Hi, I'm Nina Iordanova and this is the 42nd edition of Something Good, a newsletter filtered through my 🧠, 🖐, and ❤️. Coming your way every two weeks, I hope you find something good here.
Hello, I’ve been in a Mary Oliver kind of mood these past few days so you can’t blame me for feeling a little sentimental.
I was reading through my old Medium account, trying to dig up a particular piece of writing. I couldn’t find it, and I’m sad to think it might be lost or locked away somewhere. But this is what I found instead.
It’s something I wrote 7 years ago (so I must have been 24), called How to time travel through travel. It’s rough, but there are lots of things I like in it. Maybe it’s just remembering the particularities of a time instead of the generalities that makes it sweet to me.
It’s unfinished, but I hope you enjoy.
How to time travel through time
I met him in January of last year, on a last-minute trip I could just as easily have skipped. A friend of mine was spending a few days in LA, a city I’d never been to, and asked if I wanted to fly down and meet her there, spend a few days exploring the town. I had money to burn and had been looking for an adventure for a while, and the bonus of setting up a business meeting with a contact in the film industry made it an easy sell.
A week later, I arrived in LAX at 10 PM LA time, 1 AM Toronto time. I met my friend at a cute one bedroom we’d rented out in Silverlake, and a bottle of wine and a long talk on the couch later, we were finally ready to turn in. My meeting (which had been cancelled, rescheduled, cancelled, then rescheduled again last minute) was at 12 PM the next day, and I was looking forward to making my first real industry connection in LA. What would I wear? What should I say? I spent the rest of the night sleepless from anxiety and excitement.
I was sitting in the cafe, waiting for him to show up. I don’t remember what I was drinking, but I do remember trying to picture his face in my head. I’d seen a few photos before I came, googled a few more that morning just to make sure I’d be able to recognize him when he walked in. That seemed like a really important thing to get right.
I’d come early, wanting to find us a table, but the extra time made it feel like I’d been there forever. A few minutes past 12, I could feel my anxiety start to build. Was he coming? Had he cancelled? I looked around. Could he also be sitting in the cafe, wondering where I was? Had I gotten the address wrong? I didn’t even know if I had internet service to check. Just as I was starting to negotiate with myself how long I’d wait, I turned to look at the door (not for the first or even hundredth time) and saw a man stepping into the frame of the doorway, talking to a waitress.
By the time I looked at him, he was already turning away, and before I could process anything, it all hit at once. My stomach was dropping, I could recognize him from the back of his head and the line of his jaw and the way he was standing and talking and laughing, and I hadn’t seen his face or heard his name but I knew it was him. I’d never met him before but, heart in my throat, I knew him.
We talked in the cafe til he was late for his next meeting. He offered to stay and wait with me til my friend came to meet me, but I told him he should go and not keep his next appointment waiting. I’d be fine, and my friend would show up soon. He reluctantly left, telling me to get in touch if I wanted some ideas about places in LA to see. Said that I should visit the city more often.
I can’t remember much about what we talked about, just the odd detail here and there. He told me about his parents and how he loved history, I admitted that between work and school I hadn’t had the chance to travel much. He said it had taken him years to get used to this city, I told him he was crazy to have ever left New York. I spent the entire day thinking of him — wandering through vintage stores while my friend shopped, thinking of the way his lips turned down at the corners when he smiled, eating dinner and scheming about how I could see him again. I wondered what on earth had happened to me, and if any of it had happened to him too.
I remember asking my friends back home for advice.
“Should I message him? Am I crazy? I have no idea what’s going on, I literally can’t think of anything else.”
“For the love of god, please just keep this professional. You know it’s not going to end well and is this a bridge you want to burn?”
“Okay, yes, but how do I keep the tone professional and yet subtly create the opportunity for us to see each other before I leave?”
“How about just thank him for the meeting and for the list of suggestions and then stop there and don’t see him. Or just don’t see him but also don’t message him.”
“Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking of saying to him, and it’s easy for him to say no if he’s not interested so I feel like it’s pretty casual…”
Needless to say, I messaged him. He gave me a list of things to do in LA, I asked if he wanted to come out for drinks on our last night in the city. He agreed and asked if I wanted to join him for a movie premiere earlier in the night, an offer I reluctantly turned down so as not to abandon my friend. So it was hours later that I ended up sitting together at a small bar with my friend from Toronto, an old friend who’d moved to Santa Monica years ago, and him.
It was the kind of night where you have to force yourself to remember that you’re not the only two people in the room, that maybe you’re standing a little too close, talking a little too intimately. Where the conversation continues over messages even when you part ways, when you both get in your separate cars, and when you both climb into your separate beds.
“Are you home yet? Just wanted to make sure you got back okay.”
“I found I really didn’t want to say goodnight to you. I wish you had more time here.”
“You should come visit again. Sooner rather than later. LA will be good for you.”
We parted ways. I arrived in YYZ at 6:45 PM LA time, 9:45 PM Toronto time. I waited to check my phone til I’d crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head, like I needed this separate universe to link our two worlds. Like magic, there it was — one new message. I settled more deeply into my cocoon.
The next few days began a pattern. I began to go to bed later, around 1 AM. 1 AM in Toronto was 10 PM in LA, and I knew that was around the time that he’d be getting home from work and settling in for the night. We’d talk a little then, and I’d fall asleep after we’d caught up on our days. Around 1 AM his time, he’d finish his work and wish me a second good night before he went to sleep.
I began to wake up at 4 AM, and always within minutes of his messages. “He’ll be going to sleep soon,” I’d think to myself, looking at the blank screen of my phone. The green light would begin to flash. One new message.
I began to fit into the flow of his days. Waking up at 9 AM Toronto time, I’d count back three hours. 6 AM. He’d be getting up soon to go to work,
I’ve been thinking about love lately. There are some days where I miss that feeling - the idea of a shared future with someone, the possibility of it.
Part of what I miss about being in love is that feeling of wanting to make someone else happy. I don’t think it’s popular to say that anymore, but still, there it is.
It’s going grocery shopping and seeing a mountain of pomegranates in season, all plump and shiny and perfect, and thinking - “These are beautiful, they reminded me of you,” and bringing them as a gift for no reason other than that. It’s taking a shower together and washing their hair because it feels good to touch and be touched. It’s making them tea while they read so they don’t have to get up, and being of service to someone you love feels like its own reward.
I miss that.
But there are just as many days where I look at Gemma and the life I’ve made for myself, and the idea of someone else stepping into it feels like an intrusion.
I don’t know if it’s growing up in a family where, for a long time, everything was shared or handed down—or maybe it’s just me au naturel—but I feel a frightening attachment to anything I can call mine. My ideas, my choices, my desires, my time, even just the words “my” and “mine” send a thrill through me. And some days, it feels like there’s nothing in the world that would make me give that up.
So, here’s to a night of making my own gd decisions and getting a family pizza meal deal which I will eat over the next 4 days!
Have a lovely lovely weekend.
✨
Warmly yours,
Nina
Thanks for reading and I'll see you in two weeks! 👋
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