Sophie Lee

End of September 2023: Accepting

This month flew by for me. I think it was a pretty introspective month overall. I’ve been listening to the Talking Heads. I enjoyed a glass of red wine more than I thought I would. I’ve been sleeping so deeply. And I’ve had really fulfilling conversations lately.

It’s strange to look back on the weeks and months and realize that you’ve changed and adapted—to a new city (now home?), new people (now friends), a new room, a new desk, a new routine.

A list of things I would like: to read more, to drink more water, a dog that looks like my dog, a full tank of gas at all times (for the car and for me), lactose tolerance, more time to watch movies, more time spent with friends, gorgeous dresses, places to wear gorgeous dresses, to feel sure of myself, to wake up early every day, to write something genius whenever I compel myself to, to sing better, to focus more, to focus completely.

A list of emotions I have felt this week: pure joy, annoyance, longing, aching, pain (emotional), fear, fatigue (social), hopelessness, embarrassment, desperation, love (probably), pride, selfishness, determination.

End of August 2023: Engulfing

Or: being engulfed? Back to routine and the days are winding up again like a ball of yarn…

I hate that fatigue can sometimes feel satisfying, like a mark of productivity (the body keeps the score?). Sometimes I measure my self-worth with that feeling. I never know how much to buy into that. I think it might be useful to some extent. Like stress. But on another level… it is deeply sad. And it is not chic.

Time and tasks have been swallowing me up. I kind of love it; it’s been almost like a surrender to the rip current of everything that demands my attention. But then again, how could I not hate it?? There is no time for anything. There is only time for that for which there is time. Coming up for a breath like… taking a quiet beat to myself while spreading almond butter on a piece of bread. Or something like that.

End of July 2023: No More Time to Not Do Anything Anymore

Did you hear all the talk of aliens? I feel like one today, swimming in empty space. Last week, I was unmoored from something that gave me hope and stability and happiness. Sometimes life feels like a vacuum! But I took some time to think about it. I think a vacuum can stretch feelings and I know myself better in the end. One day of panic can lead to a week of self-assuredness. One day of bad luck can lead to a lifetime of gratefulness.

I am eating beans and rice and am looking out at a river. A different landscape from the image above, which is of the desert at Joshua Tree. It’s a lush summer here in Washington. It’s fig and blackberry and Italian soda season. It’s sunny and beautiful and I’m feeling melancholy for what promises to be my last Seattle summer for a while. I feel that I should keep this brief… the lake calls. Walking the new paved path by my house calls. Even rollerblading calls. Reading Maud Martha ever so slowly by the orange sunlight sneaking though the blinds in my room… still calls. Being behind on everything calls. Immense stillness calls.

Here’s a question: DOES ANYONE EVER KNOW WHAT THEY WANT? I don’t think I’ve ever had a satisfying answer to the question “what do you want?” I think I want everything and nothing. I think the answer changes minute by minute. And I am so selfish. The answer is usually “I want to feel like X” or “I want to stop feeling like this.” How easy things would be if I could control my feelings and emotions. For better or worse, they are like the weather: predictable to a certain degree, disruptive to a certain degree, sometimes exactly what I need. As Bernadette Mayer wrote, “nothing outside can cure you but everything’s outside.”

I’ve been leaning on friends lately. I am so grateful for you (you know who you are)! You make my life so much better and happier and fulfilling! I hope I do the same for you. I hope you enjoy summer. I hope you have time to feel good feelings! The bad ones will pass. At least, as far as we know, they always have!

End of June 2023: Searching

Lately the days move quickly. I lose sleep. I lose appetite. I lose myself in work and thoughts of the next day. The next hour. Do you ever succumb to phases of life such as these? When your nose is stuck in the book of your life and you suddenly remember that you are in fact reading and not living?

I wonder when the “next” will happen. I wonder when I will arrive there. I wonder when summer will feel like summer.

I sometimes bother myself with what ifs. And maybe it’s true that there are better outcomes that are within my control. But maybe there is nothing else to do. Maybe in a different universe we are doing the exact same thing. Maybe we are swimming in the ether. Maybe were are on two parallel lines.

End of May 2023: Eternal Love

Hi again. Lately I cannot let myself relax. I think I have this fear that if I start to relax fully, I won’t be able to pull myself back out of it and get to work again. If I start sleeping, I won’t wake up. Because, maybe, I need it that badly.

Or maybe I don’t. Maybe things are great! My tendency to be unsure of myself runs so deep that I don’t even know how I should be feeling sometimes. I think I’m gaslighting myself all the time. And on the other hand, I often find myself too stoic and unemotional. Do you also find yourself hard to be around sometimes?

Dreams have been strange lately. Wish they weren’t so strange because they are starting to get accurate. But summer is around the corner. It’s my favorite season, poetically. Too much to write about. So much, in fact, that it falls off the vine. The flies and animals get to it. But they can have it!

Enjoy “Eternal Love” by Fin.K.L and think of summer. Think of being sure of yourself. Think of the grand scheme of your life zooming out, and seeing yourself in the frame. There you are! Waving back at yourself with all the admiration in the world.

