whispers of the heart
why is it so hard to write a good card, and an invitation and elegy to friendship
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As my summer comes to a precious lull, I take the time to leaf through my memories of the past month. Reflection is not a calm activity for me. Before a picture comes into view, I must navigate the labyrinthine haze of my thoughts.
Proof helps, tangible or intangible. Scrawled across the pages of my journal and receipts crumpled to within an inch of their life are vignettes, doodles, faint impressions of the world spinning around me, or sentences trailing off mid-doze into an unintelligible squawk. My camera roll is filled with photos of homeware I don’t need but continue to lust after, friends in various states of shenanigans, and cats dozing – which honestly feels a more accurate reflection of what I’m currently interested in vs. the #wanderlust photos I obsessively snapped before.
The remembered sunlight lifts the veil of my cerebral fatigue. Baby blue skies, nary a cloud in sight. Riots of lupines, poppies, and lilies spill onto the ground, their tender leaves verging on a green so lurid it tastes sweet. People scale a massive statue, flags waving in the air, and the crowds below join in chorus to bellow their joy and rage.
Now that I’ve found a sense of time and place, I can finally summarize what happened this past month:
I hopped on a plane to Paris to celebrate the nuptials of a lovely couple who I’ve known since my earliest days in San Francisco. The wedding was sublime, the bride and groom radiant, and the wine and company exceptionally good.
A question to ask your friends: What practical skill would you be able to use in an emergency? It’s fun to see 1) what people define as an emergency, and 2) what they define as a practical skill. It’s even more impressive when you see someone put their words into action – such as the doctor who left the meal midway because he had to go reset the broken ankle of a performer at Disneyland Paris.
Two of my best friends and I ate our way through the city, sampling pistachio-encrusted ice cream, swordfish, Japanese pickles, and a devastatingly ambrosian cheesecake.
I linked up with a friend’s girlfriend in Paris before we made our way to Germany. I didn’t know what to expect, as I’d never met her in person before and we would spend a lot of time right away in each other’s company. But I didn’t have to worry – we bonded over fanfiction and fanart, fancy cafes with fancy drinks, yummy supermarket snacks, and our mutual appreciation for the indomitable human spirit. I’m happy to say I’ve made a new friend!
After rekindling my appreciation for Berlin and döner, I swung by London where I met several charming folks in passing, including a woman who started her own erotica publishing house, the doorman at Dover Street who recognized me from my last trip there, and several PhD students who merrily discoursed over the status public transit operators hold in the Czech Republic (high) compared to the States (sadly low).
No rest for the wicked. I only get to enjoy San Francisco for a few days before I’m cruising down the 5 to LA for my sister’s baby shower. With my partner, we enjoy the peace and birdsong of SoCal suburbs, sinfully delicious Szechuan food, and two-hour-long podcasts.
I signed up for a gym membership.
As of writing this, I’ve made the mistake of arriving in NYC at an ungodly hour. Instead of heading straight to my friends’ place and disrupting their precious beauty sleep, I opt for finding the nearest café and sucking down an iced latte because it is the last lifeline tethering my waking consciousness to reality.
I write all this frantically, knowing my momentum will be interrupted once more by this coming weekend. While I wish I had more time to ponder in this post, one particular topic bangs its fists against my skull like a timpani.
My friends and I returned late to our Airbnb the night of the wedding. High off the festivities and hungering for more, we carefully assembled a charcuterie board from our trove of treats. Triple-creme truffle brie, salami, prosciutto, apricot yogurt, black sesame cookies, fig jam, and slices of baguette crowded the wooden board in an arrangement that only promised decadence.
“How were the vows so good?” I asked in awe, more to myself than the others. “And the toasts! I bawled like a baby.”
“No clue.” One friend slathered a mess of fig and cheese onto his bread before tossing the whole thing in his mouth. “The officiant was great though. Deadpan humor? Chef’s kiss.”
“You think he rehearsed those bits? His delivery seemed so natural. Actually, not just him. Everybody! And the chemistry was immaculate. No way you can just recreate those vibes.”
A little silence lingered in between as we worked through our munchies, exhaustion, and sore feet.
“Maybe,” my other friend finally said, "it’s because they all spoke from the heart.”
An unsettling yet familiar dilemma
I stare at the blank space. The card before me splays open, the empty expanse beckoning me to fill it.
I begin to scribble. Congratulations! May you share a lifetime of happiness and fortune and other sayings with positive connotations – black ink is now gobbling up the white, transforming the landscape into the territory of platitudes. I reread what I’ve written and immediately hate it. But it’s too late. I’ve already defaced the $7 card. If I’m being honest, a fully revised version would be marginally better at most.
My shoulders slump in defeat. What’s wrong with me?
This is not an unfamiliar sensation. I have now entered wedding season, which means there are many well wishes to dole out. Since I have little experience in this matter, I must draw upon years of insights hoarded from romcoms, musicals, and real life instead to say something really good. Poignant. Something that stirs the heart.
The reasons I love the people in my life could fill an entire library and then some. They’re brilliant, magnificent, brave, kind. I treasure the moments we fling ourselves onto the dancefloor with wanton abandon as much as the moments when we stay up late at night to talk, tending to our souls with reheated broth and hushed confessions. The way we hug so hard that I’m always shocked at the solidness of their bodies, the lines of our beings colliding confirming that our existence isn’t ephemeral, but so so so real it makes me giddy.
