#49 it goes if you let it
all these signs, on time
Most of this I wrote in January, or at least, the thoughts were sparked then. I’m practising releasing drafts into the world, even if belated, so here you get a bit of a sense of how my year began.
Also: at the start of the year, I removed the paywall on past posts—so for now, you will be able to access all my interviews with inspiring creatives, personal pieces, and the cuties spotted series!
It’s been torrential rain for days, weeks on end. I am driving, Olivia Dean’s live album playing. Every car slower. People more cautious, patient. The mutual slowing down somehow makes me feel we’re more connected—I want to believe we are looking out for each other and not just ourselves. It almost makes me prefer driving this way.
The album was recorded at her show last year at the Eventim Apollo in London—a show I almost didn’t make. For years, I had deprived myself of gigs, films, and the likes of, that I got used to living without. In that time, I found myself cynical and over-critical of everything, a symptom of being shredded to a shell of myself, as a friend astutely pointed out. Naturally, I drew these links only in its aftermath, thankful that life has taken such a turn. Watching Olivia Dean that night, it hit me that it was three years ago to the day since I had left that relationship that wore me down for all that time. Then, gratification and comfort washed over me as I thought about the days that followed—an unwavering sureness I have within, all that I have chosen and experience, the love I have allowed in.
She introduces the titular track, It’s a song about just allowing stuff to just go the way it’s going to go, you really can’t control everything in your life, so stop trying, okay? Just relax. This is Messy.
Trying to make the shapes you're dying to see
Always kept it tidy
Never really known the right shapes to be
It goes if you let it
It's okay to regret it
I'm on your side
No need to be ready
It's okay if it's messy
I'm on your side
The past couple months have been filled with reminders that you have to let things reveal themselves. Though most plans largely manifest, they come with all these moments that I could, of course, not anticipate. And when it comes to interactions, most of what I imagine never actually play out, no matter how well thought out. In that same vein, you can’t fast-track getting to know someone through a series of questions or by downloading personal histories. It takes actions over time—maybe both actions and words—unfolding in layers. Things fall together, and even when apart, always for the better.
From my weekly reflection two months ago now:
i have this vision of how i want life to be. but rather than trying to fit my life into that, i just got to live it in the best way.
for example, with my desire to root, i do think if i keep moving around, then i'd never get there. yet, when faced with a decision in the present, the better choice is always to leave/not to stay.
i also realised: it's not gonna happen if it's not gonna happen. besides staying open to possibilities, what comes is out of my control.
instead of trying to achieve a version of a life i have in my head, why not focus on doing what's fulfilling for me in the day-to-day and be surprised by where it leads me? taking a step at a time; focus on how i feel in the present rather than where i think it's gonna lead me.
At the end of this spiel, I leave a quote by John Stuart Mill I chanced somewhere,
Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which makes it a living thing.
And, to risk over-quoting—yet this one feels apt, in case you needed another reminder (because it surely felt timely and comforting when I first read it):
No, no, there is nothing in the world that can be imagined in advance, not the slightest thing. Everything is made up of so many unique particulars that are impossible to foresee.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
A bunch of yellow tulips in a vase, a new addition to the top shelf to the right of my bed. As I look at them, watching how they fall, deciding which leaves to remove to make them sit just right, I realise: this is the first time I’ve had tulips for myself. Even though I say they’re my favourite flower. Over the next few weeks, I get unprompted flashbacks of how I have bought them before, just never for myself. Yellow and red ones for M and C, purple ones for C, and then for S and A.
I used to see tulips most regularly at Tesco, but I’d always think: it’s not really necessary, or the space isn’t really mine (living in a shared flat), or well, I don’t even have a vase. What fruitless thoughts, I can say now. At the start of this year—as arbitrary a beginning as any—I told myself: this is the year I will buy myself flowers. I’ll buy pyjamas sets (ideological, this one, as I still am unable to bring myself to do it). I’ll replace my bath towels, even if I could still make do with stained 15-year-old ones. Out with holding myself to wonted restraint; welcoming silly indulgence in moderation.
I think it’s good to question what you settle for sometimes, to revisit the thought to see if you still stand by it. Because even as the flowers wither, they bring me giddy joy, worth every dollar for the sight of them taking on their bendy lives.
The final book I started on last year, reading into the first days of this one, was The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit. It’s one of the few books I wasn’t recommended, one that simply caught my eye at the bookstore—feels like a rarity these days. It’s a meditation on family, memory, time. She writes about choosing adventure, and attending a residency at The Library of Water in Iceland (which I thought is just the best name for anything). It goes on about the stories we tell ourselves—the ones we hold too tightly and have to release to make room for new ones. And, with quiet assurance, she reminds us that progress is practically made little by little, its fruits appearing only in time.
Some hard-hitting wisdom from Solnit:
“What do you do when a wish is suddenly granted?”
“If we had said no, we would have always wondered what would have happened, we would have forever felt that we'd turn down a treasure that could have been ours, had turned down a chance to live—and what mattered is that we had said yes to adventure, to the unknown, to possibility.”
“Even earthquakes are the consequence of tensions built up over long spans of time, imperceptibly, incrementally. You don't notice the buildup, just the release. [...] much like life, where you gain distance on something, relapse, resolve, try again, and move along in stops, starts, and stutters.”
“You can't calculate in advance who will be saved, how effect ripples outward.”
“She is a motivational speaker forever revisiting her seven hours as a hostage, the story that is the currency of her new life.”
When I am restless, I scroll through photos on my phone. A notorious habit, though hardly the worst one. So it’s no surprise that when I wanted to reflect on last year, I turned to my Instagram story archives, revisiting the year in one sitting.
In September, during my final week in London for a while, I posted about my deep desire to root while thriving in a nomadic life. I do well in it, and honestly find so much contentment and fulfilment in the lessons I get to learn and live out. But there are parts I crave and feel completely dissonant from, days confronting and difficult. In July, I noted that I’d stayed in ten different places over three weeks. It’s freedom and privilege; adventure and discovery; an experience of tremendous growth I’d recommend to anyone. I get to create the conditions for entropy, let it reorder me. I savour it. But how would it feel to stay, to stop having to leave? When does staying become living?
That September morning, I had just moved again, there only for a week. At times like this, I’m deep in the unknown, the future a blank draft. While destabilising, I feel alive and energised. Eating breakfast, tracing my new route home, I could feel the edges of what I knew stretching outward, and felt compelled to make sense of it all in real time: (on moving around) i enjoy experiencing something slightly different each time, letting it inform my understanding of a place, or life, or myself. (on the tension between rooting and uprooting) going to let myself want things while also enjoying the present. Sitting in the café around the corner from my friends’ Vauxhall flat that morning, I wrote: this whole life is a gift.
gotta love an olivia dean shout out