chasing the light
on the things and people that bring us light, and also bringing light to others
I feel like I am usually better at putting my thoughts into written words than I am at explaining them out loud – any close friend or coworker or family member can attest to my tangents and my stutters – but I cannot seem to find the right way to describe the thing I am trying to say in a way that makes sense or reads the slightest bit eloquent. I want to get better at writing, and to get better at writing means to get better at reading, and to get better at reading means to get better at putting down my phone and picking up one of the many books lining the many shelves of my flat. I know you might think I am someone who reads because I am someone who writes (and someone who wears glasses and frequents coffee shops and keeps a half-read book in my crossbody bag as a reminder that I should finish it) and it is not that I do not like to read, because I do, I really do like to get lost in someone else’s written world, I just seem to lack the focus and self-discipline these days. I blame it on an insufficient amount of time, when in reality, much of my time is spent getting lost in the depths of my phone, scrolling and saving and letting the compulsion to compare take over. This introduction has been drafted and re-drafted, typed out and deleted and typed out again – three days ago I was on a plane, ferociously editing every other sentence and adding some more and then the entire document erased itself the moment I landed and my cell phone service loaded – where I was left with no choice but to radically accept that 1. the universe wanted me to try my hand at this one more time, to perhaps write about writing an introduction, and 2. to also accept that I should probably make a document available offline before adding to it while I am floating through the clouds, and so here we are, off the airplane and in my living room, candles lit, slippers on, and thoughts suspended in mid air, like puzzle pieces resisting connection.
What I want to write about is how I was at the pub down the road, the pub which has detailed oil paintings of black and brown pugs and maroon red candlesticks dripping their wax down the sides of empty wine bottles, and how there was a lady sitting by herself at the table behind ours, face expressionless as she nursed a glass of water, scanning the pug-painting premises between sips. She was waiting for someone, as most of us do when we are alone at pubs, and the moment her “someone” – a partner, presumably – walked into the room, a smile stretched across her face as they went to embrace each other. And it made me think about how much I love that we have people in our lives that make us light up in the blink of an eye. How we can be rushing down a street, laser-focused on walking faster than anyone else around us because we are in London and in London We Must Walk Fast, but the moment we hear a familiar voice call our name, we stop in our tracks to say hello and give them a hug and suddenly getting wherever we are rushing to is the least of our worries. How we can be unlocking the many locks on our building after a long day at work, overheating and overstimulated, groceries in hand and Airpods hanging on by a thread and suddenly our partner approaches the front door on his bike and then all of our worries blow away in the wind as Lorde sings in our ears. How we can be waiting in a dimly lit pub, anxiously tapping our leg and sipping our glass of water, and when our person enters the room it is all of the sudden brighter than it ever was. What I witnessed at the pub is one of my favorite human experiences to both observe and partake in; seeing someone waiting for someone else, and seeing their happiness when they spot their “someone else.” It is one of those things that I think makes humans kind of cute. Amidst a sea of people — or rather, a pub of people and pug paintings — we recognise a person we know, and suddenly, we light up. We feel seen.
It is now autumn, which means that bright yellow and red leaves are floating in the sky and dissolving into the pavement, and because of this my camera roll is full of imagery of crunchy leaves and my shoes stepping over them, and in the mornings and early afternoons the sun is shining and the air is crisp, and it is not yet too cold but most certainly not too warm, unless you find yourself on the tube or on a bus full of commuters, which get far too stuffy and damp for anyone’s liking. Autumn is the sweet spot between the scorching, unpredictable London summers that we lust for during the dark months ahead and the freezing, wet London winters that made me understand the concept of seasonal depression, and I do not think I ever thought too deeply about autumn — or light, for the matter — until these last few weeks, and especially right now.
When I moved to London, I was convinced that I was a Winter Girl. The snow was a romantic concept to me (Californians call the snow “the snow” because of how foreign it is to most of us) and as a child, I dreamt about sipping hot cocoa with marshmallows and whipped cream by a crackling fireplace and building a snowman with a carrot for a nose and sticks for arms and bundling up in a coat and a scarf and a beanie with a pom pom, letting the snowflakes fall on my nose and making snow angels while watching the icicles crystallize on the edge of the roof. Maybe I watched movies like Home Alone and Elf one too many times, or maybe my only real-life reference of the snow is from visiting Lake Tahoe every December as a child, because when I got older and moved to London and experienced three winters there – one of which involved the snow – I realised that perhaps maybe I am a summer person after all, and perhaps I have been a summer person this entire time, because after experiencing the three London summers that followed those three London winters I realized that I like the sunlight and I like how people take advantage of the sunlight the moment it appears until the very moment it goes to rest and I like being able to wake up and go to work in the light and being able to leave to go back home in the light. So, ultimately, yes, I am a summer person, and yes, it is 4:30pm and pitch black outside as I type this, and yes, I am sad to have retired my gingham boxer shorts and white linen skirts for my wool scarves and chunky knits, but a lack of light has only seemed to make me appreciate it all the more. On my walks to work, sitting by the big window in the office, opening my blinds every morning, pausing as I let the autumn warmth seep in. Maybe I am an autumn person too. Or maybe I am just a person who likes light.
When it comes to my ideal flat, my first non-negotiable has and always will be natural light (the second one is hardwood floors, the third is a gas burner, and the fourth is a Smeg refrigerator [I know a Smeg refrigerator sounds niche and very much negotiable in the sense that it is not a non-negotiable, but thus far in my London life two out of the four flats I have lived in were blessed with the pièce de résistance that is a Smeg fridge, so do with that track record what you will]). In my first London flat, the rustic one with the freshly painted blue door and the cherry red Smeg, my bedroom had two wooden windows facing the sun. I taped a sheet of prism film onto a panel, and although from the outside it looked like I had plastered an A4 sized piece of see through paper to my window, every afternoon rainbows would shine across my bed and my floors and my shelves. My second London flat, the tiny shoebox of a studio, had two larger-than-life windows – you could open one of them and climb onto the rooftop – and during golden hour the light would hit the wall next to my bed and reflect the shadow of my plants in the kind of way that would make me stop what I was doing and admire it while it lasted. My third London flat, where I lived with my partner and his brother and our friend, our bedroom had a slanted ceiling with two windows, and if you peeped your head through them you could watch the sun set over the London skyline. In my fourth — and hopefully final (for now) — London flat (which has a light blue Smeg) there are stained glass windows in our living room, and during the afternoon the sun will paint hues of reds and yellows across the walls; it is the same kind of phenomenon that would happen in my studio, where, without fail, I will pause for a moment and appreciate the sight of sunlight shining through a windowpane. Even if just for five minutes, I am taken out of the chaos of my brain and worlds both online and real and I am reminded of and immersed in the beauty of the everyday.
I seem to have found myself surrounded by a lot of light, in every sense of the word. I decided to go to the flower market, one of my favorite things to do on a Sunday in London, and I was coerced into purchasing three bouquets of roses (I was initially going to get two, but it was buy two get one free, and so I paid for two and took three and gave one to my friend), and then on my bus ride home, I was sitting next to my 24 pastel pink roses, delicate but thorny and eagerly awaiting to be trimmed and placed in glass vases and spread across my home. A girl got on the bus, and I cannot fully remember what she looked like, but I remember she had a very welcoming energy; she had a big backpack and a messy bun and was wearing cheetah print and she seemed like the kind of person I would sit next to on public transportation solely because she felt safe and was also wearing an outfit that I would wear too. She sat in the row parallel to me, and the bus started to move, and I held onto my flowers. “Excuse me?” the girl said, “Do you mind if I take a film picture of you? The pink flowers and the light hitting you and the colours look really pretty.” I smiled and said “Yes, of course, go for it,” because that is exactly the kind of thing I would ask of a stranger, too. We then talked about film cameras, and flowers, and how we love seeing people walking around London holding big bouquets of roses and houseplants, and then I learned that she was from Italy, visiting a friend who was having a barbecue, and before we parted ways, we exchanged contacts for whenever she decided to develop the film. I messaged her to let her know I was me, and that it was nice to meet her, and to have a lovely visit in London, and she replied thanking me for letting her, someone I did not know, take my photo. The older woman in front of us was smiling, and I’d like to believe it was the same kind of smile I let out when my faith in humanity is temporarily restored in moments like those.
