i ate canned pineapple and red beets this week. mixed together in a bowl like a fruit salad, until all of the pineapple had turned a light shade of pink.
there is a bit of a bowl shortage at my apartment. i have one of my own, that i'd only been able to find in the cupboard reliably once i wrote my name on it with black sharpie.
in order to finish both pineapple and beet, i put them together. and all so surprisingly, i enjoyed it.
some things mix well, even if strange in theory. the same goes for people.
i made a friend a few weeks back, now i travel to his city to visit.
lyon is a place i don't believe i would have ever found myself in if not for some good reason.
it is small, culturally rich, quiet, slow and seemingly has a disproportionately large amount of elderly people walking the streets.
i got lost in a big park with a zoo and flower garden, cried in a courtyard full of boxwood trees, got a sugar high from a large scoop of banana sorbet, and drew pictures on watercolor paper under a weeping willow in 32ºC. i even went into a cathedral on the outside of the city. a big church with stained glass windows and walls of paintings made up entirely of mosaic stones.
i haven't been in a church in at least 7 years. i have always avoided them. what am i doing in a place of worship if i don't adhere to their beliefs, their stories?
i got lost in the walls. little shepherds with spotted dogs stand amongst their animals on a hillside of light green grass, little clumps of houses form here and there, with windows gleaming with warm light underneath a deep sky filled with gold-rimmed angels and bright silver stars.
it was quiet, and it smelled familiar of candle wax and old wood.
my friend felt out of place, and i should have too, maybe. amongst christians, amongst rows of people able to recite things i never have intentions of reading.
but there is a universal rule i have adopted on my travels, and implemented even more strongly since moving to paris.
i cannot go to new places and see new horizons through the eyes of others. through the lense of an instagram reel, through the words of someone who's seen it before, the attractions and touristic places.
entering a church through the eyes of a religous person would have been wrong. i wouldn't know how to behave. what to feel. i can only feel what i do. through my own experience. and i can only make the place mine if i'm able to let go of my expectations, and of my worries.
coming out as a queer woman six years ago, everything i used to love about faith and a community of people who all share the same values and ideals has changed. i lost touch with the love i felt for it when i found my feelings questioned, my truth denied. and i think in a way that has stuck with me to this day. i am not a hateful person, but it had made me sour and stubborn. i will not deny myself the right to love in order to be loved. that would be a paradox. it is not like math equations are, you know?
love can only fill every variable, everything else is senseless.
but while i feel for my 16-year old self, there are parts of this belief system i have since let go of.
in simple terms, the prejudice of every member of a religious group as being prejudiced, my own personal discrimination towards people who don't understand my reality, (because i do not want to be a hypocrite) and lastly, that you cannot reinvent faith in your own words in order to feel more connected to yourself and this big, bold and inexplainable world of ours.
what is outside of my line of power, i do not need to hold on to. i only need to let myself be.
so while i feel as if i am entering a place full of expectations and people whom i cannot associate with, there is a much more important truth to this day and moment:
i am in a beautiful place that surrounds me with such peace, i almost forget all my anxieties for the afternoon. a place built entirely by human hands. a testiment to how magnificent something really can be, if we pour enough effort into it.
i find myself remembering the little nativity play i was part of at age six, where i was cast as the guy who leads the donkey up the hill to the barn, so maria can give birth to jesus.
my family was gathered in the audience amongst familiar faces, parents of friends, pets and babies, all crammed together in the small church in our town's city center. i don't remember who my older brother played. i feel as if it was joseph, though.
i never understood that the stories in the bible were what people believed to be the actual history of the world. i had already read way too many books about space and the evolution of humans to be that far invested in the birth of this one saint and savior. but i enjoyed the play. we got to wear fun costumes, sing songs, and everyone went home that day with the anticipation of christmas dinner waiting for us on the kitchen table. with presents stacked under the tree.
so to round things out this week, my dearest reader, i mix well with new experiences, and new people i never thought i'd get along with. maybe even with buildings i had thought i'd never enter again. if i can make them mine to experience.
if i can free myself of what i should and should not feel at any given time.
like, say, in the kind of moment where i mix pineapple with red beets, and the line gets all blurry. between sour and sweet, between fruit and vegetables.
stay soft, try something you didn't think you'd ever try