Relationships

ritualized, compulsive self-disclosure is not intimacy

it’s often a defense mechanism, one that masquerades as vulnerability but actually kills erotic charge, polarity, and mystery

shared experience, unspoken tension, and real-time attunement are the components of intimacy

I think it’s beautiful how fidelity means both loyalty and level of detail. Because of course it should mean both those things. Of course.

“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”

—James Baldwin

Intelligence is a form of friendship with the world. It can’t be cultivated out of fear of it.

if you stand firmly on a self-lain foundation of patience and trust, someone crossing your boundaries is not so threatening. let them in. see what they do in your space. remove yourself if necessary.

But when they say, “I’m thinking of leaving,” I think, Now hang on a sec. You had me right up to that last bit. Fine: you’ve changed; she’s changed; life has changed. And the kids—well, they’ve disrupted, interrupted, confronted, confounded, and otherwise fundamentally altered everything . All very, very hard. And yes, sometimes it feels impossible

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