the less limes we found, the more determined we were to finding them
on being a stranger, behaving foolishly, buying groceries, and the end of august.
hello my friend[s].
i hope this note finds you well. this time i do not come writing in my kitchen chair or my backyard. not from my house and not from my city.
i am in montreal right now, visiting for the weekend with two of my sisters and a friend of ours. i sit at 6:40 pm on a grey couch in an airbnb. i can smell two cups of irish breakfast tea {one of which is mine. sharing the seat with me is g____. the other couch has p____ and c_____. c is playing guitar, a new song that g is showing her. he’s singing. p is reading a new book. to my right is a mary oliver collection of poems. i’ve begun to underline and annotate but i stopped to write you this note. i feel i must leave a letter for you {{written on my sister’s laptop}}. the ground outside is still wet from the rain that cooled our day earlier.
i feel extreme comfort. i want to give you a sip of it. every word i write is to devote more love to you, in repetitive commitment.
earlier i saw someone say that gifts that come from repetitive movements are like a promise to love them more. i have been thinking about that a lot.
“isn’t knitting a sweater or beading a bracelet for a friend the sweetest declaration of love ever like long crafted gifts because, each repetitive movement is like a little promise more of love to them. weaving poems of care and taking part in their daily usage.”
@cupidyg on twitter
the streetlamp across the street has turned on and i’m reminded the day has passed. the day was spent moving from place to place with no ideas chiselled into plans.
i love being a tourist. i don’t feel the need to be a local in every place i go. i think there is a difference between a Tourist and a tourist. i have to be a fool somewhere,,. might as well be here.
a Tourist tries desperately to fit into a new environment while believing their regular environment is lesser. pretending to not be like the masses of new people. i do suppose there can be something embarrassing about being new.
but i like to be new. everything is shiny and i can daydream what a life could be if i lived there. so often i see people wish they could experience a book or song for the first time but very rarely do i see people thinking that way about places. maybe because it’s so immersive. you can remember more from a book than you can a village. you can put down a book but it’s harder to leave a city.
do you feel this way? are you a tourist or a Tourist? do you pretend to be a different person if you are in a place you don’t know?
what about places you know?
this newsletter is the soft edges of my brain and life. i like to make words pretty and i like to note the images around me. this leads me to write about beautiful things to remember them but in doing so, am i only half of myself? i don’t tend to include moments like the grease in my hair or the upset stomach or the less than happy conversations. calls at 5 am to fix an accident.
and yet, i have a feeling you already know those things are all there. do you, my friend, want lovely things just the same as me? my best friend, f (hello my darling), sends me her thoughts every sunday after i send this out. and every time, she says she loves the little shot into the calm parts of my life, how they are a slow part of her day.
i think i like that, too.
this brings me to the idea of an almost home.
throughout the week, i save things i want to show you. as i’m looking through my twitter bookmarks -reserved for you- i found something that seems very fitting.
there and back by n.m.h feels like a perfect summary of my jumbled thoughts on comfortable places.
this now leads me to a new thought. one of grocery shopping. my favourite activity, pastime, type of love.
a thought on grocery lists.
everyone makes one, just at different speeds and levels. i like to make them in my brain while i look in my fridge and pantry and when i’m in the store. i don’t write them down. my mother used to write things down, right to the price as she was in the store. that was when we had a strict budget that went down to the cent. she kept doing it even when it was less strict. habits are interesting.
there’s something so intimate about grocery lists. i feel there is nothing more telling about how a person feels than the food they eat and buy. are you buying warm food? spicy food? something imported from your first home? something from a loved one’s home?
this brings me to this wonderful website. archived grocery lists are written on every piece of paper, every colour, using every pen[cil]. i love looking through this when i feel disconnected from the comfort of people. i love strangers. i have an infinite love for the people i will only see once.
and now a story. a short one but a story all the same.
we gave ourselves a mission these last 24 hours. to find limes. that does not sound like a very hard challenge (we certainly did not think so). we wanted limes for a simple reason: to have shots of tequila. we went to six different stores around the entire city of montreal, any store with produce that we could stumble upon. everyone was sold out. the fewer limes we found, the more determined we were to find them. we went to corner stores at 10 pm, stores at 3 pm, asian markets, italian markets, anything. g and i finally found success in the italian market. we had a few minutes before our bus was scheduled to come so we crossed the street. it felt like we struck gold. we found the best two and $1.50 later we were set. thrown into my big black purse and we hopped on the bus, sending pictures to c and p.
now? they lay on the floor beside a guitar case. put there after being proudly pulled from my bag like a medal.
soon? they will be cut up into silly pieces for friendship making.
perhaps if we knew this city better we could have found them sooner, but if we knew it better, we never would’ve seen the other stores.
an absolutely unimportant adventure for anyone besides us four,. i think that’s what made it so important.
tomorrow we go back home. i will have one more full day at home and then i leave again. off to a <new><old> city for university. to a ?new? apartment with a \medium\ friend. my bedsheets arrived. i bought a new backpack yesterday. the adventure continues.
i am so afraid.
i have never been more excited.
i will find a new spot to write to you, i will leave you notes all around the world for you to visit. i wish i could leave more than a digital mark in these places for you.
for now, it’s 7:23 pm and time to think about how i feel about dinner. there’s leftover indian food in the fridge. something to make us feel warm.
my tea is gone, [c+g} are passing through songs to play and sing. p is more than halfway through her book. the sky is slowly darkening.
i want to leave you some music. i love you, soak up the last of the summer, welcome september with open arms and heart. call someone you love. tell them. find a forever friend to put in your pocket. call them honey bear and gift them blueberries.
i’ll be here for you in a week. text me if you need me.
xx delphi
p.s. i thought you’d like this
"this morning the water lilies are no less lovely, i think, than the lilies of monet. and i do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead children out of the fields into the text of civility, to teach them that they are (they are not) better than the grass” rain: 4 earlier morning, my birthday by mary oliver
BE by bts (comfort)
solar power by lorde
nenn mich musik by the düsseldorf düsterboys
724148 by agust d
home by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros