You know the feeling when you wake up and simply feel off. Nothing really to it, or rather, you can’t make sense of it—yet, or ever.
In the afternoon, I read 70 pages of Good Material and fell into a post-lunch nap. Something I rarely do. I’m doing better listening to my body, without questioning it too much and learning to reserve judgement, because I’m not quite sure what the point is to all that pressure I put on myself.
I dreamt a weird dream: it’s me watching myself on a screen, donning different costumes, being ridiculed in front of an audience, or something like that. Waking up, convinced I must have been asleep for 50 minutes, I checked the time. 14:12. Only 20, OK. Took me a few more minutes to snap out of the morning haze, and then suddenly I’m so much better, ready to seize the day.
While getting ready to get out for some work done, I went through the usual four coffee shops I frequent on rotation in my head. By the end of it, I landed on something else, deciding to walk to one in my neighbourhood instead. Something I don’t remember doing, at least not in years.
Remember I was feeling out of it so I only had a small lunch. Famished, I looked through the food section of the menu. Desserts. No banana bread. I scanned again and Honey Paprika Chicken Wings called out to me. Sometimes you need $13 chicken wings.
Do you need a serving plate? I’m alone, so I intuitively said no. Then I realised that the wings fitted so snugly on the plate there was nowhere for bones to go. Slightly regretting my decision, I had a second chance when the server came by with my coffee, but I didn’t want to trouble her, and more than that, I didn’t want to come across as fickle. It’s okay, I thought, so what if they graze the uneaten wings, that’s what you can do only when you’re dining alone.
I plug in because I can’t stand the conversation happening next to me. Again something I rarely do, because as much I love how music transports and makes me feel things, my live in the moment, appreciate a place for what it is stubbornness imposes that I take in my surrounding sounds (unless they repulse). I resist the urge to bring music everywhere I go, because you might as well sit in a room and queue the playlists.
Piping hot, I dig in anyway. Resolved to not eat my wings with a fork and knife, I am going to let myself indulge in the way they should be eaten. My fingers burn but I’m too happy anyway about the decision to let myself have wings on a random Wednesday afternoon, following a series of mysterious decisions. They’re simple things no doubt—a post-lunch nap, walking instead of driving, visiting my neighbourhood coffee shop. Yet that’s the wonder of simple things: they hold the potential to take on new meaning.
Now one and a half wings in, I almost want to press the back arrow and let this sit in draft; this is a very mundane day in the life after all. But in character, I let it flow, giving in to my compulsion to do the thing I want to do in this moment. So, I must let you know I’m typing away with eight fingers, my left thumb and index floating, in a dance. Actually, make that six, my pinkies hardly partake. Typing in between every bite, as though there is a message to be found.
I go between this and reading Brandon’s latest
, thinking about how when someone recommends something to you, every time you listen or read or watch it, you’ll always think of them. I wonder who thinks about me when they’re listening or reading or watching something.I also get reminded of how my favourite parts of my days is still, as simple as it sounds, spent reading. I think I am as boring and interesting as that. I don’t mind a life spent reading—at any one time I’m going between newsletters (personal writing to fashion girlies to tech ugh), books (rn on my first Dolly Alderton), magazines (Apartamento #32 lays wrapped on my study), and too many online pubs (shoutout Byline). I envy the people who have made writing their jobs and their life’s work, and know that deep down my desire doesn’t stray far from theirs, but it’s going to take a lot of work to make it what I want to be. I refer to their lives and quietly take steps towards my version of that humbling reality. Coincidentally drawing parallels to Brandon’s words, I tell myself it’s okay that my path looks different to everyone else’s. It’s where I feel most grounded anyway.
If you can see it laid out in front of you, you can be sure it is someone else's path.
— Joseph Campbell
God. I just looked up. Seven surveillance cameras—five above me, two to my far right. Not an inch left untouched, unseen. How sad that we’ve lost all trust in people, that even the best of us believe we have to have cameras in our homes, right outside toilets, every corner of our shared space. People can no longer be trusted and every account needs proof. Not a way to live, I think. I want to believe that I can find a way of living that feels safe, enough for truths that need no further explanation.
A couple, in matching red and pink, sits down at the table before me. They look about 16 or 17. He sits opposite her, then changing his mind, walked over to snuggle up on the booth seat. He lays down the smallest bouquet of baby breath on the table, rest his arm around her. I think about teenage romance—how everything felt so incredibly intense, and you think maybe it’s hormones and being young and in love for the first time, but then you grow up and wonder how, by now, have you not outgrown the insecurities you formed in adolescence. How are you committing the same mistakes? They begin to take self-timer selfies. We never shake off our desire to record, remember, relive moments, it seems. Why are we so afraid of forgetting? Their food arrives. She takes out her digicam and just for the picture, he’s now seated across her, holding the baby bouquet. Some more pictures of the food. He returns next to her. I understand that any distance apart is distance apart. I wonder how their lives would change and if they will remember this moment forever.