns blowing up in our faces. Wrapped in the chaos of great anger, frustration, and grief, I wondered if we would ever figure it out.

The part most lovers to friends who end things amicably fail to do is realize friendship is an intimacy that requires work. We couldn’t just say we wanted to be friends and leave it at that. Friendship is an intimate relationship. There is a deep level of trust that needs to be established as its foundation for both people to feel safe and secure. A friendship is not some flimsy idea to be thrown without reverence – it is a commitment. Inevitably, when a romantic relationship transitions to a platonic friendship, that previously established foundation is jolted. Microfractures that were once ignored by the promise of kisses and good morning texts are out in the open. And those will open up into caverns unless tended to. To believe no effort needs to be put towards rebuilding trust after a breakup is the quickest way to ensure a departure from each other’s lives.

And perhaps even more overlooked is that there is a unique vulnerability at play when you decide to move from a romantic to platonic commitment. We were telling each other that our love goes beyond the comforts we may feel in romance. Not only does this love want the best for you, it wants to stay in your life to see what that best plays out to. Our love wanted to meet and witness every version of each other despite knowing it meant we would not be taken on those journeys in a way once we had planned for. We had to come to terms that we were not the same people from when we first met. The ways we showed care, consistency, and, especially, love needed to look different because we were different. But we were committed to witnessing each other, even the versions we couldn’t fathom.

So, yes, this required work. But this wasn’t the slamming dread of an alarm clock pummeling your body into autopilot to clock into a job that overworked you while underpaying you. No, this was the work that sustains you. It felt like the discipline of waking up with the sun on a Saturday and choosing to meet it at the horizon. To stand in the possibilities of moving with the cadence of the natural world, witnessing something not many people are willing to wake up for. Loving him has felt different in each of our seasons, but its honesty has never faltered. Even in uncertainty, it has been as consistent as a sunrise. While difficult and uncharted, we trusted that on the other side of this work, we would discover a place that was fulfilling and wholly ours.

If you want something salacious – the truth is, I have never stopped loving him. Not a single day. In fact, my love for him has only grown and has become even more cemented in my spirit. More poignant, my love for him has evolved as we have evolved. And for the rest of our time together, it will continue to shift into shapes neither of us could even begin to predict. We both have committed to witnessing every version of each other, celebrating these versions, and giving them space to be.

We are here for the long haul. I am grateful he initiated the break up so unceremoniously in the thick humidity of July 2020 – it was one of his greatest act of love I have been on the receiving end of. It propelled us, uncomfortably so, into uncertainty but gave us the chance of possibility, something that we were robbing ourselves of the longer we stayed in a relationship neither of us could fit into any longer. His baby blue Chevy Cobalt is long gone, but I’m fine with that. We outgrew that two door long ago.

“Sit down. Look around you. Take in the walls. Look at that shade of green. You chose that.”

Carolina’s voice stretches through the phone and sets its hand on my back. Which is connected to my shoulders, my arms, my center, my hips, my thighs, my legs. My body. I am in my body. Her hand guides this body of mine to the floor of my room, motioning to its very middle. A clearing for me. Here, I find myself coming to terms with an all too familiar ache from the realization that I, once again, diminished my desires in hopes of appearing more digestible to someone else. 

Once again, I subconsciously muddled my wants and needs to settle for some semblance of commitment from someone in an effort to substantiate my worth. I abandoned myself. This realization hits me hard as I spiral through old narratives in my head that I had thought I had overcome already. Dizzy and overwhelmed, I felt stuck in shame that not only was the worn playbook still in my hands, but I’ve been the one writing it all along, chronicling my own deception to my most authentic self. 

I shut my eyes trying to leave my body on the floor, attempting to stop feeling this ache. Begging for something other than that to hold me together. My legs give out, and I collapse. Carolina’s voice softly peels open my eyes. Stretches the delicate skin trying to shut myself out of my life. “Look at the world you gave yourself.”

-

Fervent Brass is a color full of contradictions. Muted yet bold. Cool yet warm. Cozy yet breathtakingly expansive. I had considered this ambered olive paint color for weeks. Placed it against several other sample chips, all which were a shade too wrong in comparison. I envisioned what stain of wood would feel most natural with this as its backdrop. Which stain would appear as if it grew from the honeyed hardwoods, daring to break through the plaster ceilings. Whether brass frames or black frames would resonate more harmoniously against the bounty of the earthy green expanse I could picture so clearly in my head. Eventually, I realized that I’d just have to trust myself to try.

It was the only sample I had bought. Partially because paint was more expensive than I had anticipated. Partially because I just had to commit to something. So I walked into Sherwin Williams ignoring the endless sample chips and overpriced but conveniently displayed tools, and zeroed in on the kind man behind the counter. “Hi, I’d like a sample of Fervent Brass, please.” 

I watched him place a plastic container under the paint making machine. That’s the technical term. A mechanically programmed amount of yellow, red, and blue dove in headfirst. With practiced hands, he held the container, checked that the lid was secure, and moved it into the paint mixing machine. Again, another technical term. And then, the machine grabbed hold of the plastic container. Tight, secure, safe. And in an instant began to jolt it all around, shaking it with purpose. Fervent Brass was coming together before my eyes. After its birth, I placed on the passenger seat of my car, brought it home, and let it sit. And sit. For days. Partially because my existing to-do list was long enough without adding this to the mix. Partially because I had realized I didn’t actually own a paint roller. 

But the night eventually came as it always does. The one where, now roller equipped, I began painting swatches on each of my bedroom’s four walls. Alex, my dear friend who recently embarked on starting his own painting company after years in the trade, told me to consider how each wall will hold and reflect light differently. This was important to not ignore because the color will change through seasons and under varied light exposure, and I need to be open to its evolution. So I tried. The first coat was atrocious. A streaky, pissed yellow stood stark against the off-white walls. But I was committed to seeing this through. I would wait for it to dry then paint another coat. I’d try again. 

The second coat is where the magic began to seep through. Still streaky and teetering on a bit unsure. Cautious but nearing something closer in resemblance to the image in my head. Altogether, it was far more confident in its hue than the first coat. And so I trusted. I committed. And I tried a third coat. It was here I saw it. Rich and luxurious and a terrain I sowed through the consistency of trust. I couldn’t stop smiling. In real time, I saw what could come of trusting myself. I continued on the entire wall across from my bed. I painted as high up as my 5’-2” body could reach with my folding step ladder. 

As I rolled further into this commitment, I felt myself surrender to tears. I began witnessing the enormity of the moment in earnest. I was painting the walls of a home for the first time in my life. A home I felt permanence in after years of transitory spaces. A home where I was consistently showing myself love and kindness and forgiveness. A home where I was unlearning shame and guilt that attempted to split my body from my soul. A home where I got to decide how high the volume of voices could go. How records will spin and candles will be lit even if I do not have company over. How I am not by myself but rather with myself.  A home where I could practice the practice of sitting by my shoreline’s edge no matter what state I was in. Because even if I am not tender, I must tend. In that moment, I realized committing to painting the walls in the home of my dreams I had spent years working towards was far more than just committing to a paint color. I was committed to consistently trusting myself to live this life.

-

I sat on the floor thinking about how I had gotten it all wrong again. How I was so far from “healed”. How I was making the same mistakes in different shades. But Carolina told me otherwise. She said it was brave to trust someone. It was brave to want them in my life. That this only hurts the way it does because I move towards people with genuine care and goodness. That its is okay that this meant something to me. While the journey to understanding what I had actually wanted was longer than I had hoped it be, I eventually figured it out. Unfolded the layers of confusion and witnessed my desires taut. I eventually trusted myself. Rather than spiraling in shame for wanting commitment from someone else any longer, I considered what it would feel like to strengthen the commitment I had to myself. 

Carolina reminded me that there were times this, the concept of feeling safe and comfortable in my own home, was once something I couldn’t imagine. And how I gave that to myself. How there are ways I am already committed to myself. 

I am choosing to consistently trust myself even when the future is uncertain. It is a practice. And I can either continue forgoing parts of myself to be more manageable in someone’s life, or I can bring every part, even the imperfect and unsure, with me wherever I go. So I will keep showing up. I will commit to myself by consistently trusting myself. I will keep opening myself up to people despite pain and rejection being very real possibilities. I will learn with each one how to hold my boundaries better. Understand my needs and wants more clearly and possibly even sooner. This doesn’t mean I won’t hold contradictions or my feelings will take time to come to the surface. I will simply trust that I will hold myself accountable to trying.  

Carolina tells me there will be a day where the self-abandonment that right now feels like it takes over my life will one day not be a thing I even dare to consider. I won’t give up an inch. I’m not there today, but I am committed to pushing past shame and embracing myself to get closer to that place everyday. To practice the practice of sitting with myself until I am ready to open my eyes. 

Thank you for reading the first essay of my Commitment Series. I have been thinking about how consistency buoys commitment, and I am excited to dive into how that may look with self, intimate relationships both romantic and platonic, and community. This essay exploring commitment to self reminded me of a poem I wrote in March 2023. The poem is inspired by the Safia Elhillo’s quote that introduced this piece, and the essay borrows a line from the poem. The conversation all three pieces have is one I am so grateful you joined me for.

How Do You Want Your Life Cooked?

“Even if I am not tender, I must tend.”     -Safia Elhillo

Steaming, I have stepped away 

from the stove. Tired of leaving myself

in the same spot where I am

the only one who burns. So please

let me salt this water,

stretch into each season. Well,

maybe I can soft boil this life.

Practice the practice of sitting

at my shoreline’s edge. Even if I am not 

tender, I must tend. So please

let me indulge myself in everyday

luxuries by the dozen. Take my time

to understand how long I need 

to turn an egg into a meal. So please

let me perfect the gentle whack

of metal to calcium to satin to

slip underneath my membrane 

made to come undone. So please

let me watch golden yolk run 

wild into the fault lines creased

into my palms. Canyon deep

fractures jamming shut. Now

I can unscrew the top of my life,

spin dizzy, spill it on its side.

