Don’t read on if you are expecting anything in particular. Don’t read on because you feel obliged to do so as my friend, or as my family, or as anyone who feels like they should do anything for any reason other than wanting to. Because this is very much a post about rejecting the omnipresent ‘should’ and accepting that we ought to do things because we want to do them, deep down, and listening to that deep down part even when it speaks very softly.

Sometimes, I can hardly hear it at all.

I live in Paris now, and I have abandoned lots of pursuits, and I am trying to remember where I left the fragments of them so that I might be able to find them again one day. I didn’t mean to abandon them, not really, I just grew very afraid.

Do you ever feel afraid of yourself? I do.

I thought I’d come back to this space with the interests and styles which have come to suit me better as I evolve and find my place in the world of writing. I don’t know the kind of writer I am anymore— I possessed such a comfortable certainty in all the identifiers and aesthetics I ascribed to even a year ago, but in deconstructing myself into all of these unaligned parts, I see the multifaceted truth of who I am, and who I have the potential to be. I can be everything; I can be a writer and a cook and a feminist and a girlfriend and a queer person and a daughter and a Jewish person and an atheist and a tourist and a narcissist and a friend and even sometimes a person who is simply afraid of herself, and all of these things are united under the umbrella of me.

But the thing I’ve lost all patience for is inauthenticity, attempting to label so many incongruous parts, cherry-picking which attributes will be written up on the banner of public identity and repressing the rest. I don’t want to repress anything now. I can’t be the kind of writer I know I am if I keep doing that, and maybe you can’t be the kind of friend or artist or individual you know you are if you do that, too. Maybe that’s why I haven’t written here in so long, because I thought this didn’t suit the sort of character I wanted to be seen as, or I thought you’d scoff at me, or I thought I was an imposter. Now I think I’m only being an imposter when I flee from my pursuits out of fear of what others might label me. The truth is, I am immeasurable beyond any label you might give me, to any label I try to give myself. So are you.

Let us be fragmented and ambiguous, and rejoice.

That’s the whole point of returning to this space. This is a digital scrapbook, a conglomerate of mismatched parts, and it’s not a travel blog and it’s not a lifestyle blog and it’s not any kind of blog other than mine. I’ve been missing this mode of commemorating aspects of my life. None of this will be written with the aim of impressing you, because when I write for that reason, I write the heavy, hyper-vigilant prose of someone I don’t recognise, and this thing which was once so intimate and personal to me becomes distant and strained.

If you find something in my words that makes you feel less lonely or brings you a speck of hope, then I will be immensely grateful, and humbled. That would be a wonderful side effect. But I can’t write for your sake– I hope you’ll understand– because then none of this will actually mean anything anymore.

I hope you do the same in whatever your pursuits may be. Whenever creativity is expressed from a place of truth, from a seed of personal yearning rather than the desire for applause or attention, then a far more beautiful and authentic piece of art enters the world. It won’t need anyone else’s eyes on it. You will have benefitted enough because you created it, and that deep down part of yourself will be singing, finally heard.

There have been parts of me screaming to be heard, but my ears have been full of cotton. I’ve been wandering Paris with my shoulders tensed and my stomach in my throat, awash with loneliness and self-doubt and lofty expectations, all the while ignoring that essential bit deep down which cried for a voice. All the while ignoring the beauty of every ordinary moment, drenching my sight in sepia out of fear and this unshakeable sadness which follows me no matter where I am. And all the while hating myself for not being happier, for not being French-er, for not getting a grip on my anxiety, for not being more diligent or more active or more productive or more perfect. How silly, to treat myself in a way I’d never imagine treating another living soul. How cruel.

All of it is ego, all of it is the expectation of a clean and pretty label. I will never fit the one my ideal self wears. And the space between reality – me and ideal – me is where my ego perches, shouting orders and abuses when I don’t do precisely what ideal – me would do. This is why sometimes I feel afraid of myself. This is why sometimes I feel hateful.

But ego does not observe with an eye for beauty and a heart of compassion; this is something only that deep down part of myself can do, and yearns to do, and does so naturally through words. When ego moves aside, I see the world anew. 

From outside the old, white-rimmed windows at the head of my bed in my creaky Parisian room, sometimes I hear music. I keep these windows open most of the time to let the air and the light in, curtains drawn to either side, and the sounds of my neighbours echo unabashedly. 

At times, a soft piano melody drifts from an open window and tinkles gently beneath more domineering sounds, ringing in the little courtyard. I like this best. I imagine a young girl in one of the windows I can’t see from my own, and she sits at a piano with her back straight, and she practices a few songs she knows, and here I am, several floors up, lying in bed a bit lonely, listening. A grateful audience member to the art she doesn’t realise brings joy to strangers. Other times, familiar pop songs play across the courtyard, distant but clear, and I usually end up playing my own songs to drown theirs out. I could just close the window, shut myself away from any of these outside sounds, but how much lonelier would I feel then.

I want to write for myself the in-between moments which cause my breath to catch in my throat, the moments which excite one of five senses (or maybe even six) but which might otherwise go forgotten. I want to tell you about the lonely sound of a saxophone echoing in an underpass near Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, the sound of cars whooshing heavily past overhead. I want to tell you about the smell of fresh minced garlic roasting in a pan with olive oil, the sweet sound of popping and sizzling mingling with the warm fragrance of this foundational element for any delicious meal. I want to tell you what the horizon looks like in Paris at sundown in early September, how achingly beautiful it is, this soft gradient of grapefruit and lavender pastels, how it presses in on the soul and makes me feel small and ethereal. 

Or how it feels walking along the lamppost lit hem of St. James Park in London with my dad, relishing the sound of anonymous people laughing in the inky darkness, commenting, “Aren’t we all just anonymous people laughing at night?” and trying to decipher whether I had said something profound or entirely meaningless.

These are the sensational aspects of life I want to record and to remember, because they are chaotic and discordant like me. These are the parts that will easily disappear, the hours on the road, the transitionary moments between events in life. The waiting, the staring out windows, the dozing and the twiddling of thumbs, the listening and the smelling and the subtle loneliness or fleeting, fabulous laughter. It will be gone one day, certainly, but I have it today, and I appreciate these nothing moments for what they are: the building blocks of a real and evenly paced existence.

Perhaps that is all I need to know right now of the kind of writer I want to be.