lemon shortbread bows and cats

notes on February (which started with cookies)

p.s. this post is too long for email, so pls feel free to open in a browser!

February started with cookies. Buttery, melt-in-your-mouth lemon shortbread, dusted with flour and rolled flat and cookie-cuttered into silhouettes of tiny bows and massive cats, lined across trays and baked for 20 minutes and then cooled and dipped into a sweet, simple glaze of lemon juice and icing sugar, a baker’s dozen of biscuits that would soon endure a bumpy double decker bus ride and the chaos of 6:00PM on a Saturday on the Northern line, shifting side to side in the glass tupperware, traversing across the river to the inside of a cozy flat filled with the warmth of six soon-to-be friends, girls from opposing corners of North America (and opposing corners of London) who would eventually find their way to each other through a group chat proposing they have a dinner party and a cookie exchange, and from this followed an evening of none other than just that: lasagna and salad and cookies and conversations both silly and serious, the kind of conversations where time and space cease to exist, and then suddenly once the white ceramic bowls were filled with crumbs and the empty wine glasses were stained with glittery lip gloss, the remaining cookies would be divided among six scalloped-trimmed boxes, earl grey, and brown butter chocolate chip, and oatmeal raisin, and rosemary sugar, and lemon shortbread bows and cats, a careful curation baked by six girls, their labours of love tied together with an ivory lace ribbon as they embarked on midnight train and bus rides alike, returning both to their corners of London and to the group chat to share photos and exclaim what a wholesome time it was, and how grateful they feel, and then half past midnight, the box full of cookies and the empty glass tupperware would wound up in the green-tiled kitchen where it began, the ivory lace ribbon delicately undone and placed on top of the wooden drawers next to the box of white paper crowns, one eagerly awaiting to meet the other.

After the cookies came the crowns, but before the crowns came the unexpected: an unexpected meeting at work on Wednesday followed by an unexpected surprise on my way to work on Friday, both resulting in some tears, although very different kinds. On Friday, in the midst of tying my brown and white striped bonnet into a knot and thrusting my tote bag over my puffer-jacketed shoulder and reaching for my jangly keys, I b-lined towards the front door and my four best friends were standing in my living room, shouting “Surprise! We’re here for your birthday! You don’t have work today, or next week!” I cried because they told me in November they read my Substack piece about missing home and proceeded to buy plane tickets the same night, and moments after, I slipped into a state of shock and anxiety that took multiple days to wear off, a state of shock that was only further enforced when we went to my favorite brunch restaurant and I saw a lady who looked exactly like my mom seconds before piecing together that she was, in fact, my mom and a state of anxiety solely due to the lack of preparation to have time off, because my job is — for the lack of a better explanation — not a typical job; but I tried my best to place the spreadsheets and soon-to-be-and-now-already-missed meetings in the back of my mind as I showed my best friends and my mom my favorite pockets of London on a Friday afternoon. It felt wrong, but it also felt right. It was raining and cold but for once I didn’t care that my hair might get frizzy or my ears might ring, the company brought all the warmth I could have asked for.

“How old did you turn, again?” my coworker asked. “27,” I said. “That’s kind of crazy, I would’ve expected it to be at least 30, or some other milestone age for all of those visitors,” he laughed.

I have always held the firm belief that cake does not — and should not — have to warrant a celebration. If you want to eat a birthday cake, even if it is not your birthday, then eat a birthday cake. I can think of at least two times I have purchased a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins solely because I was craving a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. On a recent Podcast But Outside episode, Andrew mentioned, in a passing, that he buys ice-cream cones in bulk and it makes eating ice-cream at home a little more exciting. If your best friend, who you last saw in 2023, lives across the world, you are allowed to visit her for her 27th birthday, even if 27 is not an age that ends in “5” or “0,” or an age that gift shops have a specific card section or a shiny balloon dedicated to. Life is too short to let the dress in the corner of the closet collect dust, or to limit one’s cake intake to once a year, or to not show your friends that you care about them. Special things can and should be used and eaten and worn on the ordinary days, too.