End of April 2023: Determination!

I bought Grocery List Poems by Rhiannon McGavin at the book fair this month and it made me so happy. Those poems did a lot to revitalize me and show me the joy of poetry and art again. Rhiannon is close to my age and I have been following her for many years, so it feels like I’ve grown up with her. Her poetic voice has always been inspirational to me and I felt so thrilled to be alive and reading poetry again. (Not to be dramatic).

"The whole way there
your heart would shiver like a box of matches
as you rushed through the concrete churn
of your city with the poodle mix
in conspiracy to strut down the street
whose name you never learned, knowing it
by feel alone..."

From "Crush" by Rhiannon McGavin

Now to be more introspective: I spend a lot of my days wishing I had it in me to do X, Y, or Z. (Be a poet or travel across Europe or be more assertive or finally bake snickerdoodles that aren’t gross). Sometimes I like that these thoughts keep me curious and hungry and wanting to do more. But most of the time, this thinking isn’t useful thinking. These thoughts make me feel dissatisfied with myself and make me lose sight of things that are more important. It’s good to yearn. Believe me; I love to yearn. But there is always a line.

I have been trying to take solace in the fact that there are a set number of tasks immediately ahead of me and it is currently within my power to do them. I have the wherewithal and the skills and the tenacity to do it. And that is all I need to ask of myself in this moment. Small and sturdy steps down a linear-ish path. No need to cause more carnage than necessary. Like in the game Undertale, one of the best games ever.

Have a good May. I generally love the month of May and it always passes so quickly. I hope you don’t let it pass you by. Here: a poem that I wrote in a fit of inspiration about a week ago. And also a song I have been enjoying.

Clear Vase

I am there as a child
hanging off the cliff of the table,
the eyes of vase flowers
turned toward me, my fingers 
curved to bites and the fork dents pockmark
the wood, my feet in socks
and my grocery list 
vocabulary. Ants in a line 
and their sable bodies. This year cracks
like an egg crack, needle diet,
crumb licks the table as the dog hunches
over a mackerel when he is not supposed to,
everything from outside
wanting in, the raven wilderness 
of the table, so tall and full and
no longer here.

End of March 2023: Physical Education

This past month I’ve noticed more about my own personal physicality. By this I mean that I have been trying to pay more attention to my body: where it aches, when during the day I feel most lucid, what my heart rate seems to be doing. My goal is to better gauge when I am hungry and to generally become more aware of how I respond physically to different scenarios. But I think the biggest takeaway from this experience is that I am constantly feeling anxious for some reason! Like. All the time! For no reason! If I feel good, I seem to find another thing to feel anxious about right away! Ahh! Maybe this is a product of the season I’m in. School is definitely a big stressor and in some ways the anxiety keeps me on top of things. But I was disappointed that in trying to know myself better, I became more aware of… whatever this is.

Not everything pans out the way it is supposed to! But I suppose that there can absolutely still be value in something that does not go to plan. This is also MUCH harder to accept in the midst of it happening. Much easier said than done. Usually when things don’t pan out I tend to just lie on the floor and play some Phoebe Bridgers, Japanese Breakfast, or Charli XCX.

I made a new zine this month, which gave me something to come back to again and again for a full week. I hope the creative fulfillment from that project carries me into the next month. And I hope everyone reading this is feeling creatively and emotionally fulfilled lately. Stay well! Read a book or go outside! I’ll try to take my own advice!

End of February 2023: I Let the Minutes and Hours Slip by Easy

It’s the end of the shortest month of the year. There is something sinister in the air I said to a friend in a letter recently. But maybe that’s just me. I think winter is just tough on the psyche (and tough on the bones). And sometimes—in this season—examining myself for too long is not the best idea. It causes me to dissociate, for better or for worse!

Do you agree? Do you like dissociation as much as I do? It feels strange to say because it involves a weird conflict of interests. I want time to move faster and I want discomfort to be subdued. But I also want to be as self-aware as possible. I want to live in the moment and I want to live in every moment. I want to feel it!

From the perspective of a writer and/or artist, it seems better to feel everything deeply and truly. Even the depths of sadness can be informative and can help me create something that feels more authentic and relatable. But this is such a weird way to go through life! And it feels like such a weird thing to justify… the pain? I’m still working through these thoughts. I guess what I’m trying to do at the end of the day is feel content to just exist. To just be.

So… my recommendation for the coming weeks is to slow down in an intentional way. This recommendation (as is this entire blog) is mostly for me, so take this with a grain of salt. But being slow and deliberate and enjoying the process has been my saving grace on some especially tough days. Like, I will stop my work to edit an old poem. Or I will write a letter to J in New York or Z in Palo Alto and then walk to the mailbox and drop it in. Or I will vacuum and zone out. Or I will drink a bottle of Gatorade slowly and really try to pin down what “Icy Blue” is, as a flavor. Or I will tape some ticket stubs into my notebook. Or I will write this blog post.

Cheers to feeling content and happy and healthy and good in the coming month! Goodbye for now and see you at the end of March.