Watch it stain everything it touches

then lap it up until there is no more.

About a month ago, I read the “Moral Support” column for Feeld Magazine. Feeld, a dating app created with the mission to “imagine a world where everyone is more intimately connected to each other and themselves” seemed, at first, an odd place to host a writing publication. Typically, I’d chalk an online magazine for a dating app as nothing more than a strategic business venture to increase their users, and in turn, revenue. However, when I saw they had a piece musing on the idea of commitment and loyalty from three of my favorite writers –  well, they got my ass.

Hanif Abdurraqib believes a vital part of commitment is, “understanding that you aren’t just promising to love one version of a person, you’re promising to love versions of them that you can’t even predict”. This stopped me in my tracks. So much so, I put my laptop down, slipped on my sneakers, and went on an hour-long walk. I can only describe what I was experiencing as some level of shock. In hindsight, it now seems so obvious. And yet, at that moment, I realized I had never been able to articulate commitment in romantic relationships as such. Commitment, to me, had been something I believed as staying the course through thick and thin and bringing forth a willingness to figure out the difficult moments together. That leaving is only something that happens after every option is exhausted. Only after you have poked and prodded a wound so many times that the idea of ever approaching it immobilizes you. But as I considered Hanif’s words more and more, I realized that my definition of commitment had only led me to one thing: abandoning myself.

You see, my definition didn’t allow me to breathe. I was terrified of change. Historically, change had meant a departure. More specifically, someone comfortably departing from me. Separating away from what we shared. Leaving. Realizing they had one foot out the door from the jump only made me hold on tighter. Desperate to assign meaning and not have something that was so important to me just fall on its face, I gripped with white knuckles, choking any chance of a relationship evolving. Lovingly, I now admit, I was setting myself up to be disappointed. 

So I am here laying it all out bare. I want to unravel. Through unlearning and considering and practicing, I witness these fears and give them space to heal. I want to explore how commitment can been concretely seen through consistency. I want be brave enough to be honest about how I have looked outside of myself for the very same consistency I have not been able to give myself.I want to challenge that. I want to hold myself accountable for practicing consistency in all realms of my life. But what does it actually mean to give myself consistency? To practice consistency in friendships? In community? What does it mean to “show up” or to “do the work”?

The next three essays are a part of my Commitment Series. I will be exploring commitment led by consistency with the self, community, and intimate relationships. In an attempt to add clarity to what commitment, something many of us ache for yet are so scared of, is and looks like, I’ll be unearthing my old ideas. All the while, I will be allowing myself to see how healthier versions of it already exist in our lives. I want commitment to feel approachable, tangible. It does not have to be an obscure, flimsy idea. So if you choose, I hope you read along, share your thoughts, and we all find ways to stay committed through consistency. I want us to breathe.

My physical therapist gently gathered my knees cradling them to his chest. A despondent handful of bones and muscle held together in sinew and ache alike – who were they to resist touch? Before we began, he told me to let him know if I was in too much pain. 

We started slowly. He instructed me to push my knees away from his body. To keep my lower back square on the medical table while twisting in the opposite direction, to lean away from his touch. My knees drew a line against the ceiling’s unforgiving fluorescents in slow motion as my quads and core braced without thought – I engaged in the challenge. His hold didn’t loosen. He made me work for reprieve. My fingers instinctively longed, searched, gripped. The sterile edges of the table came into contact for stability as I summoned the strength to follow through and against the pain. 

While my knees attempted to refuse his hold, the shearing force we had created radiated through my hips, the plane the exertion acted upon. The opposite forces of his pull and my push were necessary here. It is how I moved through the pain. My fingers went white. I didn’t hide my desperation to perform well. To exceed expectations. To be his best patient for the day, the week. I instinctively laughed and smiled through the pain wanting to be remembered by something more than just my ache. We continued our cycle. His push. My pull. His push. My pull. And then, it finally happened. A miraculous surge rushed through me. A release. 

When I walked into the clinic that morning, I had told my physical therapist I was exhausted. A type of depletion that rest could not solve. It was bone deep. It had been months since I had felt like my body was mine to inhabit. Everyday I would wake up to a different shade of betrayal dimming whatever progress I had made the previous day or week. With what had started as a minor back injury from lifting a large potted house plant had tumbled into agonizing muscle memory I was begging my body to forget. 

Before dawn, I’d start each day with stiffness in my upper back and shoulders. My body was speaking for me. Insisting on holding onto yesterday’s tension and stress, unable to let go of the past. I’d insist on taking care of myself, holding onto whatever control of my body I could muster. I’d ignore the searing shoots when bending over to pick up grocery bags. Or the sharp twinges threatening another back spasm from sitting up in my chair too quickly. Or the dull, gnawing tenderness in my hips bellowing out a guttural groan in my ears throughout another restless night. In the final days of summer, I had felt defeated when coming to terms with how consumed in pain I really was. I just wanted to return to a body that would not betray me.

There are few spaces where I am honest about the intensity of this pain. My conversations with friends and families had been masterminded into white lies since the injury. I’d respond to their earnest check-ins with a quick witted, downplayed reality. A generous, well-rehearsed status update followed by deflection of any follow up questions. A function of my hyper independence I’ve grown accustomed to, I didn't see the value in anyone else worrying about me. Weren’t we all in pain? But also, it was a conscious effort to not ask for help. To not depend on someone enough to believe they will stick around. Something about an abandonment wound, I suppose. And so, just as the age old playbook laid it out, I’d abandon myself. An act with familiarity I have grown to find comfort in, I’d gloss over my needs and move forward towards tending to someone else’s. But no matter how many times I’d dangerously settle into its muscle memory, I’d forget just how much energy this particular performance exerted.

At the clinic, I was honest. I was challenging this wound. I’d tell my physical therapist what was hurting. How long the aches had been swallowing my hours. How I couldn’t leave my bed the day before. How every small indent in the pavement was being absorbed into my hips on the drive to the store earlier that week. How some days I felt chewed up and pleaded with God to be spit out. How how how how how. 

During multiple sessions, I’d break down in tears. I’d allow my physical therapist to hold my hand and attempt to trust him when he’d say my body is not betraying me. It simply needs me to trust it is on its own journey finding its way back to me. And even if it is moving differently, it is moving towards me. I’d allow myself to come undone and didn’t attempt to comfort him or anyone else in the process. While I was aware that the transactional setting may be why it was easier for me to do so, I’d accept help. I’d ask for help. I’d ask for grace. 

I shift on the couch to hug him goodbye. This is a mark to the end of one plane our relationship had delicately, honestly danced in. Our night is ending sooner than I had imagined. I had planned to make us chai in the morning and had already prepped dough for scones. But his mind had caught up with his body. And my body had always known that when we met, he already had one foot out the door. Never in a way that longed to hatch an intentional, hurtful escape route. But in a way where that foot just had always known he had a journeying to move his own body towards. His mind just needed some time to catch up, to accept.

As I settle into his embrace, my upper back cracks interrupting our silence. A release. Like plenty of other times, he remarks on the cracks along my vertebrae – it wants to be known. A cascade of tiny explosions close up what little space remains between us two. I lean my body towards him even further. Breathing into his shoulder, I quietly ask him to hold me tighter. I lean into his touch. I ask him to try and crack the rest of my back. He obliges to my intimate, vulnerable request. 

I know there would be no more cracks to break free under his touch. The push and pull of our relationship on this plane had already reached its shearing point. On my couch, we already began our journeyings on different, separate planes. But before both of my feet are on its way out, I linger in his arms wanting to memorize this feeling. I just want to be held tenderly in the way I had began to come to enjoy a little longer. To be held with a touch that I trusted enough to ask for, to accept. 

Sometimes the cadence of a goodbye is subtle in its preciousness. Quiet. There is nothing dramatic or devastating that pulls it into our worlds. Sometimes, it just is. And we just are. But if we listen close enough, there are buzzes and hums that come into focus. We feel them reverberating through our bodies. It is bone deep. It is a honesty we cannot deny. So I continue my journeying on my own plane. Here, I pull my legs into my chest and hug them. Tell my body how much I love her. How grateful I am she uncovers herself infront of me every morning and every night. How she is daring herself to trust each evolution of her being. How beautiful it is to trust someone even if it is just touch and go. How how how how how.

The dog days of summer had arrived early that year. Only June, and my thighs were stuck to the hard candy blue plastic chairs of the laundromat. My palms, a year-round promise of perspiration, attempted to dry themselves on my legs. No one was watching, yet still, my fingertips coyly transformed a scratch to a wipe. But sweat on sweat was just more sweat. If I wanted to, I bet I could have wrung my hair leaving it parched. Rendered enough water, salted like the ocean, to fill a pool. My head, with ears that had yet to grow in, would hang over a chlorinated pool, pH level somewhere between 7 and 7.6, sitting behind someone’s perfect colonial house in suburban central Massachusetts. One with a basketball hoop at the end of an uncracked asphalt driveway ushering towards the American Dream. I could have made something useful of all this waste, I thought. I could have, but there was no pool that needed me. The colonial homes remained locked. And I was sitting in a hard candy blue plastic chair of the laundromat.

A Top 40s symphony was squashed to dust under the drum of tumble in commercial sized washers. In cascading cycles, the consistent monotony hummed to me as the dryers pumped hot air through flexible aluminum vents out of the building. But the air remained just air – it returned to me as an occasional breeze. So I sat in the makeshift waiting room of the laundromat, at home in my own puddle. 

I was comfortable enough. Reprieve was fleeting but welcome. Merciful as it came through the glass front door propped open with a folded sliver of cardboard. One man’s trash, this girl’s savior. Days away from turning fourteen, the age where high school begins, my middle school love had softly faded in the rear view. I only looked forward.

Outdated and dog-eared, the magazines that didn’t find their way to our mailbox in Worcester were mine for the taking here. But I settled for borrowing. Browsing. There was a quintessential New England arts and culture magazine that I flipped through, Newport something. Quickly, I realized there was a world of museums and music that was not mine. I combed through, flipping pages, paying special attention to the bookmarked corners. Someone who, at the very least, I shared a laundromat with felt there was something worthwhile to come back to. Surely, there would be one thing in this foreign publication that would ring familiar.

