you ever read something and as youre reading you have so many thoughts like “yess omg! yup, mhmm!” And you want to say all the things you resonated deeply with but you have no words to articulate?
this piece was that. so happy to see your posts again🫶🏼✨
my one question is - what happens when you can’t choose your environment, how do you get to know it? how do you give it a chance? do you tell it you who are until you feel like it listened?
Thank you my friend!! 🤍 I appreciate your kind words (and it feels good to be back writing again!)
Oh my goodness what a great question. It probably deserves its own essay in response. Sometimes we don’t get to choose our own location the same way we didn’t get to choose our early attachment figures. We got the parents we got, the neighborhood we got, the circumstances we got. But even if those weren’t ideal, people can (and do!) form secure attachments later, even after early insecurity. It’s earned secure attachment. We have to work harder for it, but it’s possible.
So we get to know our environment the same way we get to know someone we’re not quite sure we can trust. Slowly. With curiosity. By showing up until it starts to feel familiar. Absolutely by telling it who you are until it starts to listen (what a beautiful way to phrase this). By finding the one piece of it that feels like yours (a cafe, a bench, a tree you walk by daily), and returning to it until it knows you back.
so beautifully said✨ “showing up until it gets familiar”
Growing up I never was really attached to my household I always wanted to live in NY ironically lol but I never did (not yet at least) but now that Im in Chicago Im like maybe it was never the place, but the energy. Im still figuring it out hehe, its a bit of a push making adult friends in your 30s with a remote job in a metro city lol but I guess what you dont explore you cant see or be seen, so here I am hahah trying to find all the wellness classes and clubs.
this piece was so beautiful its like a love letter from you to NY and it sounds like the love letter it writes back to you is in city lights and sirens with your favorite street🥹 🌃
Whenever I come across something you've written, Gabriella, it's a given that I'll walk away with a new perspective.
The concept of a "secure base" is something that's going to stay with me for a long time. The entire letter felt like a collection of things I'd felt but had never known, or taken the time to find the words for.
The attachment we form with places and our relationships with people, that contrast probably explains why certain people feel like home and why we keep returning to certain places, knowing someone we yearn to see will be there.
Love the reflection this prompted for me. Made me think of the moments I could feel an unspoken turn; when I knew I was in the final pages of a chapter in one particular place. Now, in a very different season of life, I’m thinking less and less about where I’m going next and instead thinking what it means to stay. What it will mean to stay in one place for five, ten, twenty years.
you ever read something and as youre reading you have so many thoughts like “yess omg! yup, mhmm!” And you want to say all the things you resonated deeply with but you have no words to articulate?
this piece was that. so happy to see your posts again🫶🏼✨
my one question is - what happens when you can’t choose your environment, how do you get to know it? how do you give it a chance? do you tell it you who are until you feel like it listened?
Thank you my friend!! 🤍 I appreciate your kind words (and it feels good to be back writing again!)
Oh my goodness what a great question. It probably deserves its own essay in response. Sometimes we don’t get to choose our own location the same way we didn’t get to choose our early attachment figures. We got the parents we got, the neighborhood we got, the circumstances we got. But even if those weren’t ideal, people can (and do!) form secure attachments later, even after early insecurity. It’s earned secure attachment. We have to work harder for it, but it’s possible.
So we get to know our environment the same way we get to know someone we’re not quite sure we can trust. Slowly. With curiosity. By showing up until it starts to feel familiar. Absolutely by telling it who you are until it starts to listen (what a beautiful way to phrase this). By finding the one piece of it that feels like yours (a cafe, a bench, a tree you walk by daily), and returning to it until it knows you back.
so beautifully said✨ “showing up until it gets familiar”
Growing up I never was really attached to my household I always wanted to live in NY ironically lol but I never did (not yet at least) but now that Im in Chicago Im like maybe it was never the place, but the energy. Im still figuring it out hehe, its a bit of a push making adult friends in your 30s with a remote job in a metro city lol but I guess what you dont explore you cant see or be seen, so here I am hahah trying to find all the wellness classes and clubs.
this piece was so beautiful its like a love letter from you to NY and it sounds like the love letter it writes back to you is in city lights and sirens with your favorite street🥹 🌃
Whenever I come across something you've written, Gabriella, it's a given that I'll walk away with a new perspective.
The concept of a "secure base" is something that's going to stay with me for a long time. The entire letter felt like a collection of things I'd felt but had never known, or taken the time to find the words for.
The attachment we form with places and our relationships with people, that contrast probably explains why certain people feel like home and why we keep returning to certain places, knowing someone we yearn to see will be there.
Love what you do. Love what you write.
Love the reflection this prompted for me. Made me think of the moments I could feel an unspoken turn; when I knew I was in the final pages of a chapter in one particular place. Now, in a very different season of life, I’m thinking less and less about where I’m going next and instead thinking what it means to stay. What it will mean to stay in one place for five, ten, twenty years.
This gave me chills and made the hair on my leg stand up:
"I still know exactly how the afternoon light falls over the Brooklyn Bridge from my favorite bench on South Street."
I love how precise that is and I feel that way about many aspects of London.