But, a majority of my coworkers are English, which means that they likely live a train ride away from their parents and friends (and that they share the luxury of living on the same time zone), so they probably do not spend most of their time catching up on missed group texts, or FaceTiming their parents at midnight, or generally wishing their friends and family could be with them at any given moment of any given day, existing in a permanent state of wish you were here’s and sorry, i just saw this’s and this reminded me of you’s. I remember in my college philosophy class we discussed pleasure and pain, and we debated whether or not they coexist — if a lack of one is what causes the presence of the other — and I always intrusively wonder if moving far away is what deeply strengthened the ties I feel to the ones I hold closest. I recently came to understand that I did not move far away to escape anyone, or anything, and I am lucky to have a home and a family and friends and a state to both miss and love and return to.

“Yeahhh, I feel very special and appreciated. 27 is the new 30!”

from my zine, 25 things i learned by 25

And then came the crowns and the croissants and the cakes. Since moving countries, I have had four birthdays, each year celebrated in a room fuller and brighter than the last. I turned 24 three months after moving to London, and my "party" consisted of my old flatmate, myself, a cake large enough for six to eight people at the very least, and a dinner reservation at a trendy, Instagrammable restaurant which 1. my stomach ultimately did not agree with and 2. quite literally caught on fire when I decided to return with a friend a few months later (lesson learned: trust your gut, in all its senses). The cake was delicious, expensive, and heart-shaped, although far too indulgent for two people to finish on their own, and the remaining slices became an artefact of our red, Smeg freezer until we eventually parted ways. 25 was spent with a handful of friends — mostly acquired from my Master’s program, one acquired from the internet (who, by pure chance, happened to be my next door neighbor) — sat in a circle around my living room, drinking wine and decorating cowboy hats as pink candlesticks melted into their wooden holder. There was another heart-shaped cake — dark chocolate filled with raspberries and iced with vanilla buttercream, which marked the monumental shift in not only my frontal lobe, but my palate from being a vanilla-cake girl to a chocolate-cake girl — and this time no slice went un-eaten. Last year, my 26th birthday consisted of most of the same friends (with an additional two made from Tik Tok) eating brunch and drinking iced lattes with oat milk and attending a scrunchie making workshop, and my 27th birthday was filled with more light and laughter and cake than 24-year-old Tatum could have ever possibly predicted (seriously, there were three cakes and one of them was made by my friend Gwynnie and modelled after a Jellycat.)

I turned 27 on the top floor of one of my favorite bakeries with all of my favorite people from all of the eras of Me, eating croissants and cakes and decorating paper crowns with stickers and fabric and paint and glitter and ivory lace ribbons and all of the other things that I used to gravitate towards when I was 7, and here I am (or rather, there I was), decades later surrounded by the people who, I can definitively say, make me feel my best self. I do not have to be nervous about my stutters or my tangents or my anxiety-induced-shine, they understand me and I understand them and we mutually choose to understand each other time and time again. Sat above the bakery were friends from childhood, friends from college, friends from my master’s program, friends from Instagram, friends from Tik Tok, friends from work, and friends from other friends. “That’s really cool that you’ve built this community from scratch,” said Daniella, as we cleaned up spilled glitter and pastry flakes.

My journal entry from 9 February 2025 reads:

★★★ I AM 27!!! ★★★

It is almost midnight and I am VERY tired and cake-d out, but I would just like to say that today was a very nice day with some very nice people. It was crazy how full the room was of people who are my FRIENDS from all eras of my life. Childhood, college, master’s, the internet, London, all of it. And it was really nice having mom + Auntie Ro there, too. We all made crowns and it was very fun and cute. I decided that the word for this year is whimsy*: playfully quaint or fanciful behavior or humor.

*every year, I pick a word or a phrase as my theme. Last year was “levelling up” and this year is “whimsy”

There were also the cards, from Mollie and Paisley and Alix and Auntie Dyne, who send me a card every year on my birthday, from Nashville and San Francisco and Los Angeles or wherever they happen to be in the world. Paisley’s included doodles of objects and inside jokes that remind her of our friendship, Alix’s included stickers upon stickers of stars and Snoopies and hearts, Mollie somehow fit an entire cake-themed sticker sheet and a matching pack of magnets into the envelope, and my Auntie Dyne included a sticker as well, in the shape of an alpaca. I try to refrain from using the same word twice in a paragraph, but I cannot help that I love stickers and I love the thoughtfulness of a card sent overseas, and there was no way I could write a section about my birthday without mentioning them.

cards!!!

