A Gull and Potato Peel Pie
I have not written much for this blog, but I promised I would write more to myself this year. I found myself stuck in a predicament I didn’t know how to carry alone, and more troubling still, I couldn’t find people who had carried it before me. When I came up short, I decided to write — and maybe someone who’s where I am will find it, and we can share in it together.
February 14th was looming. As a single woman, I felt that familiar societal dread — but something in me stirred. I would not be at home, wine-drunk and miserable. Self-pity be damned, at least for today.
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I had already made a dentist appointment — a Saturday, perfect for my schedule — something practical to fill the time. And then I thought: my dentist is downtown. I’ll be my own lover for the day.
I needed something to do with myself, so I returned to an old love. I searched for a good book — something to bear witness to instead of being trapped with my own dizzying thoughts. I needed a crutch, something to have and to hold while I bambi-legged my way through the day alone.
I admit I am no longer used to doing things on my own. I have lost confidence in a thousand small ways. I would tell myself, “That looks fun,” and then wait for someone to accompany me. When they couldn’t, I resigned myself to not going at all.
Then, one beautiful summer day, I felt the chill of winter coming — yes, winter, not fall.
I decided to catch the last dredges of warmth and go to the beach by myself. It felt like resistance. My first step into it.
While gathering my things, I found a book tucked under a pile of clothes on the stairs: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Serendipity at its finest. If you find yourself living with fear, I offer you this kindness.
I was lost — and my fear was that I would never be found.
The question haunted me, and maybe it haunts you too: Who am I?
That became my resolution for the new year: find yourself through the fear. Do things with yourself, for yourself — especially when you are afraid to do them.
Don’t hate me, reader, but I typed into ChatGPT asking for a plan for my big date, and a book recommendation based on others I’d loved. That’s how I found The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
At first, I was put off by the title. What the actual fuck is a potato peel pie, and what does it have to do with a literary society? But like Sam-I-Am, I told myself to try it. Maybe I’d like it.
I had planned a full day, but after the dentist I realized my face was so numb I couldn’t feel my eyebrow. The fancy tea and baked goods would have to wait — my half-dead tongue deserved mercy.
A part of me said to pack it in and go home. At least I’d fixed my teeth. At least I’d bought the book. But a quiet, insistent voice told me to stay.
I ended up by the ocean, eating lunch — something I’d been too nervous to do alone the summer before. Back then, I felt every imagined eye on me. Not now.
I was resolute in my choices. I believe that when you are in alignment, the world offers signs encouraging you forward. Mine came in the form of a hungry gull.
He wasn’t one of the small white ones. This was a seafaring bird — not to be trifled with. Anything that can traverse the sea with nothing more than wings and flipper-like feet has more grit than I do. What I felt wasn’t fear so much as respect.
He made himself small beside me, staring expectantly at my lunch. I felt bad — mac and cheese can’t be good for seagulls. The thought turned into writing, as it often does, and I begged myself to remember it:
Seagull, I am sad that I have nothing to give you and I’m sure you’re sad there is nothing to get, but you sit here with me anyway. I try to explain, like you could understand, and from the way your head tilts, I think you do. The wind picks up, and you are gone with it.
I realized I was not alone in the world — connection could be made, even with a hungry gull. Then I opened my book.
This is where I met Juliet. If you read it, you’ll meet her too — and you’ll find yourself in her letters as I did.
I forgot what a good book does for the soul. I felt less alone than I had in a long time. Acceptance and grace — things I’d been forcing myself toward through mud and uncertainty — arrived quietly instead.
A great melancholy that had anchored itself to my soul lifted.
Juliet longs to be seen for who she is. She quarrels with herself, and I laughed, because 1946 or 2026, it doesn’t matter — fears are still fears, insecurity still lives in us all. She looks at the world the way I do, and in the turning of the universe, she finds her life. Or rather, her life finds her.
Even after all the darkness they had endured, something bright came after. I believe it has come for me, too.
The mournfulness I carried days before is hard to find now — not gone forever, but softened. Let us not pretend the skies will never grey again. But for now, the clouds have parted, and the warmth of summer finds me in the middle of winter. I hope it finds you too.
I was only 28, staring down a quarter-life crisis, convinced my life was already over. But as Juliet reminds us, it is only beginning.
I spent the whole day with myself, and I loved it.
The day didn’t go to plan. I ended up in a smoke shop, sitting on a couch, content to exist in the world. Later, I found myself at a strip club with my friend — she works there — and one of her coworkers asked if I wanted a private dance. I had never had one before.
Why? I was scared to ask. Scared to do it.
And reader — I did that thing.
It was an experience I wouldn’t trade for the world.
I owe thanks to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for giving me back to myself, even if only for a moment. It taught me that I am not stuck, and that I deserve to be seen — quietly.
I am not an intruder in this world. I am a witness to it. And so are you.
Being lost is nothing to fear — it means there is something waiting to be found.
Yours truly,
ad astra per aspera
P.S. This day was a small moment of grace in the storm of uncertainty I am still weathering. That is enough for now.