An ad came into view: Newport Folk Festival. I was at the age where concerts had come into view as a possibility, somewhere Appa would drive me and my friends to. Wait hours in a parking lot or a neighboring Dunkins until it was time to collect a group of girls. My friends and I would be dizzy with yet another “greatest night of my life”. I was living the American Dream. 

But this wasn’t just a concert. This was a festival. It was big. Its size and duration were far more impressive than a single concert. That must have added a unique level of importance. While the idea of a concert, the big, important one, was familiar enough, I still felt lost in the list of musicians slated to perform. Until I came across one name – Brandi Carlile.

Before the age of music streaming, I consumed all my music on YouTube. At 13 years old, I was in a daily deep dive, unmonitored exploration. I was too nervous to stray into anything risqué, but the thrill of finding new music did the trick for me. 

Brandi Carlile’s “Fall Apart Again” was a fast favorite. Even at a young age, I was reeled in by any semblance of nostalgia carried through a vessel of vulnerability. It always cut through me. While I am not sure there was a particular person I could tie it to, the song had me believing I could place their face on the tip of my tongue. It was only a matter of time. I gave myself a moment to revel in the dream – Brandi looking right at me as she’d sing, “You fall apart again, and you can’t find a friend”. A sea breeze, actually salted from the ocean, would grab hold of my hand, speaking to the loneliness I had felt at 13 years old, the loneliness I did not know how to spend time with. She would be that friend. And I could be her friend. I loved concerts. I loved something bigger than my life that was anything but my life. But I was just almost 14. I had no job. We were in a recession. And my parents’ were in the middle of a divorce. I was perceptive enough to know this was an ask I could not afford. 

January 2022:

Joni Mitchell’s entire discography was removed from Spotify in January 2022 to protest the streaming service platforming the Joe Rogan Experience, which she described as a podcast with “baseless conspiracy theories and a concerning history of broadcasting misinformation, particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic”. Standing in solidarity with Neil Young as well as the global scientific and medical communities, I understood the gravity of this protest. But still, her album Blue with the timeless “A Case of You” was a staple in my life. The immense loss was felt. 

July 2022:

Eleven years later, the dog days of summer took their sweet time this time around. I welcomed a pace, languid but still tumbling head over heels in excitement during the summer of 2022. Everything that got caught the under light shined brand new. I was blinded. In refusal to sit in the dormancy of post-grad meets a break-up meets a lay-off meets a global pandemic, I crawled out of my corner, unsatisfied with silence I’d settled in for far too long. There, I trusted the sun. Even as it left a deafening burn, I knew aloe was in arms reach. I was content in savoring fruit for lunch, leaning my head back, ears finally grown in, over the wooden railing of my parents’ deck. I had let its sweetness drip down my palm, a confident current parting its scent past my wrist, down my forearm til it kissed a goodbye to my elbow and caught air, settling to the soft of the dirt below. 

Brandi Carlile had just performed at Newport Folk Festival in July 2022. Appa was in the early weeks of recovery after his knee replacement surgery. I, his caretaker and daughter, was tending to him. I, his caretaker and daughter, was overwhelmed and fell short so my brother flew in from Dallas to help at the last minute. Unable to discern an extended hand from a slap, I quietly punished myself. Simultaneously, I had one foot cemented in guilt, one foot firmly kicking my parents’ front door open. In September, I’d be moving to Chicago. Living in a new state for the first time in my life. A flight away from home and a chance to listen to Blue on my own. To figure out what my purpose under this unforgiving sun was. A year of planning and saving up had passed – the limits of treats and pleasure were strict in my mind at all times. Once again, I was perceptive enough to know that a ticket to Newport Folk Festival to see Brandi, was an ask of myself I could not afford. 

“Do not watch until you’re ready to cry.” Twist my arm. He sent me a video of Joni singing “Both Sides of Now” along with Brandi, her friend. It was Joni’s first time back to the festival in 53 years. He told me about how he was a puddle when he was at the show bearing witness to what I could only imagine was a euphoric experience. I was sitting in my parked car across from the tennis courts at the bottom of my parents’ street. I don’t remember where I was coming from, but I imagine I’d needed a moment before opening the front door. Joni, as the world knows, is nothing short of a miracle. I sat smiling at my phone. The next video prompted by YouTube is “A Case of You At Newport”. Yet again, a new life with this song had been born.

In music lineages, when artists speak to each other in their work, a transcendent magic is added into the world. It is holy. Writers thank each other in their acknowledgements. Poets, especially, have pages of chosen family listed, known and unknown in their worlds, to thank for raising them, loving them, guiding them. Their romantics are never ending, I would know. With music, these peeks into lineages are sometimes quieter. A more subtle hum that still rings obvious in its gratitude and existence. “Bags” by Clairo never fails to enchant me with “pour your glass of wine/ Mitchell told me I should be just fine / cases under the bed / spill to open, let rush to my head”. This cheeky nod to Joni always makes me grin. I’m in on it. The secret, the mystery, the key. 

During the summer of 2022, I was not sure what it meant to date casually, and, in hindsight, it was very clear he had no idea of it either. Much later, the sunkissed butterflies unfurled themselves as anxiety when I reflected on his lack of consistency. Desire can only stay warm for so long before it leaves a burn. I had not yet realized that it was not a large ask for someone to be sure of you. Nor was it too much to want. But in those moments, we’d talk about music the way we did when we were 13, the age we had met each other. When I’d wait in earnest for his screen name to flash to life on AIM instant messenger. When Lady A, formerly Lady Antebellum, had just come out with “Need You Now”, and he was dating my best friend. I’m sure neither of them knew what it was to date then. So little changes in thirteen years. 

I told him about the Mistki show I was just at. How I quietly cried next to Caitlin feeling otherworldly. I didn’t tell him about how someone in the crowd was passing around a communal tallboy of Bud Light – I was too high to remember why I shouldn’t drink a communal tallboy of Bud Light. I didn’t tell him about the short stack of pancakes me and Caitlin got at the IHop in Allston, an esteemed establishment that is no longer with us. I didn’t tell him that I had missed him. That the intensity of what I’d felt for him was both exhilarating and devastating, and how, though I knew deep down I was settling for far less than what I wanted or deserved, I was willing to come back for more and more of less and less. I didn’t have to tell him this, of course. He knew. And anyways, he had fallen asleep on his phone while we were texting. The first time I recognized he had left me hanging. 

June 2023:

On my 27th birthday in the summer of 2023, I saw Clairo perform at a festival in Chicago. My bills were the highest they’ve ever been, but I knew this festival ticket was an ask of myself I could afford. Or at the very least, I would allow myself to afford. “Bags” is Clairo’s “Case of You”. The most popular song in her discography. The one that people will know whether or not they know her name. It holds its weight and carries a similar nostalgia that makes me want to scream out of sheer glee. Hundreds of us, stuck together in the humidity of late June air, were in on this massive, feral conversation with Joni. Clairo was kind enough to share Joni's reassurance. And somehow, there was enough room and time for us all to echo it back just in case there was a need for affirmation that, indeed, we all would be just fine.

I got home from the show and wanted to let him in on Clairo’s secret. I wanted to tell him that I missed him. Or the version of him I once knew. Or the version of myself I once was. But it was my birthday. And it felt too honest of a share, too romantic, for someone who had barely kept in touch with me. Nevertheless, I still felt romantic, as a poet does. I let my conversation with Joni, Clairo, and a few hundred people stay private and did not hand him the keys. 

January 2023:

Six months prior to seeing Clairo on my birthday, I wrote a poem about the summer of 2022, wrapped up in a new pace, old face. “Summer of ‘22 Bangers” was comprised of four stanzas that end in a line from my four most listened to songs. In my lines, I spoke with those musicians. Gathered them for a debrief on a summer full of miracles that left a burn. They sat with me and one of them, I can’t recall who, nudged a cool bottle of aloe towards me.

January 2024:

YouTube user, willt, will certainly see whatever form of the pearly gates of heaven that exists in their beliefs. Their channel contains hundreds of playlists that compile YouTube videos of songs into full albums. It isn’t clear to me why they have taken the time to do this, but, nevertheless, the arms of YouTube held me just as I had needed. Joni Mitchell’s Blue Full Album playlist brought to us by willt has been a corner of the internet I had warmly come back to in moments of nostalgia and necessity. In the years her music was not available to stream. It was here, I found myself at home as a child. It was here I existed  in the corner of my family’s living room in Worcester. Where the slightly lopsided desktop monitor put its faith in a folded sliver of cardboard attempting to hold it all together. If I listened close enough, I could even hear Amma’s stern warnings as I leaned my body backwards, testing my luck by balancing on the hind legs of the wooden kitchen chair. It is a miracle I had never fallen. 

Two years later at 27 years old, this bookmarked playlist followed me knowing to linger at my new home’s door frame. I’ve never known how to let go of something I’ve loved. I’ve never had the heart to watch it leave. So I’d coax it back in. Put some water on the kettle. We’d settle into the secondhand armchairs tucked in the corner of my living room in Chicago. The seats – deep enough, generous enough to draw my legs up and under me. A tangled mess I had no interest in unfurling to the world. Again, I would be back home in Worcester. I would still be home in Chicago. I would always at home with Joni.

March 2024:

It is without hesitation that I say “A Case of You” is a perfect song. There is no unique analysis or outpouring of my heart I can offer you. I am sure someone has already put it perfectly on some corner of the internet. I only ask for your trust in understanding that this song has found me in my life time and time again and touched me in a, simultaneously, familiar and all together new way. In the seizing intensity of heartache, fresh or a festering wound. In the dull ache of existential crisis prompting me to make sense of a clouded sense of purpose. In the forgiving days of late winter, where tulips shoot through softened soil and insist that I hold onto hope for a moment longer, something warmer is around the corner. “A Case of You” is a song that keeps giving, as it returns to me with newfound clarity on what it means to be alive. It is a haunting I hope never tires of seeking me out. 

