Lights VI: The Spa (1974) by Michael Andrews
status: giving a wedding toast.
EBIE: cherry blossoms are blooming in d.c., and if june is the season of love, spring is the season of weddings. this past month, i flew to the west coast for my very own sister’s.
i dreaded the the maid of honor speech, but i also wanted to prove that i was mature enough to talk seriously about love. you see, little sisters harbor a special sort of possession over their older sisters. it often reveals itself in bitterness. it’s not that we don’t trust them to protect themselves. rather, we feel any change would shaken our bond — the two of us against our parents, and then, against the world. just four years apart, i’ve been the one growing up, and her, the grown one who keeps her cool and tells me secrets to the universe.
when she walked down the aisle, her dress glittered with a million gems, her eyes sparkling, her lips pursed together in an expression i haven’t seen before. there appeared sadness the moment our parents broke away from the hug, then glowing happiness from seeing gabriel (or was it all the face masks she did leading up to the wedding? just kidding). witnessing my sister exchange her vows, to love someone forever at the altar, i felt a sense of finality — closing the drawer on childhood and childish things. rain fell shortly after the ceremony, a sign of luck, 幸运 xing yun, and lasting happiness 幸福, xing fu.
“after five years of long distance, ariel and gabriel finally settled into an actual home of their own — this light-filled airy two-bedroom house,” i closed my out speech here, after champagne drunk-telling their love story in front of everyone we knew. “ariel curated each corner to her hearts content. their dog chloe hangs out everyday in their backyard blooming with flowers. she created a beautiful life for her and gabriel, something that was in her all along. her home now feels like a safe place i’ve always known. so, let’s raise our glasses to the 幸福 couple— may your love persevere, and i love you both.”
status: listening to green things.
KAI-LIN: everywhere i go in the city there are delicate little buds of color pushing out from the soil. i got off on the wrong bus stop and ended up climbing all 400 stairs up the filbert steps to get back home, which lead you all the way from the waterfront up to san francisco’s landmark coit tower. living so close to coit tower has made me lazy to visit it; the uphill climb is visibly perilous from our flat. it is a very slim, very pale concrete tower that was built in 1933 solely as monument to the legacy of lillie hitchcock coit, who left a $125,000 bequest to san francisco to be spent ‘for the purpose of adding beauty to the city which I have always loved’. for $7, a guide can take you up to the observation deck for a 360-view of the city. the view, i understand, is breathtaking. i didn’t go up, but i believe it. the view from the rooftop of my humble five-story apartment building alone can make me shed real tears at the right time (7am, 7pm).
i think about what i’m doing here fairly often, and how weird explaining my love for this place feels. ‘well, i fell in love with northern california two summers ago,’ i say, and that already seems bizarre. what could northern california have for somebody like me, with my kitten heels and eyeliner, my devotion to old-fashioned novels and comical athletic ineptitude? i always use the word ‘ecology’ somewhere in my explanations, because it sounds better than saying ‘everything here is green.’ but really, that’s just it. at some point in college, access to green spaces—publicly funded ones as well as natural sites—became very, very important to me. also: sunshine, springtime, wild animals; dynamic landscapes and proximity to water; a reliable way out from the cluttered panging of metropolis into something greater and more ancient, something subliminal to ease whatever is hurting you, haunting you. here, there are redwoods, wine country, the sierra nevada. there are the snow-capped volcanics of mount shasta, the titanic headlands of point reyes.
i have to wonder sometimes if loving a place like san francisco implies a degree of overcompensation, whether for something i don’t yet have (i visited new york with ava earlier this month and admittedly felt a lurch of longing for the plenitude of elegant appointment-only shops, the chic people in black overcoats sparkling all over with raindrops) or something no place in the world will ever be able to give to me: a reason to be there. is it enough to be in a place for the mere purpose of loving it? people—writers especially—love to assign grand spiritual destinies to cities so as to secretly glean something about their own lives. (we do this with seasons, too.) for the amorous henry miller, paris is ‘like a whore’: ‘from a distance she seems ravishing, you can't wait until you have her in your arms. and five minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself.’ for sylvia plath, to be in new york is to endure ‘pain, parties, and work.’ what can i glean about my own life, as it relates to my painfully privileged assignment of san francisco as a sort of purgatorial city-sized park—a playground for personal respite in the face of its manifold flaws and public failings?
here is a plate of land in crisis—we have induced this crisis. the empty homes and the opioids, the negligence in the streets, the cold crypto-gleam of an industry ravaging the beat poets’ city of cultural integrity, or at least changing it; i admit, it’s hard to face. but up the filbert steps, unruly flora push out from between the stairs and encroach on either side of the railing. impossible things, big blossoms, wild green parrots overhead. the steps break off now and then into improbable crossroads carved out the side of the hill, and these streets are lined with colorful little houses. on napier lane, there is the distinct scent of jasmine, somebody’s gardening project or just the wild will of california. look back over your shoulder and there’s the bay, there’s the bridge, there’s san francisco on an overcast march day, awash in blue and silver. ‘anyone who disappears is said to be seen in san francisco,’ oscar wilde once said. ‘it must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world.’
this place was beautiful once—and i believe beauty is still here, waiting to push out from the soil into that ‘next world’. loving and listening to green things has taught me to observe human crises on a larger time scale, and to put some faith in the cyclical nature of the world. it’s possible i came here in part because beauty is nourished by faith: in our ability to restore what we’ve broken, to save what we’ve turned a blind eye from, and to organize for the purpose of actualizing a better, more equal future. keuroac loved san francisco, and ginsberg, and lillie hitchcock coit. and i do, too. for now, i suppose that’s enough reason to be here.
bunches of wildflower, cherry red skies, bus rides downtown, glossy lips, cheek kisses, fresh haircuts, bare feet on the dance floor
EB: i just finished this biography of tiger woods i picked up as a birthday gift to my dad. growing up, my dad worshipped tiger — he taught my sister and i golf in our backyard based on tiger’s book, “how i play golf.” when news of tiger’s cheating scandals broke years later, i was shocked and probably felt more disappointed in his news than my own quitting competitive golf.
i never related to wanting to be the best in sports, but i am drawn to a surprise redemption arc, a good story. so his biography was an enjoyable read and attempts to dive into tiger’s public-private dichotomy — how he did unspeakable horrors to the people who loved them, his “it” factor in sports PR, and why he still draws a large crowd wherever he goes.
