hello my friend[s],
my concept of time and space seems to be turning into jelly. i swear the beginning of the week lasts a year, the second half lasts mere minutes. here we are on sunday again. i’m sitting/laying in my bed right now. i got a new mattress cover on thursday made of down. i feel like i’m floating a few inches. next to me are a few soft friends, two blankets, and a cup of half-drunk tea. i’m listening to a rain and woodfire asmr-type youtube video and i think i could fall asleep. it’s 10:49 pm [[[later than i usually write to you]]].
if i’m being honest, i wasn’t sure if a note would make it to you today. i feel a bit fragile, even a small bit of writing could put a crack in my heart. i’m tired, not sleepy but exhausted. today was the end of a wonderful weekend, bittersweet as is life. i said hello and goodbye to half of my family {again}.
we did go grocery shopping. last week i said we would, and we did. dad, v, and i drove around the city, getting anything that piqued our interest. i now have a very fine collection of Things. i have knife-cut noodles, and ginger beer, and dragon fruit coolers, and good rice, and green olives, and pickled ramps, and a bag of tangerines, and a lovely rice cooker. i am so happy and thankful. my dad is definitely a man of acts of service. he’s also a man of all the love languages. he once said he’s 500% love [[100% of all five]] and in the moment, we all laughed at him, thinking it wasn’t true. the more time that passes, the more i think he’s right.
he is a man of all types of love and i know this because i do feel loved by him. it’s interesting, i can recall only one memory of him saying “i love you” to me and yet, i still Know his love like it’s a fact. maybe it is. all the unspoken moments of love. they feel like the moments he’d say i love you to me when i was a baby. moments i myself don’t have proof of, yet know with undoubted certainty.
i show love through acts of service, too. we went out for korean bbq for dinner tonight and my favourite part was grilling everything for them, was putting the best pieces on their plates, was watching them eat well.
i felt a tap on my shoulder halfway through the shared meal, my little sister handed me a lettuce leaf with pork belly, a sweet sauce, fishcakes, and pickled radish neatly tucked in. try this, she said, i made it just for you.
it was the best bite of the meal. i think we’re all a little bit the same.
i’ve realized recently how much i love sharing stories and i love how stories are shared. i love those who are talented storytellers, it takes a specific type of person to share a story well orally. do you know the type of people i’m talking about? how they move their body just right, they paused in the best way, they share the tale in a way that keeps you surprised and the entire time all you can think is wow, this person was meant to talk to the universe. i love those kinds of people.
other people share stories using the sweetest of muted words, painting a sheet of paper with [a] soul [theirs or otherwise], putting paragraphs in perfect places. these are the people that make you wonder how long have these words been waiting to be put together into a sentence? this line was made to exist since the beginning of time and it’s here, right before my eyes.
god, and then there are people to share using their body, dancing so in tune with music and mind, somehow showing me what music looks like. or what silence looks like. to them i say, i think you’re what happens to dandelion seeds after they get blown for a wish.
and there are singers, and composers, and designers, and directors who simply talk to anyone who will listen.
and i will happily sit watching, gazing with tears in my eyes to those who share.
***
i’ve been reading many different stories lately. a newest favourite is the book the sorrows of young werther. it was written in 1774 in germany. it was a part of the storm and stress period of writing, which happened before german romanticism. i implore you to look at what that era was, it was so Exciting and intense. here is a link to that book for you to read, here are a few of my favourite lines:
"I shall see her today!" I exclaim with delight, when I rise in the morning, and look out with gladness of heart at the bright, beautiful sun. "I shall see her today!" And then I have no further wish to form: all, all is included in that one thought.
how every moment of her time was devoted to some labour of love in their behalf,—and yet her mirth and cheerfulness had never forsaken her. I walk by his side, pluck flowers by the way, arrange them carefully into a nosegay, then fling them into the first stream I pass, and watch them as they float gently away.
My good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree of resistance be a weakness?"
it is a fast-paced novel written as a series of letters. there is much to unpack in the book but for now, i will leave it to you.
now it’s 11:42. i’m still in the same spot but next to me r is now laying, finally home.
i hope you liked thinking about stories and words and love and food. i liked writing about them. notes to you make me happy, did you know that? i hope so. do you have any stories to share? how do you share them? how do you like to receive stories? and love? how do you share and receive?
i hope you eat a tangerine and feel someone say they love you. i can’t wait to talk to you next week. our notes are my roses. i love you.
all my love
xx delphi