On a Friday in late March in Chicago, the city groans at yet another snowfall postponing the promise of spring, but I am encased in its magic. I have no qualms. Joni Mitchell’s entire discography has returned onto Spotify just that morning. I afford myself a moment to remember him. I know parts of him will pour out of me into my lines from time to time. So I allow them to. But then, I let him pass like a thought. I consider taking the bus back to my apartment, but I don’t dare to pass this miracle up. I walk the three mile trek under fresh flakes and quietly cry. The warm yellow light of the record store gently asks me to come in. I accept, aware of the cliche I am happy to live out. My eyes beeline to the Ms – nestled against Blue is Joni Mitchell at Newport. I am still on my feet. 

Inches from my face, Liv’s eyes held me with concern. I was confused. We were sitting down on the floor of my sunroom in my home I had lived in for less than a month. Aside from location, I had told my realtor I would not compromise on having a sunroom; a staple of maintaining some semblance of stability in my precarious mental health during Chicago winters. A space stretch to a morning with a leisurely coffee and drink up a novel. A space to sit with my thoughts, cradling them with understanding and patience. A space I was very much still learning. So I studied the knolls of the hardwood beneath me. Endless ripples of chocolate brown varying in tightness subtly melting into the honeyed brown of the wood. Each plank, its own universe of chaos and calm. 

My eyes followed the stream of ripples til it landed on my legs haphazardly stretched out in front of me dusted in potting soil. Next to them, a pothos splayed out on its side. Its vines outstretched out in shock. My confusion transformed into panic. I turned to Liv and asked, “what happened?”

I had been interviewing Liv for an upcoming piece I was writing about her play she had written and performed in. Before the interview, I informed her that I had pulled my back the day before while lifting a beautiful yet awkwardly bulky fiddle leaf fig tree out of my car. I stole a glance at it standing tall in my sunroom as Liv explained that shortly after I got up from the chair I was sitting in during the interview, I passed out. I assumed it had something to do with forgetting to eat and drink during my busy work day compounded by the intense pain in my back. Which at that moment, I realized had intensified from the fall. Even the most miniscule move sent a shock of pain to my lower back. Liv slowly helped me up. After what felt like an eternity, we finally made it to my couch only feet away from the sunroom’s knolls. As I was laid out in a crumbled puddle of ache, I remembered, “Wait, I have a guy coming over for a date like right now.”

Liv’s compassion was difficult to allow in. From holding me in her arms, helping me walk to my couch, calling my date and filling him in on the situation at hand, ordering me food to eat and regain some strength – it felt like an impossible amount of kindness I would never be able to repay. Mentally, I was making note of each act of kindness and what would be an appropriate gesture to express my gratitude. While I was rounding out my list, I looked over my shoulder and watched her open the door for my date. 

Immediately, we laughed at how absurd this situation was as he cautiously sat down next to me equipped with a fruit punch Gatorade and crackers. Once Liv knew I was in safe hands, she headed out and our third date commenced. Seeing I was in far too much pain to do much else, I was grateful that past me had planned this very chill, very relaxed movie date on my couch. With his arm carefully wrapped around me, he continuously checked in to make sure the way my body leaned into his was not exacerbating the injury in my lower back. I kept smiling and saying I was ok. And for a while, I really was ok. I trusted my body to lean into his, a body that naturally curved into mine while steadily, safely holding me upright. 

We settled on a trashy reality show, my go-to genre of television. As we reeled into a dating show where people talked about commitment and marriage with silly, naive intensity, my body kept erupting into laughter at their absurdity. And with each laugh, a sharp bolt of pain seared at my spine. With each muscle spasm, my body sunk further into his. Each time, without fail, he held my body tightly unwilling to allow me to bear the torment on my own. As the spasms came and went, he continued checked in and asking how he could help. How he could alleviate this pain that I was trying my best to mask with jokes and a brave face. But soon enough, I realized this was more serious than I had initially chalked it up to be. 

Naturally, like on any other date, I called my dad. I knew it was probably time to go to the hospital, but I definitely couldn’t drive. My dad asked if someone else could drive me, a friend or a neighbor. I mentioned I was with someone. So he asked to talk to them. Naturally, like on any other date, he talks to my dad on the phone. Once we realized I simply could not move without being in insurmountable pain, my dad asks him to call me an ambulance and for his phone number so he ccould keep my dad updated during this ridiculous but scary ordeal. Repeatedly, I tell my date that he does not need to come to the hospital with me. This was not what he had signed up for. Repeatedly, he tells me he isn’t going to let me go through this alone. 

The muscle spasms continued at the ER into the early hours of the morning while the doctor tried a concoction of drugs to ease the pain. Nothing was working. It was strange feeling my body move erratically on its own while I simultaneously could not will it to do the smallest thing of sitting up nevermind stand or walk. I felt powerless and began to internally spiral over if I would ever regain control over my body again. But on the outside, I put up a lighthearted facade. I cracked jokes with every medical professional I came into contact with telling them all about how we are on a third date. I leaned into the silliness of the situation to put off the very real fears I was desperately trying to avoid. 

My dating history in the past few years was bleak. A spell of horrendous first dates, a situationship or two brimmed with devastation only a situationship could conjure, and some perfectly good moments with men where I, unfortunately and simply, felt nothing towards had marked my mid to late twenties. But now, I found myself laid up in an ER bed looking at a sweet man adorned in sleepy eyes talk to me about his own wild dating stories distracting me from the worst pain of my life. I felt my mind exhale.

I mean, it was romantic as hell. How could it not be? On our second date, we had established our relationship would be casual due to all the things we were attempting to juggle. We both recently came out of situations with heavy emotions and jumping into something serious wasn’t something we were ready for. And here we were – him sitting bedside with me at the ER holding my hand and instinctively tightening his grip as each muscle spasm made its relentless crusade through my body. All the while, he sent updates to my parents and was now talking to my best friend, Molly. After an especially long, trying day at work, she came to the hospital and sat bedside next to my date. I listened in on their conversation grateful for the allowance of simply being and knowing that my body was buoyed by the deep compassion in the room. 

It was refreshing to see a man who was romantically interested in me treat me like a human – with care and respect that is not hinged on any expectations. To know that sure he liked me enough to want to go on this date with me. But he was here at the ER with me because on a human level, there was love. It is one thing for a person to talk about their politics on a macro scale. To loudly shout their stances, what communities need support, how our politicians and systems were designed to fail us. To repost infographics on social media and rightfully so express collective anger and grief at the injustices that devastate our world. But it is another thing to live with those convictions in the personal. To live out those convictions with action. To see people as humans deserving of sincerity and not grow distant due to inconveniences and moments mired with discomfort. 

By 3:30am, I convinced my date to head home to get some sleep. He kissed me goodbye, and for a moment, I could not imagine feeling more wanted by another person. His tenderness ushered out any notion of sterility around us. The fluorescent lights were set to fire ablaze and emberred  out into a soft orange glow that surged into me. It almost felt strange to have this amount of kindness imparted on me by someone I barely know. To be able to be vulnerable around him and honest about finding comfort in him during a difficult moment. But as the early morning hours fast forwarded into the next day, and I was admitted into the main hospital, it was clear this kindness was always in abundance.

The minute visiting hours resumed, my community held me. Emily brushed my teeth and sat with me while I napped. Mary, my neighbor of a few short weeks, brought me my medication, deodorant, and clothes from home. Shalini took the hour train ride to the hospital just to bring me comforts only she would know of. Unable to stay awake, she let me rest and took notes on her phone of everything my medical team was saying. Updates on medication and test results. Suggestions on what to buy upon discharge. All neatly organized and shared in real time with my worried parents. My dad flew in from Massachusetts within hours and my heart could not handle the neverending love only a father can hold. I allowed myself to be his little girl for the weekend. Alex offered to pick me up from the hospital whenever I would be discharged. To stop by with Israa with food and love and reassurance that I would be ok.  My cousins, Sai and Kirthana, who were in town to visit me were gentle and understanding with a very modified weekend itinerary. They swapped a bike ride along the lake with doing dishes and taking out the trash, never expressing a breath of frustration. 

The abundance of love and help is still not easy for me to accept. There are still overwhelming moments I feel indebted to my people who never expect anything in return. Moments I do not feel worthy enough to be on the receiving end of. But I am willing to try.

In the past few years, I have learned safety is a non-negotiable for me in all of my relationships – familial, professional, platonic, romantic, and the inbetweens. And with time, I am understanding better what safety looks like in action. To be in relation to someone is to trust them. And I can only do that if I feel safety deeply embedded in our foundation. And in turn, I can be my most authentic self. I can be vulnerable. I can not just accept help but also ask can for it. I can let go of my mental lists of restitution. Rather, I can sit still. I can be overcome with gratitude. Let that be enough for the moment and trust that my love for them is clear.

Slowly, I settle my body into the same chair I had sat in when I interviewed Liv. Hold a mug of coffee and watch bikers commute to their jobs outside my window. Listen to the birds sing praise. A delicate devotional unknotting my thoughts for a moment of clarity. I look at the fiddle leaf fig tree. Admiring its magnificence, I send it a prayer of gratitude. For you and for myself. I slow down and savor the sun and knolls alike. The whirlwind rush of getting to know someone. How special it feels to feel delirious when thinking about him. How I want to send him pictures of the sunrise and all the silly little thoughts in my head. So I do. 

The thing is, I really did not want to go to Indianapolis. The three hour drive from Chicago is easy enough. In fact, it is quite easy. Really, any drive is an easy one when you know that your destination is worth the miles of gas, hours of life. If you leave early enough or late enough, whatever happens to fall into your perception of time, the most congestion you will find is somewhere between the Lincoln Park LaSalle exit on Lake Shore Drive and Gary, Indiana. Otherwise, it really just comes down to committing to stretches of asphalt slicing up farmland into a piecemeal mosaic. But a recent memory connected to Indianapolis left a sour taste in my mouth. After months of winter wind burning my skin, the harsh air finally had eased. Coming out to greet the world, I was finally starting to feel like myself again. The thing is, I was worried a reintroduction to the city would result in another acrid memory claiming space on my tongue.

