change the pear vol. 14 11 Jul 2023

hello! it’s taken me a while to write this one, and parts of it were written weeks apart. i hope it doesn’t read too chaotically, but then again, chaos is part of the M.O. of this newsletter so let’s just roll with it.

on repeat

part of the reason i was struggling to write this instalment was that i had half an essay written on julien baker’s music, which was all about the difficulty of being in relation when you’re suffering and how hard it is to honestly hold yourself to account for the pain you cause others in that state and how you have to keep striving towards having hope in change even as you feel like nothing could ever change—and then ATEEZ released their latest album about being gay anarchist cowboys on the run and i immediately lost my mind and went feral over it.

what i’m trying to say is that i’ve been yo-yoing between two very different emotional states, which are, as always, expressed very literally and directly through the music i’ve been listening to. and i didn’t want to come down on the side of either one by choosing which one to write about here.

so instead, here’s a song i’ve been listening to a lot the past couple of days: landslide by fleetwood mac. i went to see my brother graduate last week, which made me cry, out of pride for him and how hard he’s worked to get here, out of the tenderness of seeing these kids so happy with their achievement and their loved ones all coming to support them. it made me think a lot about my own graduation, five years ago now, and how i felt then and how much is different now and how little of that change i’ve been able to predict. (can i sail through the changing ocean tides? / can i handle the seasons of my life?) that degree was one of the hardest things i’ve ever done and yet i was also so anxious and unsure about what the future would hold (i climbed a mountain and i turned around). still, i remember standing on the senate house lawn with lydia, alex, dorothy, saskia, surina and holly, feeling so proud to have gone through the years with them. i remember lola and martha and jun coming to meet me with flowers and the joy i felt. as someone who hates change, it’s comforting to look back and realise that so many of the people who were around me that day are still in my life, despite everything that’s changed over the years. and yet, through those changes, i have met people who have become part of my heart and soul, and i wouldn’t trade that for anything either. i guess that’s what i love about this song: it understands that change is scary, change is difficult, but also that it’s inevitable. and there’s hope in that, if you have the courage to step forward. (well i’ve been afraid of changing / cause i built my life around you / but time makes you bolder / even children get older / and i’m getting older too)

last seen

ever since i booked flights to egypt to visit elete in a frenzy of elation during one of our ridiculously long phone calls, the excitement of finally being able to see the pyramids in real life has been frothing inside me. no pictures could prepare me how for it feels to step out onto the sand at giza and walk among the pyramids. they tower over you, these monuments to kings, symbols of a might and power that has since long diminished. but looking at them, you feel the weight of such dominant authority, that could engineer the creation of such incredible structures, pull them out of nothing, to still stand tall thousands of years later.

as elete pointed out, the pyramids aren’t perfect, polished structures—their outer limestone casings have been removed over the centuries, leaving them with a slightly stepped look. but we felt that it adds to their impressiveness, the fact that they look constructed. you can’t help but think of the labour that hundreds of thousands of people put into building them.

we got to go into one of the pyramids, the pyramid of menkaure, through a little bribery (we did not have the correct tickets but what we did have was elete’s skills in arabic and persuasion). for all its grandness, the inside is small. you descend a steep shaft into a few linked chambers. none of the riches buried with the pharaoh remain, and it’s hard to imagine the plain stone rooms as they once must have been, stuffed with all the essentials for a king to pass into the afterlife. still, it was incredible to be actually inside a pyramid, imagining the tons of stone that rest above you. what a stunning feat of architecture it is to have those rooms still be intact five thousand years later.

elete told me that her mum cried when she saw all the pyramids together in panorama, and honestly, i could have done the same. partly because of their majesty and splendour; they are simply beautiful to look at. but also because i kept thinking about how many people we saw around us marvelling at the same sight that afternoon—how many people have had the same feeling of wonder through the years, centuries, millennia. there’s something moving about knowing that i’ve shared this experience with countless others. no matter who you are, everyone wants to see the pyramids. and everyone feels something, gazing up at them. it’s something that unifies us.

currently watching

as i type this, i have the final episodes of demon slayer: the swordsmith village arc waiting for me, and i am unbelievably excited because this series keeps getting better and better.

the action takes place in a secret village where swordsmiths labour to create swords for the demon slayer corps. tanjiro, having just woken from a coma induced by his injuries from his last battle, barely takes a moment to rest before he’s off to go ask for a new sword to replace his damaged one. the pattern of the last two arcs continues, with two new hashira on the scene—muichiro tokito and mitsuri kanroji. no time for long introductions, though: we’re given approximately two episodes of breathing space before disaster strikes the village in the form of the upper four and upper five demons. and they mean business!!

upper four immediately splits into 4 emotions, each with a gruesome power. a spectacular strike by tanjiro nearly defeats them, in an animation sequence that i literally can’t stop thinking about, where he creates a dragon out of flame, and upper four recoils in fear, seeing within him the ancestral sun breather who once nearly defeated the lord of all demons, muzan. through sheer force of will, tanjiro is stepping into his power, learning what he’s truly capable of.  that’s my son!!! it’s a truly incredible feat, but of course it’s not enough. the demon has several other tricks up its sleeve: all of the emotions morph into one, and it’s…hatred! (kind of hilarious, kind of iconic choice there.)

