Digestible Feeling: Dates & Staying Present
Plus, three beautiful things I consumed this week.
I love dates. And by dates, I don’t mean one set up on an app where you hope someone matches their picture enough to recognize them. I’ve actually never had this problem, maybe I should be slightly more concerned about what I say, because I told someone about an armpit rash on a first date and things didn’t go very far after that. But I’m talking about the soft brown fruits I consume most mornings by exchanging the pit for a dollop of peanut butter and a sprinkle of flaky salt. My algorithm is attune to this love affair because I keep getting served a specific video for sautéing whole dates with a little butter, honey, and cinnamon. Which I’m staring at my stove right now wondering if that should be a second part to my breakfast.
But long before I started eating dates regularly, I was a fan of another type of date too. The ones that form neat rows on the calendar. The superior months as fellow date lovers probably know, February and March, are the most satisfying to stare at with the exception of leap years. In school, when I was bored, I would flip through my planner (the spiral bound thing they insist you have every year that I always gave up using in the first quarter) and look for friend’s birthdays or count down the days until the next school vacation. Now, on my desk, I have a calendar from La Croix Water (long story) that I stare at when I’m unsure what to draw next.
And now, with the privilege of wrapping around the calendar twenty-nine times, different meanings mark more days. Sometimes something to look forward to: a friend’s due date, a trip to see people I love, a long weekend. Some happy memories: the anniversary of moving to a city or meeting someone important. Some more complicated: a day where something bad happened, a birthday of someone for one reason or another I’m not in touch with anymore. And the last kind have a habit of popping up in ways that catch me off guard: the last four numbers of a license plate, the length of a song, a house number I pass on the street. And most recently in my fridge. I wasn’t reaching for my box of dates, but instead the carton of almond milk. An old birthday stamped on the plastic as the expiration date. And now, it’s probably time to say, I didn’t plan to get a glass, instead propping the fridge’s door open with my hip, taking a couple of swigs, and staring at the date again. This one in particular was a birthday, so nostalgia’s glow started emitting warm memories, pushing forth the best of a relationship and in the process straining out anything unpleasant. Like a trailer to a movie that’s not at all accurate but it is a special type of comforting. But the fridge had enough of my reminiscing and beeped, “Close me please.” So I screwed back on the cap, shut the door, and went back to the only date I can do something about — the one I’m in the middle of living.
Illustrated this idea a couple of weeks ago, based on something similar with a Greek yogurt carton, because I think if you take away anything from this it’s my aversion to using dishes.
Consumer Report: Three Beautiful Things
If you’re new, I’m trying to write about the beauty I experience each week as an antidote to despair. Or to put it less dramatically, as a reminder there’s still a lot of good in the world.
The first watermelon of summer: Every year, I forget how much I miss the fruit until I have the first one of the season. Or I should say, the first really good one of the season. The quality of a melon’s insides are always a mystery, especially earlier in the season, so please tell me if you have a foolproof method. But when I split this one open and cut off a sliver of melon that was crisp and sweet, it felt like my lucky day.
A bouquet of native flowers: Last weekend, I went to a queer gardening club which was as wholesome as it sounds. And after sorting native seeds and learning about flowers I was given a bouquet to take home that’s occupied my desk all week. But there’s two parts of the beauty – of course the natural beauty (I don’t think I’ll ever be over California’s flowers, and currently blooms occupy at least 51% of my camera roll), but also people making spaces that feel like an exhale with everything that’s going on in the world. If you’re queer and in LA, check out Junior High LA for some cool programming.
3. Hearing Ocean Vuong speak: The first time I consumed Vuong’s work was walking around my neighborhood listening to him read his poem ‘Not Even This’ on a podcast from the Poetry Foundation. His poetry collections are some of the most dogeared books I own, so it was almost surreal getting to hear him speak sitting in a room with other humans who his work means something to as well. I can’t wait to read his book The Emperor Of Gladness.
Ok that’s all, hope you consume some beauty this weekend!
xx
Sophia