From the jump, I had hoped my hometown Boston Celtics would play the Indiana Pacers. Living in Chicago, that’d be my best bet for a relatively affordable playoff ticket to see my team. My hope, sitting tall and wide-eyed, floated me towards also rooting for the Pacers in this playoff run. I had considered grabbing tickets to see them play up in Milwaukee for the first round, but I quickly shrugged off the thought. There wasn’t a game that worked well with my schedule, and I couldn’t convince myself it was worth a late night drive back home or paying for a hotel. So I held out. I released the want and sustained hope something better would come along. 

Even when they were up against the undeniable chemistry and charm of the New York Knicks, I still rooted for the Pacers. What can I say – I have grown a soft spot for these Midwest teams. Especially one like the Pacers. Young, quick, and hungry, this team has just been fun to watch this past year. And, of course, my ulterior motive was rooted in geography. Door to door, Gainsbridge Fieldhouse is just under 200 miles away from my home in Chicago. If you’re cruising 10 to 20 above the speed limit, it’s just over a three hour drive. So I set aside the thrill of the Nova Knicks and stuck with the Pacers. All this just for the thought of catching an Eastern Conference Finals (ECF) game with the Celtics only a, give or take, three hour drive away. And my commitment was worth it. 

Once the Pacers won their series against the Knicks and advanced to the ECF, my mind was clear. Midwest romantics, I’ve learned, are fleeting. The excitement and novelty burns out at some point. The investment towards something sustainable just hasn’t been made quite yet. But that’s ok. We had a good run, a fun time. It’s not that it didn’t mean anything, but it just wasn’t going to last forever. I knew from the jump that my rendezvous with the Pacers was a mere stop on the larger journey towards my one, true love – the Boston Celtics.

My affection for the Celtics is largely due to my best friend, Caitlin. As in any other retelling of a great friendship, that title doesn’t adequately explain the role we have held in each other’s lives. Often, when something happens in our lives, we are the first people we call. The size of the matter has always been irrelevant because we are known to make a world out of a moment. It’s what we do best. And without fail, we will find a way to discuss it for at least an hour. 

Caitlin is the hallmark of consistency, safety, and compassion. It is through our relationship that I have witnessed love, the action. How it simultaneously covers you and gives you space to breathe. Working with you to understand how that balance must evolve as we grow on our own paths. When I am unsure of myself, Caitlin offers so much more than support. She holds a mirror to my face and patiently sits with me until I begin to see a fraction of what she has always known. There is always time for each other. We will wait until the other knows it is safe to exhale. 

Being in a long distance friendship can, at times, be devastating. It has been several years since we lived in the same town, but in the past year and half, being a three hour flight away has proved to be trying. Often, I wish I could drive to her Boston apartment with an overnight bag. Of course, it’d be filled to the brim with an excessive amount of outfit options and skincare. Yet, I could never find enough room to squeeze in a tube of toothpaste. A few pairs of shoes would roll and rattle in my trunk on the drive over – a familiar hum setting the tone for whatever adventure we would make out of the day. But what I really miss the most is just walking into her home being goofy and distracting her, just for a moment, from whatever she had on her to-do list. Her husband, Josh, would look on as we would lose ourselves in wheezing laughter, as we would make a world out of a moment. Inevitably, he would join in on the sweet chaos. There just would be too much love in the room to not give into our joy. 

My origin story with Caitlin lands us in our freshman year of high school marked by our alarmingly unhealthy love for the Fox hit tv show, Glee. There have been times in my life where I likely would have said that I wish it were different. But thirteen years later, there is absolutely nothing I would change about our lives together. With a friendship that formed out of the shared unhinged fandom of Glee, it is unsurprising that we are Very Serious Celtics fans. Beyond the game, we share memes and highlights and convoluted inside jokes. Without fail, we take it all the tiniest bit too personal. Marcus Smart being traded last offseason? A deep mourning we both definitely took personally.

But this all to say, my love for the Celtics is really just an extension of my love for my best friend, Caitlin. When I watch a game, I think about how she is likely watching it too. I think about how no matter our distance, we will always live under the same NBA night sky illuminated by sneaker squeaks bouncing off the walls into the rafters through the seats of whatever stadium our boys are dreaming in.

As Memorial Day approaches, I weigh the decision of heading to Indianapolis for a game. The game; Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The game that could be what catapults the Celtics into the NBA Finals. I talked to Caitlin about it. She was aware of my hesitancy and never imparted judgment; there is not a moment of my life where she reduced it to something small or insignificant. She was sensitive and understanding to the fact that I simply felt this one deeply. She remained patient as we weighed the pros and cons together. After some thoughtful deliberation, she asked me to answer a question for myself. When would I ever see a possibly deciding ECF Game 4 with the Celtics for under $150 a ticket? The answer was clear. I was Indianapolis bound. 

It is a daily practice to allow myself to want the things I want. To trust I am worthy of receiving them. To trust I am capable of navigating the painful moments to find my way to the overwhelmingly joyous ones. I drive down thinking about how this moment is a culmination of faith and love, both from myself and my people who see me even when I cannot. I look forward through the windshield and take in the asphalt becoming one with the horizon. To both sides of me, I notice how the farmland this time around is green, full unlike my last visit in December. I slow down to the speed limit and bask in the romance of a solo trip to Indianapolis.

Once in town, I took in the sweetness of catching up with my friend Taylor at his bookstore. I took in the peculiar excitement that comes from an impromptu decision of him and his brother buying last minute tickets to the game a row behind me. I took in the easy camaraderie of catching an Uber with Pacers fans gushing about how excited they all are to just be here as I proudly wore my homemade Derrick White t-shirt with an image of his buzzer beater win in last year’s ECF Game 6 win against the Miami Heat. I took in the sweat glistened kids shooting hoops in front of Gainsbridge Fieldhouse. Darting back and forth in both green and yellow, I took in feeling the euphoria of a game that will always be rooted in love. An undeniable sweep of magic had seeped through every inch of this city in that moment. There was no other place I could imagine being. 

The game, of course, is close. The last five minutes of the game send my stomach to my throat. I am at the edge of my seat. As expected, I become an increasingly disheveled bundle of nerves and stress as the seconds drag on. With 4:56 on the clock, Tatum steps back and launches the ball into the hoop. Nothing but net – we are at a three-point game. I am on the edge of my seat. With 4:44 on the clock, White gains possession of the ball from Pacers’ Siakim. I am on my feet. The game picks up and holds a frantic pace in these last minutes with back and forth baskets, back and forth misses. There is no time to sit back down. But it is at 2:42 when Brown ties the game, I know I can trust my feet to hold me up. 

Back to back, White then Tatum misses three-pointers. But I trust this team. With 1:04 on the clock, Brown blocks Pacers’ Nembhard, rebounds to Horford, passes to Holiday. I am losing my voice and mind concurrently as he drives back down the court and passes to Brown. Eyes quick. He searches for an opening. Feet quick. He drives towards the hoop before passing to White. 45.4 seconds on the clock. Whatever is left of me is thrown at the court as White pulls out a glorious corner three point shot. This moment mirrors the moment to the exact day last year when White pulled out a corner three point buzzer beater shot in the ECF forcing a Game 7 against the Miami Heat; the moment that is printed on my t-shirt. History on my body and in front of my eyes. The Boston Celtics are up by three. 

The Boston Celtics win. Tatum throws up the ball into the rafters, the heavens. And we celebrate – glory and electricity surges in. I am in tears and on my feet in this moment, in this life. A new memory in this city is solidifying in real time. I look around, unable to take it all in fast enough. So I cruise. I bask. I feel my phone buzz. Caitlin is Facetiming me. She appears with Josh on the screen, and we scream. I pan the camera so they can cruise and bask with me. Catch the glimmers of green coming into focus as the yellow clears out of the stadium. I cannot hear anything she says to me. It doesn’t matter, though. The size of the moment is clear. We are under the same NBA night sky hearing the same sneaker squeaks bouncing off the walls into the rafters through the seats of Gainsbridge Fieldhouse. I am happy. I am proud. The Celtics have won the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals. And when something happens in our lives, we are the first people we call.

Somehow in my year and half living in the Midwest, I have grown devastatingly soft to several of its sports teams. Fear not, I have not forgotten about my Worcester, Massachusetts roots. The Boston pride is still in high gear much to many people’s disappointment. But I admit, there is something about how a Midwestern winter has me glued to a screen while my stomach, yet again, is begging for relief. 

I know, at the end of the day, we are all here to see our team win. See them through the end toward the promise of parades and bragging rights. Toward the promise of a season where you saw them leave it all on the court, and it was, in fact, enough. For the games where my favorite team isn’t playing, but I still have some non-monetary stakes, I’m just here for the love of the game.

Monday night’s New York Knicks versus Indiana Pacers second-round series opened up with the sweetest thrill. My phone was propped up against my laptop screen with a stream of the game as I finished up a report for work. I was attempting to justify why conduit sizes increased from 2” to 3” for a project out in Seattle. Not quite thrilling and certainly unable to hold my attention, my eyes inevitably locked in on the little screen. The screen of unbridled joy kept my eyes in a dance of darting, daring. 

There’s a lot about this game we can talk about. A never ending chest of lore to unpack and to write into the history books. There is a brotherhood, both blood and forged. The Toppin brothers sitting on opposite sides of the court for one. The affectionately dubbed Nova Knicks comprised of former Villanova teammates; Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Donte DiVencenzo, for another. The trio continued their breathtaking playoff run unfazed. Brunson had his fourth consecutive playoff game scoring 40+ points.  Hart somehow never left the court. DiVencenzo secured the Knicks past the finish line with a game-winning three pointer. Brotherhood aside, we could get into the refs’ calls, too. But listen, I don’t have all day. 

