On either side of me, two couples kissed.
And if I think about it long enough, yes, I suppose this does something to me. Takes the fabric of my world and pulls, like they are two ends of a wire at either side of my ribs that have now gone taut. There is nothing I find so sharp as confronting that I am alone and it is the season where these things are not soon forgotten.
At the time, however, it only strikes me as something happening, something maybe that could become, but at present is nothing. I consider thinking about the scene then, but defer it to later. I am where I wanted to be, I thought, I came here to do this, to sit in solitude, and the waiter at the other end of the bar is handsome. Without my glasses on it's hard to tell where he is looking so I don’t know if he is looking at me, and I don’t pretend to know, but sit with the possibility of it being true, with the total moment, no illusions, no dreams. I chose this place on purpose, I reminded myself. I came here to be here, not to go away from it, into a dreamland. To experience it totally, even though the snow had turned to rain which had made me want not to leave my apartment.
So I do not think of the picture I am in, do not tell myself the waiter is looking at me, do not reach for the phone in my bag, the book. Even though I know my friend has only just told me she is with a man who has asked about me, and how nice it might be to be asked for. Knowing it will momentarily numb the moment of itself, no I place my elbows on the bar even if it's rude to do so. I sip my drink, subject myself to what unpleasantness disrupts the pleasantness, feel the wash of pleasure that douses the displeasure. I take another sip of my wine, admire the low lighting which in its warmth on walks home in every season draws me like a moth. A moth with an affinity for deep yellows and oranges. Turning about, watching people, watching them embrace as I had a moment before, watching them walk in when the cold draft of an open door brushes my calves. The bartender raises his Boston shaker and the ice rattles in his hands. The hush briefly disturbed the way a rock that has been thrown affects a stagnant lonely lake.
I like the beauty of an undisturbed lake and I like the beauty of a rock tossed into the air. Ascent and descent, distance from the start, the noise that breaks the silence, that round, round, sound of sinking, which even as it comes to an end seems to hold no point or sharpness. Cohesion broken on the water and in the world, all the time, by such things, by the tension of two unalike powers meeting under their jurisdictions. Magnets and mountain ranges, plate shifting then folding and the top rises like it were pulled, like a run in tights. All of this is clear in the moment, sitting between two people, who are both unlike me and so alike each other.
Texture.
Current, cohesion, cycles, and constant states, I consider, hold a specific beauty. Laminar flow. But contrast, I realize, does this too. Tension makes texture.
This room, I think, is a good example. How it ripples the fabric of living, makes something you can run your hands over. To subject oneself to beauty, and to find the disruption of that beauty makes it stronger and more real. That the force of my aloneness is sharpened in the presence of people who are not. Compelling me away from the moment, but I will not allow it. Instead, doing the opposite, dig my heel in, feel the defined edges now, the grooves and ranges, to say this is mine, this is the space I occupy, and I chose this. It becomes difficult, then, to leave, with all that friction.
Curious to explain I take a napkin and try to find more examples.
It’s a quick exercise and I don’t know if it works, if it captures what I mean until I look at the second note. Hush of the room now that the bartender has finished. I know that, sooner or later, the bartender will again pick up that metallic cup and shake it, I know that this quiet I am in won’t last. The door will swing open, the cold will brush my legs, and the warmth of the room will have to replenish itself. But it feels like the only perfect example of what I mean. The way a quiet feels more pure once the initial noise has stopped.
Texture, yes. The silence good, but the texture good too.
The door opens.
I feel a spring inside me, though I know the world is cold and lacking bloom.
To employ, even descend, into the counterpart of whatever goodness I was trying to enjoy, to go out into the snow when I wish to remain in the warmth, to say that I don’t know if the handsome man has his attention on me, so later when I ask for the time, and he looks me in the eyes, there is some greater feeling of finally knowing in that moment for sure. To stack the world a little against you, I think, is a fine thing. To toss a rock into a lake, to break the surface, watch the rings.
After this night, after I have paid and the receipt is paper clipped to a postcard I take the postcard to remember this place and because I always like to take them. I am about to leave my apartment, two days later. A thing that feels hard to do because I have responsibilities and promises and I have broken quite a few over the last months. This though, is different I think, never enough time. Wanting to be in bed by a certain hour, knowing it is good for me. And the books I’m supposed to finish, and the job I will have to go to. Where will the time be, I think, to do these things? But there is a pull, a wanting, to leave. Recalling how nice it had felt to go two nights before, but the tension. The rising mounting tension, of all I feel I must do, to be good.
And it strikes.
I pull the postcard in a rush, needing to write something down.
NOTE TO SELF
I’m encouraging you to live a richly textured life, to sometimes be uncomfortable, and not in the way people often encourage, alright. I mean the things they really don’t. To be places you don’t want to be, to stay late when you have to work in the morning. To accept that tiredness is part of the package, and something you can catch up on. What makes the smooth sip of tea such a relief? Always a bed waiting a life of having a bed waiting. And jeans are fine, not even so bad as you think, hangovers end, do you understand? I mean I know what you’re like, I know what you like. Sometimes you have things to do, alright, abandon them. Leave the house anyway, remember how you used to do that? Remember how it got the writing done?
“The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.”
"Ars Poetica?" by Czeslaw Milosz
All these cycles. These moments of closeness followed by distance. The old intimacy still in play but fleeting. Slow, slow enough to catch. And I knew now what I wanted. I wanted to catch it. I wanted not for this to end. February 6th, 2025 8:27 PM
I wondered briefly if this was how it felt to be around me. It produced the kind of shame that could never sober you quickly enough. It seemed almost to have the opposite effect, time moving in stuttering momentum. Forward sure, but in a sense that as the night went on chronologically I was getting further and further from where I had hoped to be. I considered the many miserable hours where he’d have had to sit with me while these minutes carried such strong punches. It was the kind of thing I wanted to apologize for but knew I’d never get that chance. February 3rd, 2025 11:11 PM
WHAT I ATE:
Things made from my grocery list for a richly textured life (so far)
People From My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami
Stayed up late just to finish, woke up full but tired.
Casino (1995) dir. Martin Scorsese
It was very cold and I knew I would be out late, but I left anyway and went and watched this with my friends and we laughed.
The dream I had that I was dating Anthony Boyle
What else is there to say! A hazy quality overtook the morning after that.
A giggly yawning Uber home with Taylor
Stayed out late, though declined to stay out later. (I’m still learning you know?) But on the way home
A brand new journal spread
wrote and wrote in my old journal just to finish and start anew.
Two new books
I shouldn’t have, but I did! The tension of a TBR but the allure of a book on cloud spotting and tree identification cannot be helped.
One walk through Soho
Took my headphones off subjected myself to the cold and bumbling tourist sounds. Not so bad, not the best walk, but I won’t let this outlier warp my view.
For you a textured beautiful mood board for February! Delivered before it was over, I think that is an improvement indeed.
That’s all this month! If you enjoyed the little conversation we had let me know! Save, share, and tag @chloeinletters
Here is My Twitter and my Instagram is @chloeinletters where the DMs are checked, cared, and loved for.
My Goodreads where I sometimes write reviews but keep updated is right here where more of my library is contained as far as books go.
My website is where you can check out my portfolio and contact me
My email, if you want to cut to the chase, is letterstochloew@gmail.com where you can let me know what you think or ask me a question about what you saw here!
Here’s to coffee Fridays, to the tension of a room, to handsome waiters, to the beauty of disruption
Love always,
Chloé
I'd quite like to read a book written by you!
Supremely lyrical. Your measured pace and sentimental voice is a texture all its own. Thank you for this snapshot.