how to stay warm
To be an eldest immigrant daughter is to consider all the ways in which we could light ourselves on fire to keep those we love warm. Sometimes, it is to do it. Often, it is to fight the urge, to resent the flames, and simultaneously to feel most alive when we are alight. What a marvel, to be so warm.
Sometimes we will stand in front of those we love, searching for water — hands cupping the flames, hair singed and wild — and they will look back at us, unmoved and unmoving, and ask why we lit the match. They are not always wrong in asking.
I wonder at all the things we do to feel warm — the self destructive and the restorative, the messy middle and the clean finish. We forget the greens languishing in the fridge and order takeout instead; we bottle up our ruminations until they explode in a tearful frenzy; we plunge into hot baths after a cold November 4pm sunset chill; we have sex with the wrong people and occasionally the right ones.
When we get it right, the heat is soft, easeful, nourishing. A hot water bottle tucked between the sheets, a reckoning within relationship that brings deeper intimacy, a dollop of honey and bourbon in a cup of tea, a hurt navigated with integrity and dignity, a giddy book of erotica late into the night. Tending to our needs and wants is the hardest easy medicine.
Sometimes we come at each other with a blade in one hand and salt in the other. Sometimes we remember the vegetables before they wilt and cook a broth that makes us weak at the knees. Maybe, in the end, we will spoon out the stew for those we love — cooked over a simple, soft blue flame — and delight in the warmth, when nothing and no one has burned.
a few medicines, to keep us warm:
A quilt based on a garden, as I’m designing this winter’s quilt and next summer’s garden.
Trevor Noah, on men and intimacy.
I rearranged my apartment, and now you all are invited to come for tea.
Art to inspire, craft to practice, brown hands blue.
I’m teaching a workshop next week, on long covid and accessibility — I’d love to see you there.
The next chai with zia episode is coming soon; submit your questions here.
until next time.