What I will likely remember over the fact that the Knicks won is how smooth as hell Obi Toppin is. With 47.1 seconds left in the 3rd quarter, Pacer’s power forward drilled the ball across the court, blazed past Hart, and pulled out an East Bay dunk on his former team. Gracefully, he threaded the ball through his legs before guiding it through the hoop. I was on my feet hollering. It was goofy. It was outlandish. It was foul. And it was so damn good. 

I am struck by his audacity. We have seen this signature move by him plenty of times in his collegiate and NBA careers, but for him to decide he is going to bring it out here? Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals? To choose to bring out that flashy move here? Loud and clear, Obi Toppin is telling us he’s just having fun with it.

This isn’t to be confused with the “cool girl” shtick. This isn’t pretending to be above the stakes. It isn’t feigning indifference – like you could care less. No, here, when we have fun with it, we are showing up authentically. Knowing what we want. Saying what we want. Clearly, moving towards what we want. But we are going to do it in such a way that joy is not an afterthought. It is the driving force.

Later this week, I’ll be in France on a trip I have been dreaming on for over three years. If you asked me a week ago, I was too stuck in my head to even attempt envisioning what this dream could look like. In the aftermath of spending far too long subscribed to the “cool girl” act, I was sitting in a pool of uncomfortable feelings. I hadn’t even known I was leaving myself behind over and over again. I was mourning. But I have the audacity to pick myself up and move because I love this life and myself too much to let this moment pass me. 

I am going to eat a fresh croissant at a bistro table and read James Baldwin. I am going to delight in how cliche it even may look. I am going to stare in awe at the Eiffel Tower – the real one in Paris! Not Vegas, baby! I’m going to jet off to the South of France and explore winding, pastel old towns, bathe under the sun on smooth rock beaches, and maybe even stay up all night dancing. May even have a rendezvous or two. Why not?

I’m just having fun with it.

Death does not scare me. Being maimed, physically or emotionally, terrifies me. But the end of my time on this planet is something I accepted at a young age. My dad’s e-mail signature has an outdated line, “Please recycle me after you print.” It also has a quote, “For everything and anything, there is an end.” Death is factual. A concrete outcome that no one can overthink their way out of. We are promised two things in this life; to be born and to die. Everything in between is a miracle. 

My friend and I consider the personal and political. The personal are the principles that inform  how we behave with ourselves and those we are directly in community with. The political, however, requires us to extend those principles we hold toward our larger communities, often ones with people we may never meet face to face. Often towards stakes that are far too high to ignore. These principles are grounded in our beliefs, morals, and ethics. Or, at that moment on the park bench, I thought, they should be.

Sometimes, the two realms of personal and political remain separate and do not align. I am frustrated because isn’t the personal political? Moreso, I am realizing how being on the receiving end of someone else’s inconsistencies can result in pain for me. As a general optimist, my unbridled hopefulness ends up hurting me here. I trust so deeply in one’s political convictions that an idea of them in the personal becomes truth in my head. Of course, the personal and political will be in exact alignment. I ignore the signs, some would call “red flags”, that try to shake me and say, “would a person who is capable of seeing you as a whole human really treat you this way?” 

But still, when I see goodness in someone, I am determined to find goodness in even their most complicated parts – their imperfect parts. Granting them the same grace multiple times. Extending olive branches in an one-sided exchange. Forgiving apologies that never left their lips. 

My wonted ignorance is a form of protection, really. My ego, driven by deep-rooted fears, puts up blinders that make it impossible to see things for what they are. I am too busy intellectualizing feelings when I could just be feeling them. My ego, silly and headstrong, takes the sun, a glowing ball of fire, and distorts its shine leaving me with haze. Control. My ego needs to control what is trying to come into view even if that means obscuring what is ahead in an effort to keep me safe. Safe from what? Oh, confronting those aforementioned deep-rooted fears.

The sun lowers itself into the horizon, and the haze begins to lift a bit. Aside from the occasional shift of which knee is pressed into my chest, I have settled comfortably on the bench. We talk about the call to prayer. We talk about our time in Muslim countries where we would hear that unmistakable miracle and witness those around us collect their bodies and souls to focus, to forgo, to surrender. 

As I drive home, the haze of the sun has given way to a gentle sunset. The sun has met the horizon. I listen to the new episode of Las Culturistas, my favorite podcast hosted by Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Caitlin, my best friend from home, introduced me to this podcast two years ago, and ever since, it has been a fortified string tethering us and our other friends from adolescence. The podcast promises kooky, dramatic, poignant, ridiculous, hilarious, and passionate. Really, it reminds me of all the parts of us that are, at times, working against each other but always belong together. Their guest for the week is Dua Lipa. She is promoting her new album that just dropped on Friday, Radical Optimism. A fitting title. As I listen, I cannot help but feel enamored by her fun-loving ease and how it meets her determination and striking emotional depth. By the end of the episode, I just know we would have the most life-changing trip to Ibiza, both the serene pockets of peace and thrilling late nights dancing, together.

Dua means love in Albanian. Dua means prayer in Arabic. But in line with that, a prayer in terms of a call or invitation. As she talks about this album, it is clear it is a surrender. It doesn’t attempt to glaze past the very real devastations we face in our lives. Rather, it invites us to surrender to them. To feel every devastation until we are ready to accept it is for what it is. To learn our lessons. Remember them. But not grow cold or numb or relinquish our power to them or the people who were vessels in our newfound knowledge. To move forward with action and  gratitude so we can transform and feel joy, feel fun despite it all. 

In terms of the personal and political, the frustration has subsided and made way for grace. We are all just figuring this out, right? All of us are taking whatever circumstances we were born into, miracles bestowed upon us, and attempting to make sense of it before we meet the threshold of the second promise of our lives. Here, I am attempting to practice grace. To remember everyone is on their very personal journeys just as I am. That everyone, at least the people leading with goodness, will make mistakes. Afterall, we are all just figuring this out.

For the personal, this does not excuse harmful behavior, but rather, leaves room for changed behavior. To stand tall in the reality of impact despite the innocence of intention is vital. If I were to waver here, I would bend and bend and bend until I broke. But instead, if I named the pain clearly, for myself or whomever I am witnessing goodness in, there’s an opportunity for acknowledgement, reflection, and action towards something different. This practice will always look different; a conversation, a reconciliation, a goodbye. Those are just a few possibilities. 

But whatever is chosen, I hold hope it leads to something more expansive than my mind could fathom. A kinder world. A more intentional world. A world where we can breathe and grow old. A world I, and so many others, are desperately trying to build in the inherited trauma and violence we are buried in. A world where our personal and political can move closer toward alignment so how we care, love, respect, witness, and fight for eachother is second nature.

I welcome death now. Ego death. 

I surrender and look at myself, fears and all, tenderly but straight on. I see a transformation budding. I put aside my righteousness that the personal and political will always align so I can give others, but also myself, grace while we figure out what feels most honest to ourselves and our needs. So I can take responsibility for what I feel, be brave and feel it, then decide what I want to do with it. Instead of setting myself up for inevitable disappointment, I want to take the people I love off the pedestals they never asked to be hoisted on. Back on ground, instead, we are beside each other. Close enough I can reach out for their face. 

Guided by Dua and dua, I move through this weekend. I am hurt and have hurt. In a perfect world, the personal and political would align but we are imperfect. The impact is still the impact. But the intention was always filled with goodness. And because of that, I leave the door to goodness ajar for anyone who wishes to walk through.  I allow myself this miracle so I can sustain the larger miracle – my life.

The finality of life opens a door. I feel hope for myself, for our world. In a grounded way, I feel hope that this is not our end. We are simply beginning again. And again. And again. The inbetween of the two things that are promised to us is our life – simply a series of miracles. Some are formed by choice. Some are formed by chance. So while I am here in the thick of this miracle, I may as well have fun.

Back in December, if you had asked me to consider any big, scary existential questions – who are you, what do you want, where do you want to be –  I could, at the very least, string together some semblance of coherence. With confidence, I could tell you I am working through the answers, slowly but surely. I could face them. That is to say, I had an idea of where my life was and where I wanted to move towards. Which is to say, I was fooling myself by thinking I had any of it figured out. 

I don’t say that to discredit myself. No, I say it with tenderness for that past self and for the myriad of selves my body has hosted these past four months. These days, I am coiled tightly into myself yet, somehow, so heartbreakingly far from myself. My body feels sunken into itself. And yet, I have been untethered. Fingertips extending into the ether trying to catch a thread of myself that I recognize. And I do. There are moments delight finds me. Dances around me and leaves in wonder at all this world has in it. All I have yet to touch. And yes, at times, there is joy. And excitement. But just as I begin to trust the gossamer of hope, fog surges in at my back. It never knocks when I linger at the doorway of my life and watch it let itself back in.

-

I am 100 days sober today. It is the last day of April, and I know I should feel more proud. But I mostly feel a little silly because I had never been someone who drank a lot. Through and through, I am a lightweight. My body can only hold so much before it gives out. But in the last year or so, I noticed how exhausted I would be after drinking. I would joke that after I turned 21, my body couldn’t handle alcohol, but at 27, I truly began to feel like my soul couldn’t handle it either. How I would feel aches cloud my joints. How those clouds would walk over into my mind. How my decisions had no chance of seeing my heart clearly. How utterly horrible I felt. And, of course, there was the heaviest feeling of all – guilt. The guilt for not being able to be present the next day would build up and spiral and tumble and catastrophize. My concept of time, how it is limited and not promised, burdens me enough while I am sober. So for the sake of giving myself clarity and relief, I decided I didn’t want to drink anymore. 

With love, oh, was I naive. To believe that this one thing that I already didn’t partake in often could catapult my life into the direction I wanted. I was never one to crack a cold one with the boys, so it was goofy to think that sipping on a Polar Seltzer in the company of my girls was drastic enough to change my life. That this newfound clarity would somehow move my hands with purpose to mold my life into the shape I have been trying to fit into. But the thing is, this clarity I gave myself just opened, no forced, my eyes to witness that I really have none of this figured out. And I likely never will. Sobriety does not tell you what you want. Magically, the things that plagued you before you stopped drinking do not become moot. It simply opens up more space for you to decide if you will choose to live your life or not.