And then came the tears, because my best friends and my mom returned to their respective cities, but the following day came the sun — for the first time in seven days — and then the coffee, which comes every day, but never feels any less special. On Valentine’s Day, I woke up and decided that I wanted to seek out love, because I am wholeheartedly convinced that love is everywhere; sometimes you just have to look a little bit harder for it. My office attire included Nielsan’s Snoopy jumper that says “HUG MORE,” my favorite long, white skirt, my frilly socks that my Great Grandma wears because they remind her of me, and my brown oxford docs, and because the sun was shining for the first time in seven days I got off the bus a few stops early to maximize my precious time with the morning sunlight. I listened to some new music released by one of my favorite artists as I spotted bouquets of flowers through windows, a bright pink heart-shaped sticker stuck to the ground, a couple walking together with peonies and pastries, multiple dogs in sweaters, and a red heart hanging outside a baby blue door, all in the span of 15 minutes.

*cries*

Another thing I am convinced by is that the universe is a mirror; it will return the energy that you pour into the world, and this is where the coffee comes in. I walked into the coffee shop where I have befriended many of the baristas (my goal in every neighborhood I frequent in is to become a regular) and while I was waiting for my oat milk latte one of my barista friends said, “I think you’ll like this, Tatum” and handed me a dried flower. Another barista friend handed me my coffee, and they had taped a dried sprig of lavender to the cup. It felt like I was experiencing a reflection of myself and I sent a photo to my friend Tara because she is someone who also appreciates things like a flower taped to a cup of coffee. Tara replied, “I LOVE VALENTINE’S DAY!!!!”

The rest of the 14th of February was filled with a biscuit from a coworker, a cooked dinner and an exchange of gifts with Nielsan, a single anemone with a pink ribbon tied around its stem, and a bouquet of flowers which made me reminisce on the time I worked at a flower shop shortly before sneezing and remembering that I am allergic to certain kinds of flowers, and there were also handwritten cards, and a cheesy movie with Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller, and a slice of tiramisu and forehead kisses.

And after the coffee was the conversation but prior to the conversation was the journey there. I attended the birthday dinner of a dear friend of mine, and the theme of the night was “abundance.” On the way to the dinner I took the tube and there was a red heart balloon floating across from me, and I’d like to think it was another symbol of love for the people who seek it out. I was on my way to Notting Hill Gate, and I thought about a moment three years ago, when I was new to the city and sat on the tube near a group of girls wearing cute clothes, and I so badly wanted to ask them to be friends in a way that wasn’t completely abnormal. Instead we parted ways at Notting Hill Gate and I went to a cafe and opened my journal and decided to start a dictionary of words. The first word I wrote is “frotend” and the definition is:

“observing someone/s (i.e. the barista who makes your coffee every day, or the girls on the tube with the cool outfits) and knowing you would be good friends with them, but not saying anything because you’re an adult, and for some reason being an adult means you can’t walk up to each other on the playground and ask to play.”

I then think about the day before, when I was eating breakfast at the cafe below my flat. I was sitting facing the window, and outside sat a dad and his little girl. There was another little girl at the bus stop, holding hands with her mom, wearing the tiniest chef’s hat, and the two little girls waved at each other. Then, the little chef at the bus stop walked up to the little girl at the cafe, and despite not fully knowing how to speak, the girls said “Hello” and hugged one another and I wanted to cry because it was precious and I was reminded of how pure children are. Their parents exchanged smiles. And then, the tube doors opened, the voice told me to “Mind The Gap between the train and the platform” and so I minded the gap and tapped my card at the till and made my way to the restaurant to celebrate my friend’s 27th birthday; a friend who I made two summers ago, solely by walking up to one another and complimenting each other’s jewellery, and realizing that we could have met in San Francisco and Los Angeles and Paris and maybe even New York City, but we instead met at a music festival in London. And now we were spending the first weekend of February baking cookies, and the next weekend decorating crowns, and the third weekend celebrating abundance with a feast and a heart shaped cake.

