life is a garden ➿ and the roots are all touching
aug 29-sept 1 ↳ I love a ritual. Each summer, I go on one uncharacteristically massive party bender for a weekend, declaring Out of Office from my jobs. I twirl until my joints give out, with a firm goal of 25,000 steps on the dance floor or more. I don’t work, I don’t make art, I don’t make firm plans, loosely coordinating my evenings around parties. I consider it a test of endurance, courage, and a suspension of my reckless stupidity I don’t always indluge in, contrasting the intensity of a daily balancing act between my jobs, art practice, and responsibilties as a citizen of the world. TLDR: I act a fool.
I take play seriously!
The stars always align for me to forge new, important relationships during this time. Last year, I spent it with new friends who are now some of my nearest and dearest. It was also the catalyst for my decision to move back to the East Coast.This year, we serendipidously ran into a new friend two nights in a row, laughing and moving together for many, many hours. A communal bottle of incorrect use nail polish remover offered to everyone and anyone in a three foot radius, taking turns locating beers, deliriously committing to the bit, staying for a friend’s 4am set, pushing my body to the limit.
On the 29th, the Moon trined Jupiter, bringing clarity about situations that have felt incredibly muddy for me for the past few months. As my body swayed through night into early morning, I moved through feelings I hadn’t managed to fall towards a resolution with. Somehow, through aggressive movement and screaming over the sound system, I found solace in not having the answers. The answer was that... I simply didn’t have them now, and that was more than okay.
On that same Sunday I saw the sun come up, I witnessed a grand sunset as a friend and I walked to the movie theater. Watching a movie in those stupid reclining theater chairs (that I don’t want to admit I like but I do) was the most harmonious way to conclude a weekend full of so much and nothing all at once. There is catharisis in being scared shitless, as well as a very speciifc melody of laughter that comes with watching horror films. We had a drink to debrief and the bartender serving us was wasted (an assumption based on deductive reasoning), refilling our Guinesses (but only halfway), unprompted, declaring them “on the house”. The bartender told me about his glasses melting at the Russian bathhouse, along with a cluster of phrases about jerking off. I woke up hoping that he wasn’t feeling too hungover. I woke up laughing about everything.
I went to work on Monday (Labor Day), but since it was technically still the weekend, I continued with the same laissez faire attitude I’d carried for the past 48 hours. A birthday bbq for a friend I love and have loved many lifetimes before, we ate long foods like hot dogs and corn on the cob, lighting long candles.
We clean up and try to go to a karaoke bar but its closed. We go to a bar nearby that I would usually never step foot in- we do this because I am surprised at the sight of someone I know working there.
Running into people makes the world feel small and pleasant and village-like so we drink High Lifes as we hear the weirdest rendition of the Birthday song being sung by a group of girls who couldn’t be over 22. I wonder what their future holds. We play hangman. We draw upside down without looking. I spill a little bit of my beer, drop a drawing. We are laughing. I feel like I could be the happiest person in the room, on the block even.
The only way I can really describe it all is that... this weekend felt like I had a flip phone.
I feel stupid and exhausted packing in my days like this, but what am I supposed to do? If the Christians are right, I only have one life, and I really like this one.
I think about the summer and how I much I love it and how much I hate it and how much it really is a state of mind- it is a constant battle of pacing yourself while mitigating FOMO while saying fuck it we ball but also still having job(s) and things I have to do and in those moments I’m just really glad we have seasons and that nothing is just one thing all the time because as someone who grew up in the tropics and everything was the same everyday there just isn’t the same kind of urgency like when the first autumn chill carresses my weary fingertips and triggers a survival response to store nuts for the winter and i sooooo look forward to the hibernation that feels so in my reach and so well deserved last edited 9/2/25