Tender and Gentle

"Being tender and open is beautiful. As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all – look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love." -Zooey Deschanel

This is a quote that has recently taken a hold of me. I feel like I really built a wall around myself, and for a long time I didn't even know it. I was stuck within myself. Here's a recent entry of thought I had on being gentle:

My whole life there has been harshness and now here I can have a stranger lay her head on my lap, and stroke her hair, do this incredibly gentle, vulnerable thing for this person. And she’s content, and will sleep, head on my lap. I can have this kind of connection, and brush fingers with a boy who’s growing into his own surety. This is an experience I think everyone should have. Because in a way you also learn to be gentle with yourself, and you just have to take things slowly. I know this is not revolutionary. But the revelation itself is what I feel so vital. No one telling you can ever teach you how to feel this. This is the same for running, swimming, painting, building, blowing smoke rings, writing a poem.

The experiences in these last two weeks of meeting so many new people, the vulnerability of going somewhere new, again, having to present yourself. You learn things about yourself that I'm sure you couldn't ever do by being stagnant, by not offering the first hello, by not putting yourself out there. I was so painfully withdrawn that now I almost feel as if I don't stop. Everyone's been saying these things about me that I wouldn't have believed, even a year ago. "You're so outgoing. I wish I could talk to people like you. You can say hi to anybody."

But, anybody  can say hit to anybody. It's such a hard thing to do at first that after you start you can hardly recall how much courage you needed to begin. I've been reading pride and prejudice for a class and it's true what Mrs. Bennet says to her daughters, "At our time of life, it is not so pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintance everyday." What dear, funny Mrs. Bennet may not realize is that for many people being faced with new acquaintance everyday is down right scary. Except when it starts to get fun, and enjoyable, and you realize, (if you're an idealist and an optimist and whatever else) like me, that it begins to be beautiful.

I've made friends from every continent except Antarctica (I'm coming for you, penguins! (It's summer down there soon!)). I'm becoming fast friends with a PhD engineering student from the UK who wants to involve creating social progress in his degree. A girl from Zambia who's opposing optimism and string of bad days is at once baffling and endearing. The sweetest Japanese girl who believed that New Yorkers kept their fingers warm by sticking them in their nose. A duo from the Netherlands and France who each drank their own bottle of wine during a get together (and both so small). A girl from the UK that introduced me to some British culture and made sure I got back home safely. A Korean-American who feels mostly American, but who defers to anyone in an instant. So many interesting, charming people that it would take me too long to describe them all. And I still have so much time to get to know them.


I realize that these last posts have been brimming with joy and a possibly painful amount of cheer, but I just feel so much love right now, and I'm so happy. I want to be able to look back on this when the sun just barely lifts her face from the horizon, knowing that so much can happen that's lovely in the world.