In The Margins
An essay on those shared, life-giving moments that precede change. I wrote this while listening to Gunna.
How did we find each other? Here, in the margins—at the café down the street, where musings flow between sips of bitter brew. I’m leaving soon. We both know my time here is coming to an end. It feels like just the other week when we began building our fortress of dreams. One by one, each of you—within our larger collective—sprouted and then bloomed, relishing in your growth despite knowing the impermanence of this season; and now it is my turn to do the same.
“Perhaps that’s what makes it worthwhile,” you remark. “Surely, we will find each other again soon.” We both hope for this to be true, but that doesn’t make this moment feel any less somber. Tears are shed and goodbyes are exchanged under the sweltering heat of another summer sun.
How did we find each other? Here, in the margins—where we’ve been so many times before. You surprise me, arriving at my hollowed-out home, not with charity, feelings of obligation or boredom, but with the genuine, nurturing gift of community. I think of that word often. Community. It embodies connection, love, memory, friendship, solidarity, understanding, and trust. Community. The invisible web of relations between autonomous beings; that which makes us whole; that which binds us to the world; that which animates this moment, these laughs, and these hugs.
My cardboard box, filled with things old and new, from here and from there, lays dormant, left for another day, as songs of celebration, songs we wrote together, echo through the night.
How did we find each other? Here, in the margins—between momentum and rest. I have since left. I’m living with my parents now, at least for the time being. A walk around the neighborhood, some respite from the mundane, has brought us together. It’s been a while.
We sit and we talk: about politics, the ecological crisis, what we’ve done since graduation, a friend’s new, surreptitious relationship, your desire for change, and my longing for the past. Nostalgia fills my brain like a hot, bubbling fluid—we’re all just trying to find our way. I’m excited for this next chapter, to plant these seeds somewhere new, though I can’t help but reflect. The conversation is therapeutic, your presence so healing. We rejoice in the moment. “I know you’ll love it there,” you assure me. I think I will.
I am here, in the margins—drifting through a stream of memories, locations, emotions, smells, songs, drinks, laughs, and tears—occupying a space of conflicting forces, of entropy and stability, precarity and certainty. It’s dizzying, this period of transition. But I am not alone. I am here, with you, and you are here, with me. And that is what makes these moments so meaningful. At least that’s what I believe.