In Favor of the Sensitive Woman

I've been thinking about how to tell time...

the great difficulty is to say “yes” to life

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (1956)

listen while reading

“Diesel and I” | Tony Gum, 2018

I wrote this on a post-it note in the middle of a client call on Wednesday

An idea of “not quite right, not quite wrong” took root in me sometime at the beginning of 2025, and it has been slowly metastasizing to various parts of my being. In January, I said it felt like all the work I had done in 2024 had been wiped from my memory. And then at the end of January, I decided I had forgotten about the “resounding and pulsing hope at what the year will bring me, especially in the Spring or Summer when everything feels possible.” By February, I was sure that there was more life for me to live, and that this inevitability of life was both thrilling and dreadful. But then I remembered that I had become a version of myself that was unrecognizable.

I am afraid that my word is no longer good. We always say to give people the benefit of the doubt, but that grace is typically reserved for those whose character can speak where their actions don’t. I no longer know if my character is something I can stand on, and that is terrifying. It feels like something integral to my personhood has been slipping. My kindness, my patience, my capacity to give. I once told my mom that I wish I was never such a good friend, because it would not feel so crappy when I became a bad one. Maybe this is the year I stop having so many friends.

-Me, in February

In March I turned to memoir. I needed some older, wiser thing outside of myself to affirm that there are undiscovered ways to live a good life. I read Sloan Crosley and thought about what it meant to cry while smelling a towel that has belonged to my mother longer than I have. I read Chloe Caldwell and decided my life was dull, my youth wasted on hating New York and not kissing enough strange men. I read Marie Howe and wondered how to balance the delicate line between grief and forgiveness. I read Esmeralda Santiago and became fascinated by the immateriality of being an immigrant daughter in a foreign city, trapped between two diametrically opposed ideas of home. I read Thomas Dai and thought about the meaning of language and the permeability of memory. I read Sofie Hagen and realized I could move to the Andalusian mountains. I read Deborah Levy and thought about moving to Paris, about buying turmeric silk sheets and clogs, about building an empty nest.

It is now April and I do not know where I am. I told my somatic therapist that I can no longer tell what is pleasurable to me, or just a habit. I think about how, while kissing someone, I find myself thinking about how it’ll feel to tell my friends about the kiss, rather than thinking about the kiss itself. It feels as if my whole life is lived by an understanding that, at some point, I will relay these experiences somewhere or to someone. I am writing about my life before living it, and I am convinced this has contorted my boundaries of time.

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written on May 1st, 2025

I used to hate New York in the spring, but now I am thinking that this is the city at its most beautiful.

At 6:38am the air is cool with the promise of a balmy afternoon. I think this is my way of telling time. Spring is defined by chasing the ten hours of warmth during the day, before the nights and early mornings of frost. I know it is 5:30am when the garage across the street from my apartment creaks open. I know it’s 6:30am when my neighbor across the street wakes up for work, the light in their bedroom casting shadows on the damp street below. I know it’s 4:45pm when the sunlight hits the corner of my bed, and I can see the dust motes float down from my ceiling fan. Around 7:00am, my next door neighbor slowly opens the rusted gate, and their daughter’s young voice rings out, puncturing the sleepy silence of our street. I have never heard her sing the same song twice, but every song ends with her saying “I love you so much, Daddy.” Even on the days where my insomnia has driven me frantic with rage, I think about how lucky I am to witness these moments of life.

I am kinder to New York now that I know I am leaving.

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written May 18th, 2025

Sometimes I can see versions of my life so clearly.

There is one version where I live in New Mexico and I own a red 1990 Chevrolet 1500 and live alone, isolated from friends and family. I am 40 miles away from the nearest grocery store and I am deeply familiar with the feeling of driving down an open dirt road, going 45mph, while the sunset burns strong in my periphery. Wisps of hair breed in my mouth and I do nothing to remove them. I am at the whim of nature and gravity and I am barefoot and solid to my core.

There is another version where I sell a few books and settle down in an open apartment — one with a balcony that accommodates a morning sun-soak — somewhere in Spain. I sleep on laughably expensive sheets, but it is okay because I worked hard for them. In the summer, I escape to a small, seaside bed and breakfast. I made a life for myself where I am confident, adored, and comfortable. My friends visit me frequently and I beg them to move across oceans and become my next-door neighbor.

My personal favorite, however, is the life where I live in Santa Cruz, in a small house with a worn-in living room and rarely used kitchen. I have two daughters and I teach them how to feel trees breathe. The dirt is rich and pillowy under our fingers and we make silly faces at one another. I used to think I would not have children, because I could not bare the thought of loving someone that much. But, we worship the altar of douglas-firs and laugh at the dizzying vertigo their height inspires.

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Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s

Anaïs Nin

written on March 26th, 2025 and updated on May 25th, 2025 (i forgot to finish this journal entry)

There are a lot of items in my bed. A water bottle, my journal, wired headphones, bluetooth headphones, an electric candle, a book, my laptop charger, my stuffed animal, and a pair of fuzzy socks buried somewhere in between my sheets. Oh, there’s also a pen. Actually, I only became aware of these many items because I was looking for a pen, the same pen that I am using to write this and a pen that definitely should not be floating around in my nice, linen sheets. I have allowed myself to purchase nice bedding, rather than take my brother’s old high school sheets or the ones from the guest room in my mom’s house that have been passed down from my grandparents, all the way in Barbados.

I have also thrown out three pairs of middle school underwear. There are still eight pairs left, but growth is not linear.

I live a fairly compact life. Not in terms of items or experiences, but rather in how I possess space.

Children have no dignity and I really respect that about them.

I love their ruthless response to injustices, their desire to feed birds in the park.

To grieve the sea.

Their right to be tired in public.

Megan Fernandes, Do you sell dignity here?

I was at the park and made friends with a two year old named Petra. She was precious, the type of baby I would love to be an aunt to. This little boy wandered up and, without pretense, asked Petra’s father “what’s wrong with her eye?” He seemed baffled by this little boy’s unashamed questioning. I am not even sure if I could call what he said a question, seeing as it was tossed carelessly and directly. He was not really asking about her eye, but making a statement that he could see an abnormality. Or, at least, what he considered to be an abnormality (he was probably seven, at the most). Petra’s dad explained that she had a propensity for developing stye’s, and that there was nothing wrong with it. Seemingly aloof, the boy then asked if he could pick Petra up. Again, the dad seemed confused, but he agreed.

Petra and that little boy had a hoot.

I sat on the bench, watching them and thinking about how I would not have asked someone so bluntly what was wrong with their daughter’s eye. I do not know what it would feel like to be so loose with my tongue. I have made a distinct effort to maintain a level of structure in my life. However, I experienced a level of privilege that allowed me to find myself bored with my routines and with holding my tongue.

I tightened up the loose screws in the garden door and in my shed door. This made locking and unlocking the doors easier in the dark. What with the keys, the screwdriver, the torch, my bags heavy with books and groceries and extension leads, it took some doing, even on an e-bike, to cycle up the perilously icy hill

Deborah Levy, The Cost of Living (2018)

I have been irresponsible lately. With my time and my money and my sleep. It has been equal parts invigorating and terrifying. Yet, I had to ask myself - why am I apologizing for inhabiting a space I pay for? Why am I apologizing for allowing people to know me? Why am I apologizing when no wrongful deed has been done?

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woo! emptying more drafts! i’ve got eight more, we’re slowly making our way through. this has been an interesting exercise in not finishing work!

lots of love,

Jasmine <3