pablopablado’s Reviews > Arrangements in Blue > Status Update

I hadn’t realized glamour meant the ability to adapt to changes, to find ways to communicate in difficulty, to make myself heard when there’s noise I cannot control. It turned out glamour was an action, not an aesthetic.

For me, it has felt easier to be the receiver of the story, to listen to, to hold space for the pain of others. I wonder if this has been in part a defence mechanism, a way to feel I am experiencing intimacy without offering my own vulnerability.

Sontag wrote about the symbolism of moving from one place to another, from an old status to a new one. She encouraged the graduating students to think about the experience as ‘a model for how you should try to live. As if you were always graduating, ending, and, simultaneously, always beginning’.

When there is no 'you', that is loneliness. I conjured a 'you' to summon the pleasure of longing for a specific person.