illusion work

Hello,

I’ve launched myself headfirst into the apartment hunt this weekend. And I think I fell in love with the first place I visited. Opposite the living room windows, which let in all that good spring sun, the wall is a dark green. And the bathroom is this terracotta red. It’s a place that beckons the imagination.

Many, many moons ago, I’d written in my first newsletter about this hypothetical home I’d have once I’d found stability. Since then, I’ve managed to stay in DC for a year-and-a-half and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. And yet, I’ve been sleeping with my shoes on, so to speak. It took me over half-a-year to buy a new bedframe and a year to put anything on the walls of my room.

But this morning, I could see it. I could see that old fantasy come back, and I want that apartment so badly. I put in an application as I got home. Then, when I called my mom about it, I asked, “Do you think I want this too badly, so I won’t get it?”

“What does that even mean? It’s like you’re applying for jobs again,” my mom responded.

Allow me to break down some pseudo-psychology for you. The principle of least interest states that, in a relationship or social dynamic, the party with less emotional investment holds more of the power. The less you care, the more bargaining power you have. The principle of least interest is a power game where you aren’t allowed to want anything too much—or at least, you aren’t allowed to show it.

Sometimes, I think that the universe keeps a ledger. She balances the good and the bad things for me. She won’t give me anything that I want too badly without taking something else away. Forget karma or a deal with the devil, I’m in a power game with the universe herself, and I am always going to lose because I’m human and I want things, and she knows that. We both do.

I’m not talking about the small things. I don’t think the universe cares if I want ice cream or not. I’m thinking of the big ones—a grad school, a job, an apartment, a person. It’s illusion work. Paint yourself in nonchalance, and maybe this time you’ll win.

From ages fifteen to twenty, on some level, I genuinely believed that if I admitted to how much I wanted something, then the act of admission would guarantee that I would never get it. I wish I could say that this rule only applied to conversations with other people, but no, I would dance circles around my thoughts to avoid having to admit, even to myself, that I am a being capable of ambition and desire.

I’m still partially convinced that if I confess to the simple notion that I have dreams, then the universe will dash them. This past year, there have been a few things that I think I wanted too earnestly, so none of them worked out. Nevertheless, I’m now able to talk about the various things I want, even if I end up beating myself up about it later.

It remains an endless power game, but I like to think that we’re a bit more honest with each other—me and the universe, that is. I wait for her non-symbols. The signs and the rituals—pulling the Tower card twice in April, touching the gulf in May, starting a new poetry book when the sun is so hot it stings on your shoulders, the magic of October. All the nebulous things that you’ve read from me before. A working of illusions.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

The house is a mausoleum but also a home. This is a story about a house in post-WWII Netherlands and how memories shape the space around us. It’s about love and intrigue set against the backdrop of a summer in the European countryside. It’s also about how the narrator, Isa, learns to want and to voice those wants, while a woman who sees her house through different lens comes to say with her for the summer.

I’m maybe already cursing myself to not get this apartment by writing about it, but like I said, some places beckon the imagination. And part of me thinks I should try to prove my weird superstitions about the universe wrong. Where do you stand on dreams and their feasibility?

As always, I hope the universe remembers to treat you with gentle hands,
Jessie