attn: this is an advice newsletter no longer
hi! I'm back, I think, for now. I missed unstructured, unedited writing, and the relative intimacy of emails. I read once that email—"lean asynchronous computer mediated communication"—is one of the more romantic ways to communicate; and I believe it, because what's better than seeing a friend's name bolded in your inbox with a subject line that says "thought of you"?
I took a long walk on the earliest day of this fall, because I found a pocket of time around the golden hour and because a cloudless sky forced my hand. I was listening to Caribou's last album ("Can't Do Without You", mostly) on repeat. nothing happened, but it felt restorative and important, like I was returning to myself. I could feel the threads linking me to everyone else I knew—late-night conversations, text messages, letters, songs, blog posts, party invitations—but they weren't chafing under the weight of obligation. I felt them gently tug as I walked, and I appreciated that they were there. that I was in a web, that I could draw people near.
it's one thing to receive an email from a friend, but it's quite another to send one: when was the last time you were a bolded name, unexpected but welcome? I didn't send one that day, I don't think, but I did later that week. maybe I should blame Caribou. "Can't Do Without You" repeats its title as its main lyric.
when I was in my seventh grade english class, Mrs. Wilson told us to write a poem in class, as a kind of warm up exercise. most of what I wrote that day is lost to memory, but I do remember the last line because it's one of the truer things I've ever written.
oh, what tangled webs we weave
xo,
bijan