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Helen Still's avatar

“I learned that tears can hold a truth that words have forgotten”.

Suyin, it was an honor to read your work, thank you for trusting us with it. There were so many things, I don’t even know where to start. For starters, your visit to the London museum, your tears at saying goodbye to London, and the significance of seeing that very artist again. Your intuition doesn’t miss a beat or a sign, you catalog those moments so well (their significance), and you really live them when you are in them, at least that is my observation. I also clicked on the links you left regarding the two artists who met in the middle of the Great Wall, the ending floored me. Your story, The Lovers, read like a well-known myth, that's how good it was.

I smiled when you mentioned MOMA. Although I am not as well versed in art as you are, it is my favorite museum. I used to love going alone and just wandering, I kind of knew my favorites (Picasso mostly) but I wasn’t picky, I just liked being around the art.

Last year, I made my way back to Manhattan, except this time to the Met to see Van Gogh’s cypresses. I’ve learned that when these sort of exhibits happen, I must go. Many years ago I missed an exhibition of my favorite artist, Frida, (not in NYC but somewhere else in the country), regardless I would have flown. I am sure you know, a lot of these pieces are in private collections, so who knows when their owners will lend them out again.. Anyways, once inside the room with the cypresses, I wanted to cry and I wish I had. I am not one to cry in public, but at least I have graduated to crying in front of those I love, as opposed to hiding in the bathroom as a teen and young adult. I admire you for not holding back when something truly moves you.

Although breaking up with an entire city may feel like an ambiguous feeling, I think you captured it very beautifully and I appreciate your honesty in all the ways you have been human. May you continue to keep writing, I certainly look forward to reading more.

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Zhen C's avatar

Suyin, I feel incredibly honoured to be able to read your writing, raw from the heart. There are so many threads here that tug and pull and resonate, so many stories held within us wanting to be given wings to fly. I feel that simultaneous wonder and ache that comes with trying to carve out space for ourselves in the new, as we progress through these spaces to find that our self has expanded beyond what this place can offer us.

Similar to what I wrote about implosions/explosions, here I am, reading your words and finding the mirror in this phrase:

"as I set off the silent fireworks of my existential implosions and studied my reflection in the dark window glass of the eastbound Jubilee line tube, struck by the observation that neither my tears nor my inner earthquakes had the same ability to be reflected by the glass, in the way that my faceless silhouette had".

I stand in awe of your courage to continue moving, searching, sharing, loving, expressing, and learning about your self, your heart, and the joys of life danced under the moon.

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