there & back again
After a bit of a radio silence, I'm back (or trying to)
Last time I wrote to you, I said I was rethinking the frequency of these newsletters and then promptly fell off the face of the earth. The truth is, I was at the airport, waiting for a flight to Rio, then Paris, on a trip that brought some mixed feelings, lots of walking, and being away from my computer for several days.
I am back now. Both back home and back to this space, hoping to catch you up, as I sip some hot cider at my local board game café.
First: A big shout out to Haley, who invited me to an interview on my reading and writing habits over her substack:
Now... What can one say after going radio silent for what feels like quite some time?
As I said, I was away, traveling. It's not often you get the opportunity to help fulfill someone's dream—in this case, my mom's, of going to Paris to celebrate her birthday. I was rained on frequently, only once did someone try to scam me, I gave directions to a group of American tourists, I didn't read a whole lot but did get enough books to last me through some months.
But one of the things that got stuck with me from all those days traipsing around autumnal Paris was how quickly the medievalist in me surfaced at every turn. Geeking out at the unexpected sight of the interrogation roll of the French Templars in the national archives. Beelining to the medieval sculptures and decorative arts in the Louvre. Heading to Saint-Denis under torrential rain.
My story in that city is intrinsically connected to my education and professional training. But it's also a story of falling in love with stuff while becoming an adult and feeling like I was becoming my own person. A story of cobbled streets, unending hours in the library and the archives, good and cheap wine, and losing and finding myself.
It felt momentous to go back to this city of discovery as I try to understand who I am away from the very medievalist that blossomed there. It made it clear, in a very concrete way, that I will never not be that person as well as everything else I want and can be. You can't pry away from my brain the sequence of queens of France between 1234 and 1435 any more than you can make me not be left-handed. Sure, I can cut vegetables and use a mouse with my right hand, but my signature still lives on the left.
At some point in the past two weeks, I was talking to my mom about old photographs and went looking for one. I couldn’t find it. But I did find one from July 2010.
I’m sitting in a classroom, wearing a white top and red nail polish, my shoulder-length hair barely curling (after years of straightening it). There’s a faint hint of eyeliner and I don’t have glasses on (though by that point I already wore them more often than not) and I’m smiling a little shy to the camera while I hold a printed copy of my honors thesis about religion, politics, and war under in the reign of 13th-century French king Louis IX.
The caption reads: “source of pride, no matter what.”
On that day, my thesis advisor mentioned that I should consider going to France for my MA, to unpack my last thesis chapter (about the Sainte-Chapelle) into a fuller research project. It was a bit of an off-hand comment, but one that stuck enough that I actually went looking into it—and a year later I would be making concrete plans about packing my life and moving across the Atlantic for exactly that. I spent two years studying this one chapel at the center of Paris, learning about Gothic architecture and stained-glass making from scratch, learning that I missed the sun but not the heat, learning Latin in a language I did not feel at all confident in, learning that compliments are not universal but frustrations with bureaucracy are.
I’ve come a long way since that day in 2010. My hair looks better, my eyeliner game has improved, my eyes got worse, and I don’t wear white if I can avoid it. But today, as I type this, my nail polish is as bright a red as that day.
And, despite all the twists and turns—and the fact that my undergraduate library will not give me access to my own work—those hundred or so pages do remain a source of pride.
Or, as the French would say, plus ça change…
I started this newsletter outside with some hot cider and I end it now at home with some hot tea. I’ve caught up with almost everything, except for some emails and the reading.
Before I go tackle them, a final word circling back to my previous newsletter: I considered spacing these out more as a way to give myself and my ideas some room to breathe. But I think one of the reasons why this space has been so much fun is precisely the fact that, after years of overthinking every sentence typed, every week I get to sit down, sit back, and just tell you what is on my mind. So we’re going to keep this going as is, for a little while longer at least, because why the hell not.
A lovely, wistful "crônica". I admire the way you create a tone, a voice - and how everything seems to flow from there.