spontaneous intimacy
[10am, drinking an iced americano on the bench outside a café, waiting for my friends to join me. I have to go to class in 45 minutes, but in the meantime I'm facing the sun and closing my eyes.]
The question of intimacy has been on my mind lately. And the way it happens more and more digitally — it’s become more of the norm to catch up with friends on FaceTime than to catch up over morning coffee. Every time that summer comes around, I marvel at how easy it becomes to make spontaneous plans with friends, like grabbing iced coffee at the café on the way to class. We need to create space for spontaneity in friendship because it’s what sustains them.
I was thinking about all of this sitting on a bench outside Café Nocturne, a fifteen-minute walk away from campus. Watching people grab breakfast before work and observing the other mundanities going about all around me that are often left unwatched.
I keep returning to the idea of balance. I’m thinking about what cultivates joy: a little bit of socializing, a little bit of learning, a little bit of sunlight, a little bit of nothing.
I read someone say recently that certain things can only be discovered when done repeatedly; after 100 hours talking with your friends, you discover a facet of life that never entered your consciousness, then you spend 100 more hours thinking about it and the possibilities that unfold. I may never have had all of these thoughts if it weren’t for this morning, getting coffee with friends, or I never would’ve been able to put them down like this. Nothing feels important when you do nothing; everything feels important when you start doing it all as if it were all that mattered. As if this day was all you had. I wonder if this singular moment made me feel so inspired, how inspired would I be if this were a routine? Or if the routinely aspect of it would make it seem insignificant. Can these moments retain their miraculousness while also becoming commonplace?
I used to think that inspiration came from boredom, that I had to sit and think for a long time to create something meaningful, but it’s always in the moments of busyness or in-between that I find the most treasures.