Takdir Saudade

Vanessa Stockard (Australian, b.1975)

Swiftcurrent Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana.

I am a terrible combination of “whatever happens, happens” and “If everything doesn’t go according to plan, I will vaporize”

worst part about getting angry is how much it makes you want to be mean

sorry i said something dickish. a few mildly frustrating things happened to me in succession and it turned me evil

A relationship should be 50/50: I wear the sundress you like and you fuck me silly in it.

cemeteries aren’t creepy they’re actually devoted to memory and rest and love and humanity

The beautiful thing as you get older is that you realize so many “rules” are made up and you can just do whatever. Posters can go anywhere in the house not just my room. I can sit down while cooking a meal or taking a shower. I can make the same thing for breakfast lunch dinner for a week straight. I can roam around the house shirtless. I can wear a dress with jeans. The world is my oyster key word my and I can live as I please embracing little things such as this

name moodboard: order for “xenia” | want one?

take figures out of their boxes btw. sew patches on your favorite jacket. go to bed with your favorite plushes. wear the pants you usually save for special occasions. draw something cool on your wall. put a sticker on your laptop. dye your hair and pierce your lips. glass is meant to break, metal is meant to rust. items are meant to be used. that's how the world knows that somebody loved them.

When my aunt died of covid, we had to clean out a lot of stuff that she was saving. Foods she was going to try, she was a great chef, spices she'd never opened or only used sparingly, lotions and bath things she hadn't used. After she died I started making a point of using things up: the good vanilla that has to be imported, that we finally found more of, we'd used barely an ounce before she passed away. Even though we love it. I just got my family new bottles of it for Christmas because we used one up. We enjoyed that happiness. Sometimes I still get the impulse to wait for something special, or awful, to save nice things for celebration or comfort. The phrase that always echoes in my mind is "use the good vanilla". And I have been (burning the candles, squirting the body wash, dissolving the bath bombs, putting the saffron in things). And it's been great. Use the good vanilla.

sometimes you listen to music and god personally delivers the sounds to your ears & your nerves & your heart to show you that life is an endless gift. btw.

from Other People’s Love Letters, edited by Bill Shapiro