My Head is my Only House Unless It Rains
Note: This was originally posted on my old squarespace site. Original date of publication: Jun 11, 2024
happy june! i'm still around town!
It's been too long since I last wrote here mainly because I have been having a weird year (but who hasn't) and I've had zero creative energy to even sit down and just tell you about my life.
HOWEVER. I'm back. My brain feels like it's been defrosting in the microwave for ten months and now the timer has gone off and something is going to happen. I can't guarantee it'll be good. Maybe the brain splattered inside the microwave. There are definitely sections of the brain that are too warm and other sections that are still coated in ice. I don't fully know where I was going with this analogy but basically I've been spinning around in my own head for a while and now I have my feet on the ground and I'm ready to go.
Please enjoy my first blog entry in many months, I hope you are well wherever you may be. I hope you're not stuck in a microwave. but first a quick catch up
My last blog entry came to you from an extremely warm apartment on the outskirts of Florence. There was something about the searing heat that infected my brain and made me feel loopy and isolated. Perhaps because I was very loopy and isolated. Cheap wine and being countries away from anyone you've ever known can do that to you. I tried to write for many months after that but nothing felt right. I have journals upon journals of writing that feels like it goes in circles forever, talking about the same things and dreaming the same dreams.
I had a good time during those months of travel that shall remain unwritten about. If any of my feelings about that time are to be made public, it is the absolute gratitude that I have for the people who gave me places to stay, food to eat, wine to drink, and brilliant conversation. Thank you (in chronological order) to Nick & Anna, Julieth & Dillan, Laura, Lovisa, Brie, Lydia, Valerio, Clementine, Claudia & the Barcelona family, Yaneli & Emmanuel. It was a joy to meet some of you last year, and a joy to see others again. Two particular moments that altered my brain chemistry:
Running down the stairs and giving Julieth a hug in the Bruxelles-Nord train station after not having seen each other for seven years
Giving Claudia a big hug as she dropped me off at the Barcelona Airport
I think I feel the biggest feelings in these moments of arrival and departure, like my entire chest is going to collapse in on my heart. There is something scary about not knowing when you'll see someone next. And there is something so deeply wonderful about seeing them again, it almost makes up for the pain of saying goodbye. It balances itself out, I think.
building a life and discipline or whatever those self help gurus talk about all the time
After a very long (but excellent) travel time, I found myself drinking a coffee at my aunt's kitchen table in Mexico City late last autumn.
Something you should know about the women in my family - they are all unbelievably competent and brilliant and hilarious. To be around them is to be sucked up in a whirlwind of activity, working crazy hours, taking care of multiple generations of kids, making the best food in the world, and somehow doing it in a city that deliberately kicks down anyone who dares to live in it. It was at this table, sunlight coming in, listening to the amateur opera singer practicing downstairs, the trucks outside, and watching my aunts, mom, cousins, and abuelita scrambling around the apartment, that I felt this sense of really, truly being at home and at peace. It has been years since I have been surrounded by them in the way that I was on that autumn day.
For a brief period of time after that my journals stopped being so cyclical. I was family-oriented. I was inspired. I wrote and read and ate good food and took walks around neighbourhoods where no one knew my name. I thought a harder about what I wanted my life to look like. Back in the safety of the city, I started to plan.
At that time I realized I needed one thing to really build the life that I wanted - discipline. To some extent I have never really lived life as a disciplined person. Some of you will read this and say - "Sam, literally look at what you did for the last 4 years. You have impostor syndrome." To which I politely say that you are correct. BUT.
My argument is more so that university life is so deeply unstructured it didn't feel like I was disciplined with what I was doing. I didn't have a routine other than go to these classes at these times. Go to work. Go to grocery store. Everything that existed outside of those times was a gray zone - anything could happen (and usually anything did). I don't regret a single part of the last few years, but part of my own growing up is to lock in and develop a plan for the future. my very real plan for the future
I wish I could tell you that I was so inspired that I immediately worked my butt off and a miracle happened and I am now living this glorious glamorous life. This is only partially true.
The most realistic option to help me plan for the future was to come back to my hometown. Those of you who met me sometime in the last five years might recall the very vicious words I used to use to describe this city of my birth. I would like to claim responsibility for those comments and revoke them. I like it here now.
I spent a very long time applying for jobs and opportunities. I extend my deepest sympathies to those who are currently in the job market. I can offer you no advice other than there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I wish the best employment for all of you employment seekers.
I now work a 9-5 job in a very cool place which I won't speak about too publicly here for security reasons (I did almost get my identity stolen one time on LinkedIn. This experience scared me so bad I now really dislike that website). All I will say is that it's likely I will talk a bit in future blog posts about things I have learned on my job! And if you want a hint - it's a job I couldn't work anywhere else in the world other than in this city.
So, I am working! I'm inspired! I am a Girl who is Going to be Okay. I am enjoying my work and my time in this city. Summer is the best time to be in Canada. This adventure has just started and I'll let you know how it goes.
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a summery poem by Fanny Howe - so short and sweet I'll put it here:
βI wonβt be able to write from the grave
so let me tell you what I love:
oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter,
cheese and wine, a windy day, a fireplace,
the children nearby, poems and songs,
a friend sleeping in my bedβ
and the short northern nights.β
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Thank you to everyone who commented on my last blog post! Lots of love! Please continue to comment (I am addicted to the engagement because I don't use social media anymore. The mouse in my brain is gnawing at the cables and it only stops when I get an email about someone commenting). I will be better at responding to things now that this is a WEEKLY blog.
Love and hugs, sam