comfort is a hard thing to find
on comfort, being sad and happy, good good good people. how did you fill in the blank?
hello my friend[s],
how are you today? december is here! we’re now onto the last month of the year, how did it treat you?
i wasn’t here last week- final papers are due, classes are extended, office hours need to be attended, and exams need to be studied for. i missed you though, i still thought about you. even now, this note must come late.
i’m laying in bed (i am very sleepy) listening to this album [which i should actually be making a presentation on right now….]. it’s 8:57 pm, there’s snow dusting the ground outside [remains from last night]. i’m eating gummies that i bought on the way home from the library this evening.
*&*&*&*&*
i had a lot of busy moments these last two weeks which i’m sure you had as well. the thing about busy moments is that they make calm moments even sweeter. my examples: the 15 minute break we get during 3 hour long classes [i filled my tuesday one with reading a newsletter and finishing a letter to my friend], wednesday night wine or ciders [at q’s arms, anytime after 8 pm, with nemo, warm warm warm lights, cold walk, “let’s meet at my place”, “can we do this for the rest of the year?”], 11:53 am on a saturday \debrief time with mascara crusted eyes and ratted ponytails\, chocolate cake and candied orange peels and mushroom risotto and pretty wine bottles (because they looked so beautiful they can’t be all bad), breakfast at 4:30 am when i can’t sleep, the post-lunch quiet time between classes.
these are the quiet times that don’t last long at all that i love. they come in short, sweet bursts, not unlike those moments of euphoria i get when i remember why i love life so much. i think we associate the word overwhelmed with stress a bit too much when you’re just as likely to be overwhelmed with joy.
two weeks ago i was not happy. i was filled to my brim with anxiety and sadness. my body ached and my brain hurt and i didn’t move for several days. when i could though, i took a walk. i went down to the ocean, the same route that i take when i want to chase the sunset to see it better. i layered up, put my favourite dress on top, buttoned my coat, took my sister’s mittens that my mom made. out the door i went, nothing on me but my phone and my headphones and my keys. when i made it down to the water, i sat on the rocks and paused my music. i watched the birds fly and i listened to the water lapping on the shore.
don’t get me wrong, i was still sad, but i was comforted.
i think comfort is a hard thing to find. i don’t really think it can be created, i think it’s more found- that’s why it’s so different for different people. i went to the ocean and i was sad but i thought of my oldest sister [how she goes to the ocean on the other side of the country when she’s happy and when she’s sad]. i thought of my oldest sister because she comforts me and so: i was comforted.
i sat by the ocean on a peninsula which means i could see another shore across from me. on that shore is a forest with tall tall dark trees. the wind blew and crows erupted from the middle of the trees. they screamed to each other and themselves. it looked just like when kiki dropped the toy cat in kiki’s delivery service. {i started playing the soundtrack}. i imagined what it would be like to be ursla, living in a cabin with the crows as friends, painting my heart in. i realized i already was kiki, moved to an oceanside town with a big clocktower all by herself. i kept finding strange similarities between myself and that movie, grasping for some familiar comfort.
something about these crows existing and me watching, trying to find a way to insert myself in, made my brain short circuit. i could’ve felt lonely at that moment, excluded from the birds, watching from a different shore. but somehow i wasn’t- instead, strangely enough, i cried. big fat tears rolled down my face as the crows shouted. a massive gust of wind came and i saw the birds spread their wings, i opened my arms and flew right with them. i laughed and the water giggled back. i looked absolutely insane and at that moment, i was. i was comforted by a gust of wind that no longer exists, at birds who didn’t know i was watching, at a memory of watching that movie for the first time. it is so strange how humans work. i picked myself up, waved goodbye, i blew a kiss, i turned my back, i walked home. i sent a video to my friend. i called my younger sister. i got sad again. i got happy again.
as i’m sitting here thinking about what to say next, i can still only think about comfort. there are so many things to say on the topic but absolutely no finished thoughts in my head. for my last german romanticism class, we went around and said what our biggest takeaway was from the class. i said fragments. the romantic concept of parts of a whole, longing, unfinished work, time passing, thoughts half-formed, thoughts fully formed with absolutely no proof. i have become obsessed with fragments. i’m not very good at saying things without nuance but fragments offer that opportunity of “you can come back to this later if you want”. here are some jumbled quick thoughts remaining in my brain under the keyword comfort {be prepared to read about this again in the next coming weeks}
epilogues and prologues [several reasons: bts short films [and absolutely everything that comes with it], stories welcoming you in or seeing you off, not being quite done with something and neither is the author
something that uniquly belongs to a different person that you get to borrow e.g. ocean walking
reading old diary entries, looking through old photos, finding emails from a decade ago
finding a song from an awful time in life and making a new connection to it, telling your past self you’re okay now
blank calls with someone on the other end
hearing about the day of someone you have never met and will never meet only to find shockingly similar connections to the same thing
talking to a person you don’t know well but you know you will know well in the future, having the thought “wow i can’t wait to look back at right now in the future and remember knowing we would be close”
someone saying your name
“sie machen Musik für die Party nach der Party”
i think i have one last quick thought still in me, before i go make a late dinner. do you know the feeling when you talk to someone and realize you were made to fit together? when you can both talk at the same time and still have a coherent conversation? when you wonder how many more similarities you can make? i’ve been thinking about that feeling a lot recently. i rethink conversations i’ve had over the last few months and these feelings keep coming back. what intrigues me most is how i come across these people.
in a basement at 16\ a year later and i was a secondary invite\ after a camp 18 months after\through someone else’s twitter replies\in class after six months\at a jazz club\outside a jazz club and it was only because you lit my cigarette and made me laugh. i love the odd times people can connect with each other. i wonder where else i will find someone. tell me, in your brain or in your words, what is the strangest way you have met someone made for you at that moment?
and so my love, it’s 10:51 pm and i think i’ve run out of words. i know it’s not ~quite~ true because i didn’t even open my notebook but i think it’s enough words for now. i hope you had a good sunday and a good two weeks. i hope november treated you well and that december has welcomed you with open arms. don’t forget to open your advent calendars if you have them.
warm wishes and soft kisses, i love you
xx delphi
p.s. this makes me giggle to no end
also some tunes!
nswy: dream edits by HONNE
you never walk alone by BTS
night changes by one direction
i,i by bon iver
euphoria (forever mix) by BTS [THIS!!!!! GOD WHAT A GOOD REMIX]
snow flower by V