Among the many named things and trends and tests on TikTok which can sometimes be fun and healthy and at other times quite the opposite, I came across a video about something called “the bird test.” It is sort of like a litmus test for someone’s ability to appreciate something as little as a bird, and apparently, it’s backed by science too. The bird test is as follows: you are on a first date, and you are sitting outside on a bench, and you see a pretty bird. You then stop in the middle of telling your date whatever it was you were in the middle of telling them to say, “Oh my gosh, what a pretty bird!” If they turn around and acknowledge the bird and perhaps say something else about the bird, then they have passed the bird test. They are one to keep. I noticed that all of my friends and I pass the bird test with flying colors, because if there is a cute dog or cat — and on one recent-ish occasion, a one-legged bird hopping around our park bench — we will stop in our tracks to point out how cute it is, and in some instances our conversation will sidebar for a few minutes wondering where the bird came from and if it is hungry, or seeing if we can pet the dog playing fetch, or trying to lure the street cat over to us with subtle clicks. My friends and I exist through each other’s tangents. And ultimately, it is not about birds at all, or dogs or cats, it is about showing genuine interest in something someone you care for is excited about – something that makes them light up – and I thought that was really special.
This morning, I took the bus to work, as I do most days of the week, and I did something I rarely do unless I must: I sat on the top level. I think the anxiety in me (that I like to imagine is one of those little bug-eyed characters from Inside Out) prefers to sit on the bottom level, because London busses are chaotic and hectic and difficult to exit if you are damp, carrying a wet umbrella, with a tote bag falling off your shoulder, as you try to successfully march down the slippery stairs while getting swayed back and forth, and so this morning I randomly decided to deviate from my norm and sit upstairs. At the next stop, a dad, two little kids, and their grandparents sat in front of me, and the kids were at the age where they like to speak about anything and everything. I think they had recently learned the alphabet, because in the UK, each bus stop is named with a big white letter inside of a big red circle, and we passed stop “C” and one of the little kids shouted with glee, “C! C! Look daddy, a C!” “This is a good game,” the dad said, “Collect as many letters as you can and I will put them in my pocket!” As we passed each bus stop, the high pitched voices squealed with joy as they added more letters of the alphabet to their growing collection. “Z! Look! I got a Z!” Their dad, grandma, and grandpa rewarded them with high fives after each correct letter. There is just something so refreshing about seeing a child get excited over something as simple as a letter. Their own “bird test.”
I think back to when I was a child, specifically to when I was 7 years old and in Miss Dee’s second grade class. When I was in second grade, I spent my recesses sitting outside of the classroom, cross legged and patiently waiting for the bell to ring. I had transferred to my elementary school halfway through first grade, and once the facade of being “the new kid from the school down the road” wore off, I was left with no one to hang out with at lunch except for the ramp outside the empty, beige portable classroom. Miss Dee had a reputation for being strict – I remember receiving the 4x6” notecard with a sticker on it declaring Miss Dee as my second grade teacher, and being told I got one of the “mean ones” – but I never fully understood the negativity, and now that I am at an age where my peers are teachers, I feel bad for the teachers who are labelled as “mean” because hardly are they ever “mean” so much as they are misunderstood.* My mom recently told me that during her parent teacher conference with Miss Dee, Miss Dee told my mom that she felt sad watching me sit by myself everyday, and that I am so nice and kind and it breaks her heart to see me alone. Looking at a photo of myself when I was 7, I, too feel heartbroken knowing that she was sitting alone during recess every single day.
*There are exceptions, I am very aware that there are exceptions to this
There was a time where Miss Dee announced that she was going to adopt a foster child and asked for donations, so I put together a gift basket filled with my favorite toys and some supplies from Miss Dee’s list that I most likely hand picked with my mom at Target and wrapped in ribbons and tissue paper. During one lunch, Miss Dee asked me to step inside the classroom, and she thanked me, saying it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever received. She was crying to me and told me I was special but because I was seven I couldn’t fully understand why she was crying, and I also didn’t fully believe that I was extraordinary, but nearly twenty years later I realize that maybe Miss Dee saw a certain kind of light within me that not many others could. And maybe I saw a certain kind of light within her, too. I wonder if she ever ended up adopting the foster child, and what their name is, and if they liked the toys, and what kind of life they are living now.
