volume 2: the terrible twos

"you can let it all go." death and love and dishes.

Mar 02, 2022

Dear Diary,

Hi! How are you?

I am so happy that you care.

An update? I’ve spent the larger part of Dry January/Black History Month slowly and methodically blowing up my life — in a sort of dreamy, pink, slo-motion atom bomb. Tattooing my forearm, disgracing (maybe not) my modern Orthodox Jewish parents, and taking an indefinite leave from my corporate entertainment job of 2.5 years to explore the world of ‘nothing’.

A photo of my slightly swollen arm below. (Also pictured: slivers of my $350 wallpaper that cover a pathetic, but very sexy 5% of my bedroom walls and my emotional support rainbow afghan.) My tattoo is a piece of very sweet and luscious cake for the teenager inside me who still finds it hard to be someone separate from her parents. The teenager who still lives in the complicated little yellow house in London, Ontario.

My middle name and biblical figure ‘Yael’ as tattoed by the very queer and Jewish artist @joeyramonatattooer. So special. Thank you.

As for my newfound retirement, I am now my own nanny. Taking myself on silly little walks through the crusty snow canals of Toronto’s pedestrian infrastructure. Solo dates to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario for my future foreign readers), realizing I have become a person who cries easily at art. Flashback to Christmas with my partner Celia — crying almost instantly during a virtual reading of Mary Oliver’s poem “How I Go to the Woods” by a middle-aged queer couple. So gay, so love, so forest.

“If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.”

Mary oliver poems, New year poem, Into the woods quotes

As I turn towards what feels like Chapter 47 of my twenties, and as I embark on “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” (although, I hear this novel is more of a prescription drug-induced coma situation — I’m leaning more towards my naturopath’s prescribed “Iberogast” and “BioClinic Sereni Pro” to become less of a gassy, moody bitch) I am really considering this concept of radical rest. Rest as a means of compassionate healing, as an act of self-love, and as a protest to the “powers that be”. I actually don’t have to do things I hate? I can have a good day at work? I am not lazy?

I find it so curious to witness the crumples in people’s faces when I tell them I am not working and do not want to work (right now). To hear the tiny ways people’s voices hesitate in trying to process “no plan”, “no job”, “no time soon”. It makes me want to tell everyone they can and should rest. Rest in tiny ways, like sips of tea and bites of chocolate, or big ways like breaking up with bad friends and moving back in with your mom.

In trying to process the big girl job world I am trying to take a rest from, I am called to think about how little play is centred in adult life. Sometimes, I feel so blue for baby Shuli. I wish she could jump on her neighbour’s trampoline forever, and it would never, ever be dinnertime. She would never learn that people have to work. Often to pay for what they actually love and other times to feel valuable. Working for a high five. What a piece of news to share with a child. One day she will need money to be happy. One day trampolines will make her motion sick. But then again, so will her job.

I still can’t believe we don’t get to play forever. I think I’d like to figure out how big girls play so that life doesn’t feel like the time between doing the dishes. Again. Again. Again.

I also think lately I am struggling to process that all things die — small things like a perfect summer wind on your bikini butt, ouchie belly laughs or birthday pies, and big things like childhood, relationships and people. In the year of Tiger, I feel a sort of death looming. An equally bad and good feeling. The death of a version of myself I almost lived. Death of a dreary corporate costume. “Death of a Salesman.” But this death allowed me to eat again. Fill my cup. Honour my inner teenager who still lives so close to the surface. A good death.

Then there is this other death whose timing I wonder about. How much time do I have to feel happy? What if time runs out? When will I feel my hands on the wheel again? Sometimes I wonder how fucked up we will be discovered to be in a true post-COVID world. These questions feel like a hint.

I was just reading bell hook’s “Communion: The Female Search for Love”, and she mentions a quote from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ autobiography, “The Wheel of Life”:

“The only thing that lives forever is love.”

I find comfort in this. Knowing that just as death is guaranteed, love as an energy, a part of the universe, is permanent. So, maybe it’s none of my business how fragile life is. Love is my business. Feeling resistant to these big things I cannot control is where my suffering begins.

This reminds me of tonight’s finale of Euphoria where Rue talks about needing to make up her own purpose for suffering. Intentionally attaching meaning, to make all the bad worth it. Maybe I just need to write a play about all my friends.

Love is always and death is near. Resistance is futile.

As is tradition (apparently), here are some things I’ve been thinking about lately. This time a poem, photo, song and Tik Tok that speak to me as I write to you on this fugly final February evening.

poem: