The last time I wrote anything here was 6 months ago, which is shameful. But also, I promised not to force myself into writing unless I felt like it, which didn’t happen.

1. I have a complicated relationship with writing. It’s a fuis moi je te suis, suis moi je te fuis kind of relationship. If I try to mold it, to force words into the lines of a page, they resist. They twist and writhe until they slip through my grasp, leaving me staring at a blank page. If I ignore it, words emerge as they are -wild, fierce, sometimes beautiful, sometimes sharp-edged and jagged. But no matter what, I always find myself longing to write, to bury myself in a page, and let the words come as they are, not as I want them to be.

   This newsletter is going to be exactly that. A practice of letting loose (I should do that more often), letting words flow naturally, just as August air drifts freely.

2. August of this year feels different in a way I don’t recognize but love. It carries a certain finality, a quiet surrender to the cycle of time. The days are still warm but the light begins to soften, tinged with a golden hue that whispers change is inevitable. The nights stretch out like a farewell, each one a little longer, a little cooler.

   I feel like time is slipping through my fingers but I am not angry about it. These last days of August feel like the last pages of a book that I am unwilling to let go of but know I should. They are beautiful and haunting, a reminder that nothing lasts forever. I love this subtle but relentless change in nature, seasons seem to give way gently to one another, without me noticing.

3. I used the word fragments in the title because Queen Ferrante used it and it sounds way cooler in Italian, frantumaglia. Frantumaglia is the title of one of her nonfiction books that I admire so much where she simply writes to answer complex questions sent by publishers (she doesn’t show up for interviews but rather answers by correspondence, how cool is that). The word was initially used by her mother to describe when she “was racked by contradictory sensations that were tearing her apart”. La frantumaglia is a jumble of fragments, as Ferrante would describe. She has a beautiful passage that I can’t get enough of and probably the reason why I would use fragments instead of bits or pieces or notes:

  She said that inside her she had a frantumaglia… [it] depressed her. Sometimes it made her dizzy, sometimes it made her mouth taste like iron. It was the word for a disquiet not otherwise definable, it referred to a miscellaneous crowd of things in her head, debris in muddy water of the brain. The frantumaglia was mysterious, it provoked mysterious actions, it was the source of all suffering not traceable to a single obvious cause. When she was no longer young, the frantumaglia woke her in the middle of the night, led her to talk to herself and then feel ashamed, suggested some indecipherable tune to sing under her breath that soon faded into a sigh.

A word of disquiet not otherwise definable. Name an author who could write this. I will wait. I think I do have a frantumaglia inside me too, maybe we all do at a certain point in our lives. Maybe I don’t have a great connection with my fragments, so writing is hard at times. Ferrante’s frantumaglia is very recurrent in one of her novels The Days of Abandonment where Olga, the protagonist, faces an emotional breakdown after her husband leaves her, prompting her to confront her own identity. Olga reminds me of Sartre’s Nausea, or his character’s Nausea, Roquentin. The latter experiences episodes of being in and out of nausea, a strong sentiment that there is absolutely no reason to live. Roquentin sees life through fragments of randomness and pointlessness, just like Olga. They both experience profound isolation, rage, despair, and vulnerability, quintessential components of la frantumaglia. This existential angst that follows both writers and both characters, is following me too. Or am I reading existential novels to tell myself about what is happening and why, to have control over what is happening and why.

I write passages like this and then question their whole nature. Imposter syndrome never ever helps. Who the fuck would read such nonsense. People are busy writing good stuff. It’s too hard for me to be at peace. I seek chaos where there isn’t any. I should go back to Nausea, maybe it will help the nauseating feelings.

4. I write because I feel too much of something, so much that I need to put it elsewhere.

5. Why everything that I have ever wanted to write is already written and written way better. What’s the point of…me if everything I want to write about other people are writing about them too. Many times I think I have a revolutionary completely new idea…that I find later on existing, described, and put in a better way than I would ever do. What need of me? I try to quiet this voice because I firmly believe we are all living in a society that is more connected than ever and inevitably we will come up with the same ideas. But what is unique is the voice. Your writing voice is so unique, to you only.  

6. Can I become a reader of my work? Almost like a reader who is not the author. It must be a complex and layered experience. A passionate writer always needs an audience of at least one reader. I would be lying if I said I don’t care about whether I am being read or not because writing is meant for others to read.

   Ferrante again wrote something that I think about often:

   Real books take their own path and no longer belong to me

   In a letter sent to her editor, Sandra Ozzola, she distinguishes between imagined books and real books. Imagined booked are those she’s written. Real books are those published and sent to readers. How can you be detached from something that almost defines you? I know it has to do with the interpretation and horizon of expectations¹. Put simply, the intentions and personal context of the writer shouldn’t influence the interpretation of the text. In Death of the Author, Roland Barthes argues that once a work is created, the author’s role is effectively finished, and the meaning of the text is determined by the readers, not the author. This idea basically shifts the focus from the author’s intentions to the text itself and its interaction with the reader, emphasizing that texts have multiple and layered meanings that are created through the act of reading. Sometimes it’s hard for me de detach the author from the work. almost every book I have read is because I was interested in the author, what influenced them, what type of music they liked, and their favorite writing hours. There are also writers like Amélie Nothomb who put clues in her writings for her readers to find or detect. They can’t do so if they don’t have the voice of the author within them.

   

7. I binge-watched Emily in Paris last week. I love the show because it’s like taking a vacation without leaving my couch. Mindy, Emily’s best friend is my favorite character. She said something that made me pause the show, grab my phone, open the notes app, and write THE quote that will change my life:

   try to live the question instead of always trying to find the right answer.

   This will be my little reminder to take it easy. and note to self: watch more cliché shows, you will end up with great wisdom.

8. I deleted my Instagram and TikTok because I was being sucked into the void of doom scrolling and scrolling, for hours. The decision came to me after feeling a hollow void within me. The world outside my screen faded into a foggy background. I felt disconnected from reality with no motivation and no creativity. I knew I had to change something. My mother was right, it was the damn phone after all.

   I consume content to be inspired, to create something authentic. But this online pursuit of authenticity became a performance, an endless cycle of curating, comparing, and projecting an image that doesn’t fully match who I am. It feels like I am always chasing validation, striving for a genuine connection, yet the more I try to be seen, the more invisible I feel. The more I try to show my true self, the further I drift from it.

   I read something, not entirely sure whether I heard it or read it, the other day that goes in the line of “you don’t have to share your whole self to be authentic, it’s ok to keep parts of yourself because it is not about the amount you give, it’s that you give something real.” It’s very simple and almost common knowledge yet I was shocked as if I was receiving the information for the first time. I realized that there will never be an end to this quest of giving something real online but rather the way I should approach it and…stop overthinking about it.

   In the process of doing so, and following a demure mantra, I started listening to Brat, by Charli xcx. Did I become obsessed? Did I go down the rabbit hole and frantically listen to all of her songs, watch every video on the Charli xcx lore? What! Do you think I am basic? Of course I did. And you know what? I think, bear with me, I came up with a conclusion: having an online presence is just like Charli’s music. Good question! How? Take my hand, close your eyes (not really, but you get the metaphor), and let’s combine these two.

   Who I am online is not who I am in real life. I get confused when this version of me is not similar to the version I have created online. That’s because I am dragged into the narrative of to be authentic online, I have to replicate the real self, that is, the version of me in real life, to be exactly similar to the online self, that is, the one I have created in the virtual platforms. Sometimes, I become unhinged online while sipping a cup of tea on a very calm beautiful afternoon. I watch women I follow on my socials become unhinged and wild. I got the chance some of them in real life and you know what? They are just women who have created a little corner for themselves on their phones!! Charli’s music describes that perfectly, especially her latest album, Brat.

   Brat is all about being your unapologetic self. You can be a party girl who is bold, flashy with a slightly mischievous attitude and simultaneously strive for genuine deep connections. You can create the perfect Instagram grid with the most aesthetic posts and be vulnerable and longing for something deeper while navigating life.  The point is, we are all complex human beings with desires and melancholia and ambitions. We are chaotic in the most beautiful way because these emotions among others are what make every experience unique to us and valuable. The beauty of being is not in creating a perfect life, online or else, the beauty of being lies exactly in this complexity -in the way we can feel hope and despair in the same breath, in the way we listen to music and cry and read books and giggle. It is in the way I read a quote or a passage from a book and produce nonsense of a newsletter that means absolutely the world to me.

1 The horizon of expectations is a concept from literary theory that is associated with Robert Jauss Hans and reception theory. it refers to the set of cultural norms, values, expectations, and assumptions that a reader brings to a text based on their historical and cultural context. over time, as cultural contexts shift, the horizon of expectations evolves, changing how texts are understood by different generations.