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Friday night, Israa made me dinner. This is the kindest way someone can tell me they love me. It reminds me of my parents. It reminds me of dinners in our two-bedroom Worcester apartment. It reminds me of Worcester, my hometown and the last place I had felt most at home. We talked and talked and talked. As she sliced peppers for a stir-fry, I told her about how overwhelmed I have been. How confused and unsure I was. Part debrief, part bearing of soul. However, those often feel one in the same with me. As she scooped ice cream and arranged strawberries on a plate for dessert, I told her I do not know the way forward. 

I do not know how to give myself clarity when my mind will not rest and insists on running in circles on things I could have sworn were put to bed. No, I am so sure that I tucked in that fear. Gave it three of its favorite stuffed animals. Nuzzled them around its body, and I even read it two bedtime stories. I was emphatic and dramatic when embodying specific voices for each character. And, of course, I kissed it on its forehead and meant it when I said I love you. But the fear woke in the night. It had a terror and nervously came to me. It wanted me to soothe it. So here I am. Exhausted but I have no choice to let the fear wrap its body sweat drenched body around my side. In my sleep, it consumes me. I will wake with a sore jaw, evidence of another night I am grinding my bones away. I wonder how many more years I can get away with that. 

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When I first moved to Chicago, Caitlin and I did the roadtrip over from Massachusetts together. We played We’re Not Really Strangers, drank in the sunrise at Niagara Falls, wore matching Succession t-shirts, bookclubbed Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag, screeched along to so much Justin Bieber, and devoured episodes of our favorite podcast, Las Culturistas. It still is one of the most special moments of delight in my life. There was the luxury of stretching our legs at the Dunkin in Ohio and assembling sandwiches on the trunk of my Nissan. There was awe in the scenic route we took on accident through farm country. But soon enough, there was the bumper to bumper traffic in Gary, Indiana. Here, we had front row seats to the Chicago skyline. It was coming into view. On my left, I saw a sign for Interstate 290. It wasn’t the same road, but it was close enough to Interstate 290 in Worcester. I take in all the miles of asphalt arranged ahead of me and turn on the Chicago playlist I made. Angels by Chance the Rapper came into the car. I cried. I was almost home.

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The one place my mind seems to unravel to something manageable is when I am on a walk. In movement, I somehow forget about my body and the effort it takes to take care of it – to feed it three meals, stay hydrated, ask it to focus on work, convince it that, yes, it wants to go out and play with its friends. The effort to attach myself to my body ceases. I somehow just am. On these walks, I do my best writing. Here, the thoughts that are in my body can walk over to my mind and see my heart clearly. Which is to say, these thoughts find a place to land.

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After dropping Caitlin off at O’Hare, I stopped by the grocery store for the first time since moving to Chicago. I made the mistake of going to a store I was entirely unfamiliar with on a Sunday. Overwhelmed and overstimulated, I picked up a brick of parmesan, a yogurt, bananas, and ended up in the beverage aisle face to face with 8-packs of Polar Seltzer – Worcester’s own premier beverage. They were $5.99. My face got hot as tears threatened my vision.

I thought about Orson the Polar Bear, Polar Seltzer’s 25-foot tall inflatable mascot, that overlooks Interstate 290 in Worcester. I couldn’t recall if he is even still there. I had driven that strip of I-290 so many times that I naturally had taken his presence for granted and stopped seeking him out. At the beginning of the road trip to Chicago, we sped through I-290. Even now, I cannot recall his larger than life body. I was too focused on the miles of asphalt ahead of me as I left my home. 

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There are several churches in my Chicago neighborhood. Here, the pace slows down to a quiet calm that invites me to consider my thoughts even when I want to be miles away from them. A few of the churches leave their doors open after service hours. It feels strange that there are any locked in the first place, but on the off chance it is open, I walk in. There’s comfort in how two things can be true. This space can hold emptiness and solitude. This space can hold hope and joy. It reminds me of the countless hours I spent in my elementary and middle school’s peach walled chapel. I thumb through hymnals from time to time and find the same songs I used to sing in my squeaky voice. Sometimes I kneel at the pews. Sometimes I walk myself through the stations of the cross. Often, I cry. Often, I try to make sense of this world we share. Always, I pray to a god that I haven’t named nor find the need to. 

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On my lunchtime walk yesterday, I passed an elementary school that is a part of one of the Catholic churches in my neighborhood. The students, maybe third graders, were out for recess. The flurry of plaid skirts and navy sweaters was a familiar sight. I welcomed it but did not linger. I noticed them in their unbridled joy just long enough for something in me to break. I saw myself.

Or, rather, a version of myself. A third grader. I am eight years old. The Red Sox have won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. The Curse of the Bambino is no more. I take pride in being the fastest student in my class to finish their multiplication table worksheet. My 100m freestyle time qualifies me for nationals on my swim team. I am kind and gentle and always asking questions. I am silly and do my hair in pigtails for picture day. I love my parents so much and think my heart could burst when I sit in between them for Friday movie nights. A perfect fit. The thought of who I am, what I want, or where I want to be has never crossed my mind. I am too happy to think.

-

Israa checks in and asks how I am doing. I don’t have much to say other than that I feel stuck, and I don’t know what I need. She reminds me of what she told me on Friday night. One question a day. What do I want to answer for myself today?

I am still scattered, but I am trying to collect the pieces. It is the last day of April. The tulips that bloomed earlier in the month are now turned out. They look as if their hearts were torn out of their centers — opened up beyond comfort. Did April do a number on you, too? 

And yet, I still stop and admire them on my walk. Their splayed reds are still delicate, still bold. They dare to stand firmly in their stalks coloring the gray sky behind it. And the young green of the trees, too. They have rushed in to fill all that is gray and unclear. The tulips give way to company. I see it clearly.

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Can I stop lingering at the doorway of my life and just allow myself in? 

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I call Appa, my dad and best friend. He is at work in Worcester. He is a scientist and the smartest person I know. I have been dodging his calls for days – feeling the world at my throat and guilt in my chest. I tell him it’s been a long time since I’ve felt okay. He tells me he had a feeling. He, of course, invites me home.

There are days when it cannot be held in the pristine whips of clouds. No, there are times all it can muster is a thick cast of gray wherever it looks. Allows the sky to turn slate and weigh on whatever it touches. And so, it rages in. Rainwater pools on the narrow street. Kisses the top of a curb’s head. Plummets to the sliver of grass separating the asphalt road from concrete sidewalk. Daggers the soft of the earth so quickly there is not enough time for it to permeate. To patiently navigate layers of soil and rock. The rain refuses to transform. It wants to be rain. Just rain. Livid and red hot. It will not play nice. No, right now, it is pissed off and spitting back at your face. 

It is not ready to become groundwater. It is not ready to become. So it sits on top of the dirt. Engulfs every blade of grass, weak and wavering in excuses. The sky is a sheet of rock. And the rain has held itself back for far too long. 

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I have long since let go of trying to understand the phenomenon that is water. Make sense of how vast it is. Try to comprehend how heavy all the water on this planet is. Map out its patterns to predict its next move. Attempt to decipher its thought process of when it chooses to heal and when to destroy. Rather, I take comfort in knowing it can swallow me whole. How it could envelope me in its enormity. But I know it won’t. I trust the water. I know it is on my side and just waiting for me to talk to it.

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Mnemonic devices were one of my favorite studying tools. I could string together a silly set of words in a phrase to memorize the wives of a lazy king or the stages of a fascinating scientific cycle. Here, on my own accord, I could be creative and carefree while cramming facts into my head.

My earliest memory of a mnemonic device is HOMES. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Eerie, and Superior; the Great Lakes. It is a common mnemonic device that I’m sure many students in the U.S. have come across. It stuck with me the way I remember the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. But mnemonic devices are less about learning or understanding and more about memorization. HOMES could never teach someone how both miraculous and devastating Lake Michigan is. 

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I live a few blocks from Lake Michigan. When I moved to Chicago, I didn’t realize how important being by the water would be. In a city so large, being unknown can feel overwhelming. Of course, there are positives to going undetected. Strangers will not ask why your face is red and eyes are swollen. You’re just another person on the train, on the street. If you keep your head down and avoid eye contact, you can blend in with the buildings. Blend in enough that you become the building. Towering over the city with acute clarity, you see it all for what it is even if no one can see you. 

But the lake always saw me. It could see through whatever cool girl facade I was trying on for size. It knew my sensitive heart was never indifferent and always hopeful, even to my own detriment. 

I have a habit of waking up early enough to catch the sunrise. I gather myself out of bed and make the quick walk to the water to witness my favorite part of the day; when the sun breaks the sky open and ushers in the promise of a new day. Every sunrise I see is a miracle. And every moment with the lake is a miracle.

I am reminded I built this life on a miracle. That I had wanted it so dearly, desperately. That at one point, it was just a dream. And now, I know I gave it to myself. Pursued a reality wholly mine. I allowed myself to feel whole with myself even as loneliness slinked on through. So on my best days and worst days, I sit on the rocks for the sunrise. I get close enough to the waves where spurts of water reach out and touch me. Here, the fresh water heals.

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I remember how excited I was for the first day of 7th grade. I could not stop smiling. Over the summer, my feet had grown and justified the new Mary Janes on my feet. Barely skimming the ground from my seat at my desk in my homeroom, there was just enough room to kick my feet in pure glee. I was so happy to be back. I looked around at the room that simultaneously felt familiar and brand new. Here, I’d settle back into the comfort of PEMDAS, the mnemonic device we learned in the 6th grade. The formulaic approach to untangling stringy algebra problems. Here, my friends and I would pick up where we left off back in June. We would find new things to giggle over. New memories cocooned in innocence to savor. September air is always full of promise. I continued looking around the room and noticed the new boy in my class. He turned to me and smiled. He seemed sweet. 

