Hi, my name is Evana. Charlotte's letting me take over once again. In this seasonal installment, Charlotte gave me a moodboard of words, images, memes, and missives to draw inspiration from. What you’ll read here is a reflection of that very mind-meld.
Not to be seen / See not look
There’s a weekend we go to so many parties I lose count. On the second night, you dress me in a purple sequin dress. With the steady hand of an old master, you make me up with smokey eyes. Tie a ribbon around my neck. For a second, I believe my head would fall off without it.
The second we walk into the party full of people with famous parents, a woman approaches us. She tells me I remind her of someone. Daphne, she concludes. It’s not an insult but for the rest of the party, I feel uncomfortable. You understand—and would feel the same. Temporary flashes of confidence accidentally tarnished. I know she didn’t mean to. Maybe that’s why it hurts. My rational mind didn’t stand a chance against the echo of someone’s judgment. I feel silly when I know I shouldn’t. Several hours later, after a pitstop back to your apartment, I’m still in your clothes, but different ones, when we go dancing. We conclude that the girl was no better dressed than either of us. Maybe she was the one who looked stupid.
Sometimes you and I worry we bring out each other’s mean streak. I’d like to think this is our instincts coming out to protect ourselves. We’re cruel to be kind. You wrote to me that you wondered whether we would have been friends in school. (Your words: Elementary school? Middle school? High school? College? My guess is yes, no, yes, yes.) We would have been a few grades apart, but I often forget this. I’m not your older sister and you’re not my younger. But then you protect me like an older sister. Suddenly, I feel so much younger than I was when I was twenty-five, your age now. If that’s what the mean streak brings out, I don’t mind.
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Not to be bitten / Feel not grasp
Sometimes this is what I fixate on, the neck. Apparently, when you desire someone, you touch your neck more often. As love finds others, their necks often reveal what happens in private. Bite marks. Those childish transgressions cast us backwards in time.
A few months ago, I was so selfish I almost abandoned you at your birthday party for a strange boy. A boy who kissed me in the last bar of the night, bang smash on the mouth. I almost let him sweep me away. He was ridiculous, but so was I. This was the real start of summer. The next morning, instead, I woke up in your clothes in your bed. On the train home, I touched my bruised lips and neck. There is pleasure in that innocent violence.
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Not to be there / Hear not listen
I left behind what I knew better in those last weeks. Time broke apart in strange ways. For a while, we couldn’t catch each other in the same place. Going and coming. Weekend trips fragmented the time we could be spending together. A can on a string with you on the other end. The line of communication is open. We might need to invent a new form. Or learn Morse code.
When we started this project, we decided it should feel like we’re writing letters to each other. But in some ways, we do this everyday. Through texts and voice memos, you listen to me spin out about things we’ve talked about one hundred times. Just this week I relistened to voice memos from the weekend I went away early in July. They’re hard to listen to, so I give you a lot of credit for stomaching them. I can’t forget the ways you’ve been a good friend to me. All the letters you’ve sent me without knowing.
Like this one:
On the morning after I think I’ve ruined everything, you send me a text as I’m on a run through my neighborhood. Now it’s my time to tell you what you always tell me. Life is long and various. For the first time, I believe it.
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Not to be edible / Taste not gulp
Back to the bar that might be our chosen bar in the East Village. Back there where we sit months ago in a trio. One third of whom has gone back to your shared home state. Back to the bar that served you food poisoning just a week ago. Back to another place where summer began. An ice cream shop I adore. The last time I went was the same last time (until a week ago) that you’d been to my apartment.
Back further, to a bar we went to for a single drink in January after we lifted weights to make ourselves stronger. We sit by the windows, not in the same spot, but this is where my novel starts. Back to your college self, as your friends from undergrad describe people I haven’t met but likely will some day. We drink slowly so as to not get drunk for no reason. I order a Dark and Stormy that I haven’t had since college.
Back to California, without you, in a week. Sent in your stead, a shabby replacement. You said you wanted to show me your California. Bittersweet that I’ll have to find it myself first.
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Not to be alone / Show not expose
When I read to you the Sylvia Plath poem, you react in the way I did the first time I read it. Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected. We walk through Gramercy talking about the gradients of our feelings. Every park appears to be a secret garden. Everyone goes to the same dark places. You doubt yourself, you tell me. It’s odd to hear it, but of course, like most things we share, I feel so much less alone.
Sometimes I believe I’m too soft for the world. The majority of these strategies have not yet been studied. It took me months to realize what had happened one night in February was not just a mistake, but a transgression. I only understood this when I wrote about it this week. My instinct then was to text you so I wouldn’t be alone in my witnessing. I don’t say this to draw sympathy, but to recognize the stark fact of it. That I’m not alone in this. Ridiculous for a second to think I was. That I could bury and bury until the sand turned that pain into seaglass. Beautiful but the sharp edges remain. I unearthed it to find myself still cut.
I wish I was better at protecting myself. Protecting myself will at times require me to be alone in a different way. I don’t know which scares me more. The idea of closing myself off is almost unthinkable. Talking to you, I realize that I want to be like you. Understanding which parts are off limits, and who is worthy enough to give those parts to. You have an innate sense of this. A lesson for a more temperate season. If I’ll let myself learn it.
It’s not very late when we say goodnight at First Avenue, but the day has been long. Back to my room to write through whatever comes next. I remember what you wrote: Walking around with an open heart. That you shared your secret notes with me so I could write this. I wonder what kind of heart I have. As a kid, my mother called it tender. Maybe it’s just that I was born with a weak heart like The Talking Heads song. Or maybe we don’t know our hearts until someone else can love us for both our strengths and weaknesses. The upstairs neighbor slams our front door. I’m reminded: You’ll love your neighbor with your crooked heart.
Tasting Notes is an exchange between writers. It’s a letter, it’s a conversation, it’s a trade. In it, the authors of arbiter of distaste and Insecure Tea are challenged to speak to one another’s audiences, one another’s themes, and… one another. Well, the last one isn’t actually a challenge.
The partner essay “Charlotte Speaks” will drop tomorrow (9/4) on arbiter of distaste. If you haven’t already, subscribe today!