Turns Out I Actually Had to Live Life
How an unplanned day turned into one for the books (or in this case, the newsletter)
Hi everyone.
I’m back home and can finally catch my breath. I took an unplanned writing hiatus this past month to deal with never ending bureaucracy and to visit the Bay Area before my next semester starts. Since landing, I’ve been spending a lot of time with friends & family, scheduling standard operating procedures like a haircut and dentist appointments, and sleeping off jet lag.
And, admittedly, I haven’t really had much to say (or so I thought). I barely left the house this past summer. I did a lot of pondering, but I’m not sure of any good that it did me. There is a fine line that exists between being reflective and over-intellectualizing without speaking to anyone, and I was treading it quite closely. I’ve had to continuously come to terms with the fact that interesting writing comes from living life and paying attention to it, meaning that you actually have to talk to people and experience things in order to tell a story. Sequestering yourself to a book or page and trying to write about something when you haven’t actually tried to explore or live out an idea falls flat.
How do we write about the things that seem like a giant tangled ball of thread in our brains? We talk to our friends and go out into our community. We research. We listen to public radio. We have experiences, good or bad or somewhere in between.
Last summer, I was pitching several stories to magazines and all of the ones that did get published were based on personal experience or things I noticed while out in the world. This summer (or this past entire year for that matter) I haven’t pitched or written a single story for an outside publication, except to one editor who I’ve previously worked with but the piece wasn’t what they were looking for at the time. I wasn’t any smarter or had “better” ideas a year ago. I think that I just actually left the house more and participated in conversations surrounding culture, fashion, and life. What I’ve been lacking is the drive to build a community, mostly due to my fear of carving out an identity for myself in a new country and social setting. Now I’m seeing it was the very thing that was so essential to my writing practice and wellbeing.
On one unassuming Friday, instead of going to my old haunts in San Francisco, I went to all the places I’d never been before with no prior planning or expectation.
I ventured to Loquat in Hayes Valley and brunched with a dear friend, who was also my boss at my old shop girl job. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year and we could barely contain ourselves as we exchanged stories between bites of rosemary lemon tart and pistachio butter cookies. Other customers came and went, but we stayed for about two hours.
Afterwards, we headed to Cotton Sheep on Hayes, where they sell Japanese cotton & denim, Kapital, and small goods like bandanas and jewelry. The owner Eiko is incredibly sweet, super chatty, and very eager to help you find what you’re looking for. I saw a candle in the shape of a Kewpie baby and had to snap a photo. It’s an open, airy space with wooden fixtures and a mosaic inlay bearing the name of the shop right as you enter. We sat and shopped in the store for about an hour, chatting as my friend shopped gifts and tried on a hand-dyed silk tank top and halter dress.
Later that same day, I met up with another very close friend, who I met 10 years ago during my first week of classes at USF. She texted me saying she was able to get a reservation at Ernest that night. I’d never been, had no idea what I was getting myself into, and didn’t think twice when considering the invitation—it was an immediate yes. There was no better time to try it out: a best friend, a praised restaurant in the Mission, a last minute lucky reservation. Say no more, I’m there.
It was the best fine dining meal I’ve had in a long time. My favorite dish was a spin on a classic beef tartare that was served over rice, topped with salmon roe, and paired with seaweed instead of the traditional bread.
We got to the restaurant a bit early and decided to kill time at Heath Newsstand, which I somehow managed to never go to while living in the city. If you’re in the market for niche magazines and books from small presses, this is the place. I ended up purchasing You Gotta Keep Your Head Straight About Clothes by Dal Chodha, who is a professor at Central Saint Martins and writer based in London. At 92 pages and published by Tenderbooks, it’s a short homage to Cheap Chic, one of the first modern “fashion manifestos” on creating a personal wardrobe through thrift and secondhand shopping that was published in 1975.
We finished up dinner with a cigarette outside of the car, a few minutes later driving back to the Richmond to visit Green Apple Books right before they closed. This was the only familiar place I had visited that day. At 8pm, the bookstore was still lively; browsers meandered aisles looking for their next read, forthcoming book lovers of all ages enjoying their crepes outside from Genki before stopping in to peruse the latest new releases to the tune of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. It was the perfect “nightcap” to a fortuitous day.
And so this brings me back to this particular newsletter. I didn’t know what to write about, I thought I had nothing to say. I got out of the house, left the day up to chance, and then I strung experiences into sentences. From the outside, this letter is merely a recap. But it felt so good to write, to the point where I had to stand up, stare at wall, clench and release to get my building enthusiasm out. Sometimes I guess that’s all you really need.
Past letters if you missed them:
This was such a fun read! I took a writing workshop in Spring and she said the same thing, to write down everything you experience because you never know if it'll be something you'll want to share in your writing. I've found that it helps me connect it with a memory, even though I may never end up sharing it publicly.
beautifully put !