And suddenly, there was the conversation. A table of eight more friends, some new, some old, all equally as wonderful, sharing small plates and drinking red and white wine, chatting about books and music and cats and politics. As the dialogue unfolded, I found myself quiet, because I was in awe of how intelligent and kind and creative and cool everyone at the table was and is. Two of my friends at the table are in the process of writing and publishing their debut novels (yes, novels). Another newly acquired friend with a newly acquired kitten named Vicky is studying and teaching at a university here in England. She also has impeccable music taste. The other is a dancer from Australia, her partner an actor from New Zealand, and they both used to watch YouTube in its heyday of British vloggers and collab channels, a token of my teenage-hood that was once a shameful secret and now a topic of instant bonding, and there was also my friend’s partner who studied Russian Literature and my other friend’s partner who was discussing computational biology, topics of which I have never once thought about until that night. I also did not know that “-cester” is a suffix linking to a Roman military camp and I was not familiar with much of the books and authors being referenced throughout the night, but I was happy to be there, listening to people talk about the things they are passionate about. As I sipped my glass, I smiled, questioning how all of the small decisions I have made in my life led me to a restaurant in Notting Hill with even more new friends. Abundance!

And then by the end of it all there were flowers, lots of flowers. Tulips and ranunculus and baby’s breath and posies and mums and roses and lilacs and marigolds and a single sprig of dried lavender, adorning the living room, lining the windowsill and the table and the shelves in vases and jars and bottles large and small. Flowers from Nielsan, from Daniella, from Holly, from the barista, from the sunny afternoon at the market with India, a collection of flowers from February surrounding our home. A flower is often more than a flower, it is a symbol of care. In the same way that we light candlesticks knowing that they are soon going to melt away, we buy flowers and trim their stems and place them in water knowing that the flower’s lifespan is finite, and I’d like to believe that the reason that we light candlesticks and buy flowers for ourselves and for others is simply because we care enough to.

Last summer, on my walk to work (a lot of my reflections happen either in the shower or on walks for reasons that I do not know), I noticed that someone had attached a bag of soil with colorful flowers poking out of it to their tree. It was sort of like the trees that sometimes have crochet sweaters wrapped around their trunks, except instead of a sweater, this tree wore bunches of purple and yellow and red pansies. Every time the pansies died they were replaced with new ones, and once the seasons changed the bag of soil was replaced with fairy lights that twinkle in the winter darkness. On a recent morning walk to the office, I passed the tree and underneath it was a Christmas wreath laying flat on the ground. On my way home, I noticed that someone had placed the wreath on a wooden pole leaning against the tree, displaying its velvety red ribbons and snow-capped pine cones to the world. I smiled and snapped a photo of the wreath and thought about the kinds of people who care enough, you know, the people who care enough to hang up a Christmas wreath discarded on the sidewalk in the middle of February, or to crochet a sweater for a tree stump or a hat for a postbox, or to feed the pigeons in the park and the ducks in the pond, or to leave a book in a public library and to pick the weeds in the communal garden, or to compliment a stranger when they like their outfit, or to wear the tiniest bit of pink or red on Valentine’s Day and hang a heart-shaped decoration outside their front door, or to tape a sprig of lavender to a customer's cup of coffee, or to tell someone what the suffix “-cester” means because they could tell they did not fully understand the conversation at the dinner table, the kinds of people who care enough to include a bunch of doodles or a selection of stickers in a birthday card sent via snail mail, or to read a Substack piece about homesickness written by a friend or a daughter and immediately book tickets to surprise her across the world on her birthday, or to reach out to the people who inspire them to let them know they inspire them, or to buy white paper boxes and ivory lace ribbons for a handful of new friends to pack away each other’s homemade cookies in, and as I continued strolling to my bus stop I ultimately concluded that perhaps the point of it all is the people who care.

When I got home from the cookie night, I was showering at 1 o’clock in the morning, and I paused mid-shampoo to grab my phone, open my Notes app, and type the sentence: “February started with cookies.”

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hi! thank you for reading yet another letter from tum, i feel like i’m evolving as a writer every time i magically create a new one of these, and i have my friends and mutuals to thank for that. a special shoutout to stacey and chloé because every time i read one of their posts i am in admiration of the way their brains connect words together like puzzle pieces. also i recently hit 700 subscribers which is absolutely insane so thank you for being here, i appreciate you for taking the time to read these very extremely long reflections of whatever happens to be on my mind :’)

also, i make zines, and my new one is out now! it’s called TUM IS 26! and you can check it out here if ya like. i made it throughout the year of being 26 and it features some art and writing from my url and irl friends <3

also also, yes, i did watch Perfect Days and yes, it did make me cry bc i had never felt more seen by a film (if you appreciate the little things in life you will love Perfect Days)

ta ta for now,

tum ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