I’ve been eating and making a lot of soup. When I can’t find it in me to cook, I can still find it in me to make soup. And something about making soup for another person feels so loving to me. It reminds me of being sick as a kid, more importantly being cared for. I tell her I’ve left soup on the stove and what I really mean is “I hope it warms you, I hope you’re fed…”

Something about the spring makes me so soft; with those final, stubborn, patches of snow, I too, seem to melt. The sun stays out late to play, so I have to find it in me to lighten up— to join her. Spring always makes me long for a backyard. Finding the corner that the light still reaches. Oh to close your eyes in the sun! The simplest, most glorious, sigh of relief. 

We spoke for hours as I laid at the edge of their bed. And I realized it's quite special, and intimate, to be allowed access to someone’s space in that way. Some of my most comfortable conversations, moments of feeling held, have happened on another’s bed. While you do your makeup, or change from work clothes, or pack a suitcase, I lay and listen. And maybe if I listen well enough, I can melt carefully into your surroundings, until you forget I’m even here. Because you ask me to make myself comfortable, and make sure that it’s so; I would love for you to feel as safe, as when you are alone. 

I’ve been thinking, so much of love is comfort. Taking the time and effort to make one comfortable. To make yourself comfortable, what an act of care. To care for you in one breath and honour you the next, like every inhale is a promise, that I will try my best. To make breakfast and eat it slowly. To overlap my legs with yours. To bring you a teddy bear, just for you to hold. To take pictures of you when I think you look sweet. The moment I allowed myself to treat those I love, with the kindness I would offer a child, I saw them open up to the light; like a tulip’s petals unfold, after half a vase of water and a good night’s sleep. And so often we are too shy to treat people the way we’d really like to, the way we’d hope to be treated, too, in return, because somewhere along the line we’ve become caught up with how it reads as opposed to how it feels. 

And it feels good, doesn’t it?