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In the eye of the storm, there is a calm. It is a deceiving calm, though. One that cannot be trusted, I am learning. Here, one might even catch a sliver of promise. A rare moment that may look like two old friends catching up. It may even look more intimate like a third date. Maybe fourth. It may appear so intimate that an onlooker could see it as a moment of genuine, honest connection that can exist despite distances and differences. And maybe, that is all somewhat true. Somewhere in the years that have passed and the lives that have changed, the connection can be unearthed and still feel special. But that calm is not the only reality. A few paces out of the eye, I see the storm for what the storm is; chaotic, selfish, disappointing, and futile. It is callous with people who care for it.

Even now after its whiplash, I look at the storm and offer it a hat. It is visiting Chicago and suggests a walk by the lake. For a few moments, I consider the consequences of walking the storm along my favorite part of the city. My city. I wonder how much one new memory could sour the countless ones I have had on this very same path. The memories that helped me build my life here. My life where I am intentional, thoughtful, and generous to myself and the people I love. All the things the storm does not extend to me. Does not want to extend to me. 

Admitting that breaks my heart. I feel embarrassed and small knowing that the storm does not care for me. I feel heartbroken wondering if it ever did. The walls I haphazardly built up a few hours ago when I got word the storm was on its way to me remain upright, but still, I meet it with love. Enough love to know how the wind off Lake Michigan blazes an unforgiving, icy howl in one’s ears even on a spring afternoon. Enough love to offer it a hat. 

The storm cannot see me. I know at its heart, it is sweet. It may even turn to me and smile. And I haven’t forgotten the moments of tenderness that I still believe were rooted in something real. In fact, I remember it all with acute clarity. But it is still a storm. It still wreaks havoc on its path – careless and inconsiderate. It moves too erratically for me to feel safe and secure, the bare minimum. With the storm, my feet cannot touch the ground. We are face to face, but it still cannot see me and will never know me. 

And somehow still, I see how beautiful the storm is. I could cry thinking about how I was once so excited to see it. Once so trusting of its goodness. We sit at the edge of the water at the end of the pier together. My feet hang over the edge. I want to reach out and touch its face like I have before. Be tender and soft in the way only I can be. Forgive the ways it has hurt me and made me feel insignificant, disposable. But my walls, haphazard construction and all, are still upright because I remember this feeling with acute clarity. It is a memory I have had with the storm before. In fact, I am certain I have felt this memory with the storm play out from time to time. I can no longer suppress it.  This time, any trust I had put into the storm has dissipated.

My hand remains at my side. And my heart breaks. I know the storm is incapable of sitting with me to watch the sunrise. It cannot fathom what peace it is missing out on.

-

Michelle holds me. Her arms engulf me, and she collects my body of tears. My body is 60% water, but she does not allow me to drown within myself. She shows up, follows through, and never keeps me waiting. Here, I know I am safe and secure. The bare minimum holds the weight of the world. It is vast and all consuming. The weight of water feels tangible here. It tells the slate of the sky it can rest. That it knows how exhausted it is. That here, there is kindness I can trust. So the slate calls it a day. The rain is worn out from raging. The water in my body settles. Anchoring me, my two feet touch the ground.

–

Today, I am not the rain. The clouds line the horizon, and I am worried the sunrise will be bleak. But I trust my eyes to move north the slightest bit, to look beyond where I am used to settling. I allow myself more because I deserve more. There is a slit of horizon where the clouds have dispersed. And the sun rises. She is magnificent over Lake Michigan. The gentle waves in this great lake come up for air. They pull me in and cover me. They say it’s nice to see me. And I trust it. These waves are so gentle and kind. They wait until I am ready. They let me speak. 

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No need to haul any documentation. Leave your unorganized receipts at home undusted. It will be known. The secondhand Catholic guilt will cut through any room before you arrive. And it sure as hell will know to linger long after you’ve left.

My Indian immigrant household operated off of a scarcity mindset fueled by a western world mercilessly prodding at their tender bodies and minds insisting they continuously prove their worth. My parents believed in order to live in the U.S., to stay alive in the U.S., they needed to be exceptional. The lack of opportunities to pull them out of poverty and toward financial mobility would not be found in their homeland, Tamil Nadu. So they emigrated.

This better life they sought—a race—was buoyed by the understanding that education comes first. So naturally, my brother and I, both raised Hindus, were plopped into Catholic school encased in tartan plaid, white button-ups, and khakis. My experience in a predominantly white school during some of the most formative years was inevitably complicated. My beliefs of who my gods were and what religion meant to me was haphazardly flung up into the air – only now has it landed on the soft of the earth. Only now is it close enough for me to consider. 

My proximity to generational wealth was palpable yet still completely foreign. The life I lived in my family’s two-bedroom apartment felt abundant, was abundant. The generosity of the synthetic carpet warming and transforming into a sun spot under me on a quiet weekend morning brings me to tears. However, very different tears still form when thinking about the cruel look on a friend’s face when they visited my home for the first and last time. The home my parents built from their fierce love I am certain I will never experience from anyone else on this entire planet was on display for eyes that could not open.

Of course, it is complicated. On one hand, I have benefited from receiving a strong education and impeccable penmanship. On the other hand, at 27, there are still therapy co-pays that are dedicated to unraveling those years and its aftereffects on a first generation Indian-American girl. Funny how the tuition bill my parents received didn’t have an asterisk denoting this inevitable future hidden cost. 

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From a young age, my affection for reading was enthusiastically encouraged. I have fond memories of spending Saturdays at the public library with my entire family. Letting my gentle fingers dance, sometimes even rest, on spines of hardcovers in their plastic jackets. A quiet crackle beneath my fingertips; a controlled explosion. Entire universes were tangible here. The only thing between me and them was time I needed to read. Even now, I find myself overwhelmed by the reality that I will never be able to read every book I want to read in this lifetime. This truth overwhelms me. But from that young age, I found ways to sneak a read. 

In middle school, I was Team Edward. Proudly, I went all in for him – his mystique, his glittering skin. I was committed. So committed that I was ready to devour reading the Twilight series in spite of Amma deeming those books, the ones that got a bit too spicy for her liking, as off limits. Still, I snuck a read. I placed all 629 pages of Eclipse into the literal Holy Bible and read away. This was perhaps my earliest form of sex education. Catholic school’s version was abstinence sprinkled in with terrifying abortion propaganda. In all fairness, I was trying to round out my education because education comes first. 

Now I am sure Amma noticed. And if she didn’t, it’s because she was a working mother with a neverending list of responsibilities I cannot begin to fathom. Nevertheless, the shame and guilt I felt from lying to her was heavy. So heavy I tried to lighten it by helping out around the house a little extra. I washed the dishes without being asked or announcing they are done. I did not dare to complain about my lunch even though I really do not like Red Delicious apples. I let bygones be bygones in fights with my brother even though my sensitive heart was aching. Without realizing what I was doing, I started to believe I only deserved to be quiet in my life.

-

Indians and the Irish? We are kin. That’s the result of surviving British colonization – my people are my people despite our differences. So of course, I am well-versed in the Irish Goodbye. At an age where my knees creak and feet feel tender when I wake up, I no longer have much interest in nights out. But on the rare occasion I am out past my bedtime in somewhat sensible shoes, I do know that when I have hit a wall and have had my fill, I will leave. There is no rhyme or reason on who is alerted of my slick departure. In most cases, I likely just go. Quietly. The fuss and prolonged farewells when I know my soul wants mascara extracted off each eyelash and my body tucked safely beneath my sheets is something I don’t have the patience for. So I go. I drive myself back or call an Uber and get comfortable with just myself. I might send a text to one friend and say I’m on my way home, and I had so much fun. I even mean it. 

Lately, I’ve been noticing I don’t even make it to the bar. Or the dinner. Or my friend’s apartment. Or the dance studio. Or the open mic. Or the grocery store. Or my desk. Before I even have the chance to avoid the fuss and prolonged farewells, I have made the decision I will not be showing up to my life. This is how I manage my loneliness. I vehemently refuse it even before it can utter a syllable of protest. I withdraw from connection and community—the very one I build my life around. It comes from the idea that I have control over my isolation but not my loneliness. The loneliness will find a way to me regardless of what I do. It will sneak up in any climate no matter what excitement is penned on my calendar. But my isolation? I choose when and how that plays out. So I pull back from my world. So I grow smaller and fold into myself. So I listen to a story, a universe in my head that tells me if I do not even show up, how could I feel the devastation of someone I love not noticing that I have left? Of someone I love leaving me before I am ready to let go?

-

It was not for the American highway system sprawling through states. Or American cul-de-sacs in white picket fence-lined neighborhoods. Definitely not for the American beef burgers oozing heart disease onto generously buttered buns. Amma and Appa chose a life of constant change and drastic upheaval several time zones away from their families and communities for their children, me and my brother. Before we were even born, they knew their shot to give us a life, a beautiful life, a better life than anything they could imagine for themselves, would require them to sacrifice their own comforts of familiarity. The very things that make this life bearable, often in a world so bitter and cold. I am overwhelmed with gratitude that two humans who did not even know me or my existence had loved me so deeply that they believed I was worthy of living such a full life.

Of course, I will still lean into the Irish Goodbyes at parties, even the ones I avoid going to. But I will be committed to the practice of staying here and attempting to enjoy this life that is the result of generations of love. I will be committed to figuring out how to stay despite the guilt and shame that overwhelms. There is no destination for me to exit to. And just maybe there will be days where I don’t want to quietly leave. I will show up, enjoy the party, and tell people who love me when I am ready to go home. I’ll even let them embrace me in whatever state I am in. I will trust when they say they are happy I came. 

-

It is Easter Sunday. He has risen. His blood and covenant has saved His people from their sins. And I have spent the better part of the weekend under the cast of existential dread that has unforgivingly loomed above me for the majority of the year. I had told myself I was going to be productive. Write a couple essays, revise some poems. Instead, I canceled plans and stayed in bed. Looking at me from my side table is a framed photo of me and my parents. I am six years old, I love to read, and the word “loneliness” is not yet in my vocabulary.  I put the shame aside, sit up in my bed, and call my best friend, Kelsey. Of course, I unravel but stay upright. She tells me she is so happy I called.