Peace be with you (and also with you)

On honesty.

I'm standing in my kitchen listening to Bill Evans and making this soup. We’re getting spillings of cooler temps and some thick morning fog here in Hollywood which means this song sounds extra pleasant driving on the 101. The lemon trees in the neighborhood are right on track for citrus season a few months from now. Next week I’ll be back in New York, and when I come back to LA it’ll be Halloween, which marks the best time of year in the West. 

Since we spoke last, my ballet flats from Milan that I ordered over 6 months ago arrived and I’m pleased to say they were well worth the wait. They came recommended by Brooke Callahan who contributed to last year's gift guide which I wrote on Google Docs before Jelly Sandwich’s conception. I am already thinking about how to make this year’s even better.

Yes, I am at Maru. Please don’t freak out or bully me.

Here’s some movies I’ve watched, too.

…And Justice for All (1979)

Wilde Salomé (2011)

Love Streams (1984)

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I’ve taken some time away because I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the sense of dishonesty across all platforms right now. Unfortunately, that includes Substack. Something happened when the surge of writers (me included) decided to gather here. It reminded me a lot of a high school cafeteria– a place I never wanted this to feel like. I’m never going to feel like I’m at the cool girl table because I never have been. It’s such an eyesore— being false online for engagement with strangers. It’s all of our jobs now, it seems like, to love everything. To promote everything. To share everything, but at what cost? God forbid we have a different opinion. Have you noticed the people who seem to be the most disliked are the ones that aren’t afraid to have a different opinion? 

Mean Girls (2004)

I’ve had a problem in my life with truth telling. It’s gotten me in just as much trouble as being caught in a lie. Sometimes I feel like my honesty or non-honesty has risked relationships I could’ve had in work and otherwise. But even thinking about honesty, and how I have believed myself to be up until this point, I really believed that I was laying it all out. Really putting it all on the line. I remember a year into seeing my therapist, I was shocked when she revealed to me that she didn’t think I was a vulnerable person. I had basically made it my identity to let people know that I was vulnerable because I wanted to be special. Really, I was cultivating a narrative online around being a victim of my own life. I thought it was so vulnerable of me to be willing to share these things about myself. I’d ramble on about abusive relationships I’d been in and about recovering from an eating disorder. I shared everything about myself because I wanted to be extraordinary. I thought being vulnerable meant sharing everything in detail, even the worst things. I really thought I was doing it. I wanted to shock people, reel them in, leave them wondering and wanting more. Now I can see that I was doing all of that without really getting involved with myself at all, only my emotions. 

I’ve written about living in Hollywood and loving it, but longing for New York and grappling with the struggles of feeling like I left something there that was unfinished. A life that I could have had that I'll never really know. I’ve written about things, and about clothes, about spaces, and places. I have my new narrative that I’m convincing everyone of. All of those things are great, but I wonder if they’re meaningful to anyone. They’re me, but they’re not really me. I want to show that my life, it’s glamorous too, don’t you envy me? I live in Hollywood. I burn taper candles. I dress well. I know how to butter you up. I know how to lie, too. Or rather, embellish the things I want you to see. We all have something we want to prove, maybe the lot of us that are more insecure feel the need to share the most. That’s why I don’t shut up about New York, about California, about Dries Van Noten; it’s my shtick and I’ve coined it. It’s not original, but it works.

New York scares me most of all because I know most of the relationships that can be created there are completely transactional and I’m not interested. Whenever I go back I run into people that I knew many lives ago and play cat and mouse with them about grabbing a coffee soon or going to their friends gallery opening and truthfully nothing could be more artificial. It’s not even trying to be earnest, it is, on the outermost layer of it, the most cultivated behavior I’ve come in contact with at this point in my life. I think there’s a pressure we feel to have surface level relationships because we know those people will maybe still be supportive of us if we have a big moment in our lives. It’s like wondering who’s going to show up to your funeral when you die.

I remember being five years old and finding out about death and dying. I was in the backseat of my mothers Chevy Suburban and I think the radio was playing Vanessa Carlton. When I thought about it then, I pictured a massive milky way galaxy black hole that I figured you’d see when you die. That when you pass over, you enter into that. Even now, I still picture that milky way sky universe and become so afraid. I guess I bring up dying because I think about it sometimes and I wonder if when I look back on my life, if what I see is something I am proud of. Am I going to wish that I was more truthful or willing to admit things about myself that I don’t like?

There are so many things that we may view as small that can change our whole life. I spent most of my twenties waiting for someone to change my life, specifically men. I searched for one almost constantly. I have a list of names. I felt like being saved because I didn’t want to know myself. Actually, I spent most of my life getting as far away from myself as I possibly could. I craved someone to watch over me because that’s what I was lucky enough to have from my father. I thought if I found someone to know me and love me, I’d never have to really look elsewhere. I wanted to act out and do terrible things, I was raised in the Catholic, church every Sunday whether I wanted to or not. I remember going to confession only twice in my life, once before my communion and again before my confirmation. I don’t even remember my confirmation name. I don’t have Catholic guilt because it’s not like I’d send a nude and think I was going to hell, quite the contrary. I know I’m going to heaven.

Holy water my mother sent me in 2021.

I think a lot of people don’t want to say things out loud in fear of what could happen to them. I know I’m being judged constantly. Dozens of people watch my Instagram stories from a burner account. I wonder who they all are, and I know some of them are people who would be embarrassed if I saw that they were checking in on me. I watch everyone's Instagram stories on my main account. If I’m going to do something, you’re going to see it. I don’t have a reason to hide. Why would I? I am the lurker, the crazy ex-girlfriend, the old friend, the person you’ve never heard of, and therefore, nobody. 

The dishonesty that runs rampant in our world is harming us permanently. It’s not surprising that we’re in a mental health crisis–most people lie about their feelings, their wants, desires. It wouldn’t be surprising to me either if they’re not even thinking about these things at all. We all fall victim to not being honest about our desires. It’s a huge risk to start to change how you listen to the world, and even to yourself. Maybe it’s fear of confrontation, of connection, of losing everything you have, and noticing what you know to be true of others and yourself. We’re afraid to ask for more in our lives because we might lose what we already have. After all, we respond to the world perfectly for how we take it in. It’s scary to think about changing it, but you might wake up one day and decide you want your life to be something different.

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I’ll see you next week in New York.

Till then—

Patrizia Cavalli.