yes, please.

the only occasion that i will wear a bra to is to get a massage, even though I have to take it off to get one, and then I started thinking about why I do that, and I think I came to the conclusion that I think bras make my body look strange. When I’m wearing an underwire bra and it rounds out my boob into a cup, I’m just like, wow. my body does not actually look like this. My boobs are not these seperated cups on my chest that don’t move. However, I don’t think this about other girls wearing bras, probably because that would take away from the time I devote to thinking about myself.

NON MI PIACE italian opera a DONDA production

SPOILER ALERT: tre hoes > trifecta—which basically translates the same in english and italian

Today is very important to me, because today is the day that my soulmate was born.

I don’t feel a lot. My emotional baseline is as low and steady as an athlete’s heart-rate. Any strong sentiments I have generally wane after a few minutes. I do what is intellectually right and ignore the emotional argument. I rebuff I love you’s. I end friendships pragmatically; with a handshake and a “best of luck.” My hugs can be stiff, unwelcoming.

I wouldn’t know how to do that with Katharina Knoll—even if I wanted to. As travelers, most of our friendship has spanned long bouts of physical distance, and like every relationship, we have had our moments of silence that stem merely from distractions created by living. Even during those times—I’ve never felt far from her. Throughout each separation, an anchor lingered. I imagine a gentle tug at the ear, and a little voice that says “I’m here!”

I imagine a string that attaches us at the elbow, stretching endlessly to accommodate the taxis, planes, and trains that separate us. A string that winds just as tightly, steadily, back when we are together again.

You, my dear, are different from me in many ways, and it’s something I’ve had the pleasure of studying over the time I’ve gotten to know you. You cook with complete concentration. You linger over paintings, pause at the flowers outside delis on the street, you point out unexpected architecture. Your pace has a leisurely quality, like a stroll through St Tropez. While I boil and freeze, you simmer.

You relinquish your smile to strangers—and it unfurls like a peace offering—without a second of hesitation.

I imagine myself walking brusquely beside you, my face a perpetual, unrealized frown—and I laugh at the pair we make. How lucky I am that you take me as I am, brushing off my glacial surface, accepting all of the things I don’t say, breaking my machine-like focus and beckoning me back when I begin to slip away.

I think about our conversations—when we are lucky enough to have them in person; rapt and attentive, as we stand in the middle of the sidewalk trying to say goodbye to each other for 40 minutes. While the sun sinks lower and the trains come and go. The patience you’ve taught me, to take a deep breath and sloooowww it down—even when I don’t know how to, even when I’m not sure if I want to.

I’m thinking about all the laughs, the dancing, the good food we’ve been able to share, all the silly little musings that no one else seemed to understand. I think about us soaking up the sun on the beach. I think about the Colombian temper that no one knows you have—and how much fun it is to see you in that mode. I think about Matilda being the first to greet me at your door, wiggling. But more than all of that, I think of all that you have been through. Every struggle and misstep and sadness, and how strong that has made you—how strong those things have made us—even if sometimes it may not feel that way.

I think about the imprints our experiences leave on us all and, no matter how similar or different those little nicks you have are from mine, I want you to know that you will never lose me—just tug on your ear and listen for an “I’m here.”

Know that whatever you are going through, the good, bad, entre les deux, I will carry that with you.

For you; mi amor, mi familia, mi corazon—for you, I feel.




And now, ok! Enough of that. Turn this up too loud and GO DANCE!

marleighsea:

I never liked men when I was a young girl. They all made me mad.