L'autre cote

This Thursday, I am 21, and the air curls sweet with bergamot and pastry crumbs. Just days ago I submitted my Honours’ thesis, an 8,000-word stone, heavy and smoothed, hurled into a waterfall, vanishing into the mist that drifts through high altitude air. With my birthday and my thesis both behind me, this week feels like a late spring evening in the countryside: the air cold, trampling over the zigzag of a metal fence, ankles freckled with dirt, grass cool beneath me, chewing granola while the windmills tower and turn in slow performance. I am on the other side.

For now, at least. I still have a few exams left.

Outside my room, the thrum of machinery claws at the air, the soil scooped like cocoa powder for yet another real estate development. The infrasound is a low violence, deafening in its own way, making the bones of my ears ache. Still, I write. The spring heat, bright and impish beside the growl of summer, presses through the lace curtains of my study. It clings to the lingering resin of a candle I burned earlier, amber stiffening into glacé sap across hinoki wood, a small reliquary of light left behind.

My herb garden has become a world of emissaries. Lime-green looper caterpillars inch along the stems of parsley and what remains of the sage. Their mother—the cabbage moth—hovers above like a pale priestess presiding over her congregation. Slugs carve silver hieroglyphs into the damp soil, while spiders retreat to their gauzy corners, plotting. I have made peace with them. The hungriest loopers live in a pastry box beneath the garden, fed on rationed leaves—a pact, so their gluttony does not consume what I need for my own. 

The creatures are tutors. First, they remind me that growth is rarely romantic. Survival is a negotiation written in chewed stems and bitten leaves. You also have to mind the giant human clipping away near your dinner table, unfortunately. Perfection, too, is a false pursuit.The spiders reveal this best: golden orb-weavers spin lattices like cathedral windows, immaculate in geometry, while black house spiders knot their webs into awkward veils. Yet both catch their flies, all the same. There are many underappreciated artists in the animal kingdom, honestly. I found myself tuning into a chorus of galahs the other day, singing some strange conversational ballad. They remind me to stay expressive.

Recently, I’ve been curating tablescapes again—velvet stages where I can rehearse the art of self-celebration. My birthday seemed the right excuse. The “velvet” tablecloth is really just a patchwork of fabrics layered together, though it passes as seamless. Now, of course, you see the joins. Please don’t tell anyone. This morning I set the table with silverware and a breakfast that felt like an altar of small extravagances. The tea bloomed with fresh bergamot, a citrus orchard pressed into porcelain. A yuzu and orange éclair sliced sharp through the sweetness, zest lingering like sunlight on enamel. A trio of macarons cracked with a soft crunch, each a reliquary of caramel and pistachio. Strawberries bled a deep, candied red into the plate. Chocolates gleamed with painted lacquer, miniature canvases undone by a single bite. Lemon meringue marshmallows collapsed like sugared clouds, dissolving to citrus on the tongue.

I had ordered gifts for myself too—not in absurd number, but with deliberate care. Each one was wrapped with ribbons, marked with monograms, finished with calligraphed notes. I liked the small theatre of it: requesting these touches as though they were meant for someone else, then receiving them in my own name. The ritual reminded me that there is value in valuing yourself. Not in hoarding or in turning away from others, but in keeping intervals of reverence—moments where your own presence is treated as worthy of silverware and ceremony. To take yourself on dates. To throw parties where you are both guest and host. Without shame. Because it is shame, not solitude, that eats away at the marrow.

Such celebration stands in sharp contrast to last year, when I could hardly do anything alone. Speaking to strangers, running errands, even sitting in class felt unbearably exposing. I let days slip past on autopilot until, when I finally noticed myself again, I felt like a husk moving on two legs. This year I shed that husk, like a hermit crab abandoning a shell worn too thin. Next year I hope to stretch further still, to make autonomy not only a practice but a form of respect. I am grateful for those who have stayed by my side: my parents, my brothers, my friends. And my best friend, whose voice returns to me each evening. He is the moon at three in the afternoon, too pale to belong to daylight, patient, watching, a witness to the sun.

Another orbit. Another turn around the fire. The light is sweet, almost cruel. I am, at least, wearing sunscreen.