But as we grow older, things grow between us – distance, time, values. Even with instant communication and constant access to one another, I sense the strength of our connection waning. The number of times we would hang out once seemed limitless. Now, it feels dreadfully close to zero, and it continues to tick down. Precious becomes pressure, and I’m suddenly sweating at the idea of having to make each moment, every interaction count.
Why is writing a card so damn hard?!
… Has it always been this hard to talk to a friend?
A switch clicks. Ah, I realize. It’s one thing to feel it in your heart, and another to say it.
Shooting it straight
A few months ago, I started lightwaves to rediscover my voice. But so far, my voicebox has not been hooking up to my heart.
Despite years of believing otherwise, I suck at being vulnerable. I can be open, almost frighteningly so, and usually have no issue regaling others with tales of my faults and fumbles. In fact, when something bizarre or embarrassing happened to me, a tiny part of me used to rejoice. Here was another opportunity to hyperbolize and entertain, a new story to tell.
But speaking from the heart is far more difficult. My heart entrusts me to bring a truth into the world. But familiar hands – belonging to the perfectionist, the people-pleaser, and the cynic – pull me into the dark forest. The brambles of anxiety and dread slip between the armor I wear, forged from long-calcified emotions, to pierce my awareness.
By the time I’ve reached the ravens lurking in the branches, I’m scared. Their beaks snatch away at the precious matter of what I carry to add to their glittering nests, only to drop into my hands something far more dun. But I must bring something, I think. I can’t bring nothing.
Beyond the woods lies a moldering dock. All I have is whatever the ravens left me, which is just enough to build a kind of shitty boat. Miraculously, I cross the water, but not before the boat partially capsizes and I have to fling water out with a rusty bucket.
Understandably, my heart is disappointed. Look! It points at a road that cuts through a grassy plain under a cloudless sky. If only you’d gone down that way. You wouldn’t have taken so long, nor would you be covered in birdshit. Plus, no ticks!
I know, I argue with myself before launching into a list of feeble defenses of why I don’t want to take the path of forthrightness. And because it’s my heart, it’s gullible and naive enough to treat my logic as gospel, circumlocuitous and flawed as it may be.
But this is not a sustainable state of being – at least, not if I want to emerge from this time of life with my friendships and sanity intact. I must learn how to speak from the heart, even it’s no louder than a whisper.
Someone made of tougher stuff than me would probably say to embrace the tension of being vulnerable, the push and pull between expressing what is safe and what is right. In fact, somebody did say that to me. And I trust that person, so I will heed their words.
So, from me to you, I say from my heart:
Hey. Hope you’re good. Are you eating and sleeping well? Do you have enough time for your friends and family? What about yourself?
Sorry I haven’t reached out. I used to be good at responding right away. I could talk to you for hours. But now I shy away. Part of me says I shouldn’t make myself so available. Another part doesn’t even know what we’d talk about.
You ask me, ‘Do you remember that time we did so-and-so?’ I’m ashamed to say I don’t. Was my memory always this bad? How could I have been by your side and not remember what we talked about? What you wore? What we ate? Or did we get coffee? Was it hot that day or cold enough we needed jackets?
I don’t know if you still listen to that artist or think that celebrity is dreamy. I don’t know if your favorite TV show is still the one you watched back in the day or if you’ve moved onto a new one.
I might have forgotten what happened, and I don’t know you very well anymore, but I would still like to hear about your life. Who you enjoy spending time with. What makes you laugh. The last time you cried. Are your dreams nearby or far on the horizon? Can you still count the stars from where you are?
If I’m being honest, I’m feeling lost and a little sad. I might be mourning. Friendships I thought would last a lifetime may be coming to a close. Is it desperate of me to want to fight for them, even if they’re not meant to be? Or should I accept that this happens all the time, and people aren’t meant to be in our lives forever?
I have so many questions, but so few answers come to me. Time’s pouring through my fingers, and I don’t know when my life will end or who will be there when it happens. I might be like that eighty-year old confiding to her therapist that she’s going to die alone. Or I might be like my father, who died in another country but was surrounded by love.
Do you ever feel alone? Do you ever feel lonely, even in a crowded room?
Let’s talk about it. I want to hear what you have to say.
With love,
Caroline
As June comes to a close, I’m hyper-aware that the first half of the year is coming to a close and that an inflection point is rapidly approaching. What have I taken away from these past six months? How will I spend the next six?
I’m also aware (and a little self-conscious) that, even though I meant for this space to be one of curiosity and joy, things have taken an unexpected turn. But the truth I accept is: as light resides inside me, so does darkness. I’m curious to see how they will play out as I continue to write and learn more about myself and where I stand in this world.
As heavy as matters of the heart can be, I can’t dwell on them forever. For my next post, perhaps something more lighthearted next time?
Question-of-the-essay: What practical skill would you be able to use in an emergency?
The mirror pic of you and your partner is super epic, this is a great summer feeling post, which I am-via destiny-reading late but exactly at the right time since its now summer in Australia