the way things go

Hans Sieverding

My early twenties were spent searching for a center of gravity. I joke that they were hound-like years: following trails where they led. Worked on a startup, wound it down. Started an intense job and slept laughably little. All the while, writing with a little reading light in the dark. Handfuls of detours, dead ends, things that felt vaguely-not-right. Thankfully, each turn felt more accurate than ones prior. I spent a lot of time alone, finding myself in the chasm between solitude and loneliness. My life felt thinly suspended, a little imbalanced. Only recently have I come to feel grounded-ness, perhaps not to any particular place, but within myself.

Over the years I received a lot of advice. A few people disapproved of the way I lived, some encouraged it. People are opinionated when you write about your life online (lol). That’s dangerous because when you’re young you’re so porous, you believe everything. But at the end of the day, you have to figure out what motions matter to you and how apply the right force to the right surface area. These days I don’t take unsolicited advice easily: not what to eat or do or write or say. We’re consumptive creatures, yes, but that also comes with the responsibility of making up our own minds.

I loved a few people deeply and they changed me in ways I needed but didn’t know how to ask for. My serious boyfriends were highly perceptive and it augmented my own perception in meaningful ways. I cultivated an entirely new set of friends in a new city, some of whom are incredibly dear to me now. The same way that being exposed to certain substances affects the body long term, the right people rewire your neurons in your brain, allow you to access more richness and precision. I’m so different since I met you. For that I’m thankful.

Patti Smith writing about her dear friend Sam Shepard:

“When we got to the part where we had to improvise an argument in a poetic language, I got cold feet. "I can't do this," I said. "I don't know what to say."

"Say anything," he said. "You can't make a mistake when you improvise."

"What if I mess it up? What if I screw up the rhythm?"

"You can't," he said. "It's like drumming. If you miss a beat, you create another."

In this simple exchange, Sam taught me the secret of improvisation, one that I have accessed my whole life.”

—

Something I’ve learned over the years: to have the type of relationships you want, you have to know how to search well and how to identify what you like when you see it. Calibration across these two areas is surprisingly hard. We’re usually wired for one or the other.

Here’s what I like in people: perceptiveness, humility, wit, a feverishness toward good ideas, high conviction, an iterative process of self understanding, equanimity. It’s easy to distill it this into language, but it’s hard to notice these in real life. I think one of life’s greatest skills is being good at noticing.

—

Certain periods still fill me with fondness: who I was to you and who you were to me. I liked observing you in quietness, in crowded rooms, in the middle of sentences, understanding how you modeled the world in your brain. But as it is, aliveness means impermanence. We are brief bodies. Moment to moment, our cells turnover and our hands touch different surfaces, our faces change with every smile, grimace, glance, frown. How could I expect us to stay the same?

I like this line I heard in a song once: ‘any love I made you feel is yours to keep’. Some experiences are sealed into the past but they were still very beautiful.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in both friendships and love. In many ways I’m still taking inventory and responsibility for them. I’m still reeling in the wake of those realizations. At the same time, I feel compassionate toward younger me: she was acting within the realm of knowledge she had. That’s why I’ll always have a soft spot for novels about girlhood. It’s such an intimate experience. The journey from naïveté to maturity is gentle and continuous.

The point is: real relationships are very complex. We have to make space for complexity and uncertainty even if it feels impossibly difficult. Complexity means holding the dualities of a person in your brain with openness, kindness, and curiosity. Complexity means appreciating the critical difference between love and attachment. Between fantasy and reality. We experience friction when we’re faced with the inherent mystery or ‘unknowability’ of another. But if you’re in the right relationships, the trek toward understanding them better feels infinitely rewarding.

PS: Thank you for reading - if you feel inclined; please like, share and subscribe. Your support helps me curate more posts and reach more readers!

PPS: Not a french track this week, but I’m obsessed with Maggie Rogers’ new song: