phoebe bridgers and little bits of happiness
ruminations on loneliness and kickass song recommendations
Hello dear reader,
This week’s newsletter dispatch comes from my desk, fully stacked with books, having two big mugs being used to hold the extravaganza of pens and paintbrushes that I own. Scattered around are all sorts of things from my phone to my notebook, my yellow Lamy which is more dear to me than anything, my headphones and a half eaten bowl of pudding. It is a pretty place if you don’t mind a little mess.
Last night, I was walking around on my terrace, wearing my headphones. There’s this song that I’ve been fixating over for almost a month now. It’s the Phoebe Bridgers version of Summer’s End that she recorded for Spotify Singles. (Please also check out the original one by John Prine. It is divine.) It is a sad song but it is just the right sad, you know? It is just the sad that you can wallow in for two minutes and then forget about it. It is beautiful sad. I have these two lines that always get me. Now mind you, I am a real crier but I never cry during a song, it doesn’t happen, no matter how beautiful the song is. But these lines get me every time. She sings
I'll meet you there per our conversation
I hope I didn't ruin your whole vacation
and I’m left alone with nothing but tears streaming down my cheeks and an appreciation for her silvery vocals and lyrics. Something inside me snaps. I don’t even have to get myself to think about the fact that she’s singing this about her father and how he hopes he didn’t ruin her vacation by visiting her. I cry every single time she sings about her father. I love my father so much and have such a nice and quiet relationship with him, it almost physically hurts to imagine that there’s this young woman out there who has had a troublesome relationship with her father. It always brings me to tears. Like when in the song Kyoto, she sings
Remember getting the truck fixed when you let us drive it
25 felt like flyingI don't forgive you
But please don't hold me to it
Born under Scorpio skies
I wanted to see the world
Through your eyes until it happened
Then I changed my mind
Then I feel it. The loneliness. Not the existential loneliness. The loneliness that feels like I will never get to share this feeling with anyone in the world. No one is going to feel the same way about the song and its meaning as I do. Not my best of friends, not my brother, not my parents, nobody. It is the loneliest feeling because I want to share these things that make me feel so alive with the people I love the most and I can’t. Tonight, I’m thinking about the enormous amount of people who must feel this way. Like when my mother wants to show me her new recipe and I don’t care enough, or when my brother talks about these pairs of shoes he is obsessed with and I wonder how lonely THAT must feel to him. Not being able to express to anyone how dearly he feels about those shoes, is quite lonely, isn’t it? Do you also feel this way about something? Please let me know either by replying to this email or in the comment section so that I know that I’m not alone. :)
I don’t think I’m going to weave this entire post together this time. I think it is just going to be fragmented like this. I wanted to tell you about my desk, so I did. I wanted to talk about how this song makes me feel, so I did. I wanted to talk about loneliness, and I did. Now I feel like telling you, reader, about all the little things that made me feel happy in the past few days, in the hopes that these things bring you an equal amount of joy.
My most precious sister Arni, telling me that she loved what I wrote in my first newsletter. I just wanted to hug her and tell her how much that meant to me, coming from her.
A compilation video of ducklings being made to wear flowers as hats.
Pictures of Aishwarya and her dog. Constant blessing in my life.
My work, and the fact that I enjoy it so much.
Reconnecting with an old friend, over a heartbreaking conversation. Still managed to make me feel nice because I spoke to her after so long and she means so much to me.
Jayati, my childhood friend, becoming a doctor!!!!!! (I’m so proud of her I am not even going to be subtle about it!!!!!)
Feeling like shit but using the negative energy to be productive the entire effing day. God complex feeling.
Stumbling upon a video of my Dada and seeing him smile in it.
Getting to use my new notebook that Preksha gave me!!!! I was so excited to use it and now I write work related stuff in it.
My local bookstore owner, sharing my enthusiasm over my first salary and congratulating me by deciding to give me a book for free.
My Mumma and Papa’s face when I got new earphones for him and a mug for her. They were so happy.
Seeing an old couple reading newspapers together and drinking tea on the porch of their house.
Incidentally, a picture of another really old couple, the old man wearing a kurta and the woman, a saree, probably in their seventies, chilling on the beach and drinking beer. How often does one get to see THAT?
Remembering the feeling that I got a week after reading Anna Karenina by Tolstoy and Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky when every word and every sentence started seeping in and I realized what two masterpieces of Russian Literature I had just read.
Brace yourselves for this one. An entire Instagram account dedicated to Pictures. Of. BABY. GOATS!!!!!
With this cute as hell picture of this baby goat, I wish you a very happy and relaxing Sunday. Sending an entire wave of positivity and love for you. Oh, and before I go, let me just do the Big Moon Energy ritual real quick, by putting this really nice song here.
Lots of love,
Aashvi