As I type this, I am now in the middle of Iceland, and in Iceland, the sun rises at 10:30am and sets at 4pm, and similar to the way people in Paris line the Seine with their baguettes and cheap wine and conversation the second the sun shines over the city, I am on my own quest to be outside, admiring Iceland in all of its beauty, from the moment the sun sort-of rises to the moment the sun sort-of sets. Last night, we stayed in a fishing village in a tiny cottage on the top of a hill. At 6pm, we headed to The Restaurant (it had one restaurant and it opened at 6pm) for dinner, and the door was locked. We lingered outside in our awkwardness, hoping someone else would perhaps try to successfully open the door or that someone from inside would unlock it, and a car parked itself to our left. An older, friendly looking man came out and walked up to us. “Are you waiting for the food… Or the Northern Lights?” he laughed. We said “Both!” with a smile, and I asked if he was local, and he said he was from Austria, and then him and Nielsan spoke German to each other and I tried to guess what they were talking about, then we collectively entered the empty restaurant upon realizing that the door was, in fact, unlocked the entire time and we, in fact, are dumb and pushed instead of pulled. The server asked if we wanted a table for three, and we paused and collectively looked at each other and said a table for two, and a table for one.
Later that night, I told Nielsan that I was prepared to ask the man if he wanted to sit with us. He told me he could tell. “I know some people really enjoy their own company,” I said, “but when I saw him alone my brain automatically was like, ‘What if he had a partner that passed away, and their dream was to go to Iceland, and he decided to go by himself in their honor, and then when he saw us he was reminded of his partner, and now he’s eating alone facing us, eating together. Like, that’s so sad, I would have totally invited him to eat with us. Even though I don’t speak German.”
“My brain doesn’t quite think that way,” said Nielsan, to which I asked, “In what way?”
“So positively.”
After recent worldly events immediately followed by a well-timed week spent among reindeers and glaciers and starry skies and reminders that parts of this Earth remain very beautiful, I returned to London with a Substack draft freshly refreshed into a blank document and the conclusion that now, more than ever, we need to chase the light. We need to surround ourselves with the people who bring us light, and we need to bring light to those around us, and we need to stop and slow down, and appreciate the simple beauty of sunlight shining through a tree as its red and yellow leaves fall onto the sidewalk, or through the opening of a cave in the north of Iceland, or through a bus window, illuminating two bouquets of pale pink roses. We need to remember the importance of giving our friends flowers, because even though flowers die at least we care enough to pick through the bunches and find the most colourful and healthy stems for our friends, and the importance of telling someone when their flowers look pretty, and how a small interaction with a stranger can last a lifetime, even when there is no guarantee that you will see the film photo they took of you and your roses and even if you do not know how to speak German, or how to open the door to the restaurant you are standing outside of. We need reminders that there are children who are over the moon from learning the alphabet, collecting letters at bus stops with their dad and their grandparents, and there are other children sitting outside of their second grade classrooms all by themselves, unsure of how to make friends but hopeful that one day they would be surrounded by lots of light, even if they would get older and move to a city that gets dark at 4pm, and even if they sometimes cannot focus on reading or writing as much as they would like to or as much as they probably should, and even if they sometimes still feel lonely from time to time, because when they go to the pub with their coworkers and look at the oil paintings of pugs on the walls and candlesticks with wax dripping down their sides, and see a person’s happiness brought upon by seeing their partner, they are reminded that, actually, there is light all around us, and maybe, we do not have to look for it as hard as we think we need to.
who makes you light up?
what has made you light up this week?
how can you bring light to others in your day to day?
hiiii! i’ve had the idea of writing about light stuck in my head for the last month or so, and this was the result :-) i started drafting it when it still felt like autumn here in ldn, and then i went to iceland for a week, and now i’m back and ironically enough, i woke up to snow this morning! YAY snow. it is cold and my hands are cold but i am determined to publish this while it is still *technically* considered autumn. srry you had to click out of the email to make it this far. as always, thank you for reading :”)
<3 tum
i smiled and did tear up all throughout this beautiful piece. i loved reading this so so much- your writing captures such a unique and lovely part of life so well!!!!!
in this dark season, i too cherish the light more than ever. your words ignited a spark within me and reminded me that there is so much beauty in the smallest details!