now let’s talk about tokito, the mist hashira, who is introduced to us as he bullies a small kid into giving him the key to an automaton for training. what an asshole, am i right? wrong, because actually he’s lost all his memories and also his ability to relate to others due to being severely traumatised by—you guessed it, the events of his childhood, including his relationship with his twin brother. when i found that out, it was curtains for me i’m afraid. but what moved me the most about tokito is that tanjiro’s entreaty to him (“everything good you do for others comes back to you in the end”) sparks change in him almost immediately. all it took was one phrase and suddenly he’s diverting off-course to protect the very same kid he was bullying earlier and another swordsmith. and through his battle with the upper five demon, tanjiro’s comment comes true: if you put your heart into doing good, others will recognise that and do the same for you. it’s what keeps us going, keeps us connected. and by doing so, tokito recovers his memory of his father, another selfless man, and of what happened to him and his family. all while slaying an upper rank demon in the coolest way possible (“you think you’re the only one who hasn’t been taking this seriously?” THAT! IS! MY! SON!!!)

other memorable characters include the love hashira, lady kanroji (my tender-hearted strong queen with a voracious appetite searching for her place in the world! our ray of hope! the perfect marriage of steel conviction and soft malleability!), genya (who gave that traumatised kid a gun?!?!?) and the swordsmith haganezuka (so dedicated to his work that he literally loses an eye and carries on filing away at a sword).

also, i love how we’re getting more hints about the overall backstory. we finally meet the other upper rank demons and upper one looks…exactly like the swordsman from tanjiro’s dreams, the infamous sun breather whose characteristics he’s slowly taking on. and tokito’s father, who is descended from one of the first breathers, has the same red eyes as tanjiro. i need to know more and i need to know NOW.

to summarise: this arc is about slaying demons, the power of collective action, knowing your history and respecting workers. let’s fucking go.

reading

still very much in my rereading era, i reread a room with a view which is a perfect novel and a delight. i love how sincere it is, how well it depicts what a mess our emotions can be, how funny it is, how much it believes in the endurance of love, how the characters learn how to say Yes to life.

i also just finished rereading emma, which was my favourite jane austen as a teen, although pride and prejudice has definitely stolen its crown now. what i liked so much about it when i was younger is emma’s characterisation. i like that now too! it’s a real talent to create a character who is so deeply and obviously flawed but still show so much authorial affection towards her. much of emma’s behaviour is also unfortunately deeply relatable to teen me (and maybe also to me now, if i’m being totally honest): the way she deludes herself into thinking she has intimate knowledge of everyone else’s thoughts/actions, saying the wrong thing, taking the joke too far, being way too opinionated, constructing intricate narratives in her head but failing to understand her own behaviour. i also like that, while she gains some self-awareness and tries to make amends, ultimately she doesn’t change that much throughout the narrative. sometimes you can be sort of insufferable and still find love! someone can see all your flaws and still think: yeah, that’s the girl for me. isn’t that beautiful!

miscellaneous

hugging elete after months apart! snorkelling through a coral reef and seeing the most beautiful fish. the huge full moon rising over the sea at night. elete and her inflatable float. staying in “the elite residence”. driving through the sinai hills. the treasures in the egyptian museum. seeing tutankhamun’s gold funeral mask. meeting elete’s juice man and drinking his fresh strawberry and guava juice. fava bean falafel. yemeni stews. koshary. seeing the nile at sunrise. playing bananagrams. watching succession together (more on this another time). sitting on my sofa with marisa talking for hours; how warm and comfortable it felt. claire in their pink cowboy boots at the wine bar. henry cooking us delicious food. eating fresh marmalade on toast on claire and henry’s balcony. hayley sending me the BTS fanchant from yoongi’s singapore show. playing cricket in the warm summer evening with my nine-year-old cousin. listening to his literary criticism. watching daughters at the outdoor cinema with arenike. sarah and i’s spontaneous food instagram creation after 2 tins and half a bottle of wine. siyang and howard spotting ateez posters in berlin and sending me photos. eating delicious thai food at singburi with lydia and seeing the sun set after 9pm. ethiopian food with agnes. cooking with audrey. listening back to the BTS conversation hayley and i had in december. my seedlings growing on the balcony. this poem by wendy xu. this poem by christopher citro. this poem by rebecca gayle howell. this poem by joanna klink. the pure happiness i felt seeing hayley for the first time in real life and being able to talk and laugh together in person. taking them around seven sisters in the matching t-shirts i bought for us while lugging a huge red suitcase. the absolute joy and peace of being with surina in the mountains again. the sense of achievement of carrying everything we needed to survive for a week on our backs. laughing so hard we had to stop walking. our freaky mind-melding where we began to say the exact thoughts the other one was having. being once again adopted by a fatherly figure. breathing the air of the pine forests. walking up through a cloudy valley until the sunlight burst through. swimming in the freshest, coldest mountain waters. sunrise on the peaks. waterfalls.

thank you for reading. see you soon.