KL: i read (and appreciated) the bell jar and ben lerner’s the topeka school last month. on the latter title, my quick thoughts are: autofiction when done right is enjoyable, and smart, and only slightly pretentious. to my surprise, the topeka school was less about boys’ friendships and more about the wholesale dissolution and radicalization of language in middle america—beginning with boys. many parts reminded me of sam kriss’ broader essay on how language today is ‘broken’; how meaning and truth have been shattered into incomprehensible fragments of what could and should be a unified mobilizing effort against what is clearly evil and wrong in the world.
i also enjoyed jhumpa lahiri’s short story ‘a temporary matter’, which is part of her anthology collection, interpreter of maladies. on substack, i loved let’s do dinner by
. and i’m currently reading henry miller’s tropic of cancer.EB: dear kai-lin, how do you find time to read?
KL: i feel worse about everything when i don’t read, so for my own personal happiness and sanity, i have to pick something up sooner or later. but as i’m sure you know, reading is not always the most convenient (or even relaxing) way to spend a free afternoon or evening. nabokov is hard, joyce is dull, tolstoy is mammoth. still, the undeniable truth about reading is that it’s great because it requires effortful attention, reflection, and time. three things that have helped me read consistently and contentedly:
reframing reading not as something i need to ‘find time’ to do, but ‘make time’ for instead. i try to chunk out time on the weekends, but i’ll also download an epub on my phone so i can create smaller weekday opportunities to read while waiting at the vet, on the commute home, over an impromptu solo meal between errands, and so on. or if you prefer paper, bring a book with you wherever you go. (this is also why i buy used paperbacks—i’ve given up on keeping my lugged-around books in any condition approximating pristine). the goal is just to nudge yourself into a casual habit until you get far enough along a good book and are sufficiently absorbed. then, i find your schedule tends to magically make room for that momentum.
annotating as i read. more than one person has pointed out that i have a good retention of detail when it comes to dense books, sometimes down to the sentence. i’ve realized that annotating has not only helped me commit my favorite passages to memory, but also made me feel more engaged while reading, and to view any given text i’m working through as a long-term companion i’ll return to again and again. the physical motion of underlining or noting something down margin-side also deters me from skimming, speed-reading, or getting distracted.
understanding why i want to read at any given point in my life: research, entertainment, distraction, advice, etc. right now i would say i’m reading for inspiration and joy. aside from the fact that reading makes me a better writer, so much of what i find magical or meaningful in life i learn to look for first through books. my spirits can be buoyed for a whole week by reading just a really beautiful turn of phrase, so i prioritize that experience accordingly.
KL: dear ebie, any memorable meals recently? (drop the new beli account…)
EB: the loveliest meals almost always have these ingredients: sparkly drinks, corner tables, open candle flames, a menu in cursive with items you don’t know how to pronounce, and you sitting next to me, of course, as secrets spill and eyes water and childhood returns. top of my list last month are 1) compass rose (DC), a warm place draped with morrocan curtains, serving the best khachapuri (cheese-filled bread from georgia), 2) ye’s apothecary (NY), a sichuan, hong-kong style restaurant, with the coolest waiter who winked at us whenever she walked by, and 3) attaboy (NY), this “hidden” speakeasy featuring a locked door with a standing “room-full” sticker. once you enter, you face train-style booths that ensure comfortably intimate eye contact and a charismatic barista that makes cocktails solely based off of your vibes (they don’t have a menu). anyway, my beli — newest obsession — is @ebieb heheh! (it’s an app that lets you track and share your favorite restaurants.)
EB: my new glasses (warby’s whalen in acorn tortoise), persimmon merit blush (bday gift from mimi), laniege lip mask (from laura), and a fresh papier bullet journal (from kai-lin). <3
KL: i’ve been loving my new mexico 66 sneakers and vintage prada wallet. i’ve also been admiring celia feiszli’s handmade necklaces, charms, and crochet accessories (available on ig and depop @blackholespun) and the akari lamps and light structures from the noguchi shop. visiting goods for the study in brooklyn last month with ava and then topdrawer and the lamy flagship in downtown san francisco recently has reinvigorated my appreciation for high-quality writing ware—i’ve heard fountain pens be described as ‘life companions’ by aficionados, and testing some of them out in stores has confirmed this sentiment. there’s something really captivating about the organic strokes of a fountain pen, how they change and respond to even the most sensitive changes in pressure. if anyone has recommendations, do share!
Thanks for reading! Part collaborative writing experiment and part guilty-pleasure digital archive, My Brilliant Friend delivers thoughtful weekly dialogues on love, friendship, and culture to your inbox. You can subscribe below to receive new letters from us directly or visit us at mybrilliantfriend.substack.com.
My Brilliant Friend is co-written by Ebie Bao and Kai-Lin Wei.