All Episodes - Letters From A Stranger
Writer, photographer, and host, Nneka Julia, reads and responds to weekly letters written by strangers. www.lettersfromastranger.com
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The Paragraph I Promised
Excerpt from Passing Through, Season 4 (and raw audio):What brings you to this beautiful part of the world? Phil asked. I nodded toward my cousin. She’s getting married in a few months, we’re all here for her bachelorette.Oh, wow, Phil said, beaming. I remember my wedding like it was yesterday. My wife and I been together for about, he squeezed an eye shut to concentrate, for about 25 years now. She was supposed to be on this trip, actually, he continued. She fell sick a few months ago and we vowed to each other that we’d stop waiting until one day.One day to travel, one day to see the sights, to smell the smells, one day to stop worrying less and start living more. That one day, he said, shaking his head, that one day is now I’ll tell ya. She would’ve loved this, he said, glancing around, eyes wide and bloodshot. That one day is now, I repeated, locking eyes before glancing back at the tables.I can’t promise I’ll be a better teammate than your wife, I chuckled, but at the end of this, win or lose, I’ll buy you a shot. He stuck his pulpy palm right above my waist. Deal! he shouted. We’re starting in two minutes! Yelled the host. Oh, I added, one more thing. Any advice for a current maid of honor or best man? I could tell he was delighted I asked. Swinging back and forth on the balls of his feet, rubbing his chin to conjure up a concise, worthwhile answer. Shoot, he started. My wife fell off with her maid of honor bout a month after the wedding. They tried to repair things but I told her from the get-go, Margaret wasn’t really her friend. Margaret was her maid of honor. She wasn’t a selfless typa person before the wedding. And, unfortunately, people don’t rise to the occasion like you’d hope in these big life moments. It’s like this: when you squeeze an orange what comes out? He asked.Ummm…juice? I mumbled as if answering a trick question. Exactly, he nodded, what’s inside a person, when squeezed, will eventually come out. When Margaret was squeezed and asked to think of someone other than herself, what came out was cat piss. In all seriousness I’ll put it like this, you know that book love languages or something? The one with the acts of service. Yea, yea! I interjected. Well, Margaret, my wife’s maid of honor, she did things for others in her love language, not theirs. My wife is all about quality time and acts of service. She don’t need much else. Margaret was more of a gift-giver. She thought sending my wife things here and there meant more to my wife than showing the hell up. Even if it was just to listen. Just to ask how she was or if she needed anything. Hell! Being a shoulder to lean on, cause Lord knows this life ain't all peaks, you know? What’s that word I used earlier? Selfless. Yea. Selflessness. And kindness, and grace. Those are traits you want in the people standing by you on that day and in all the days after. And you gotta give that to people too, you know? Be kind, and give grace. World ain’t in short supply of cruelty, we could need more of those two things.Alright, everyone! Yelled the host. Let’s get started, please!This series is about getting more comfortable with the never-ending, magically forgiving process of revision. In the words of Annie Dillard:sOne of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.Thank you for allowing me the space to share snippets of my manuscript and the forthcoming season of Passing Through The Podcast airing on November 20th. — Nneka This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lettersfromastranger.com/subscribe
The Paragraph I Promised
Excerpt from Passing Through, Season 4 (and raw audio):The shatter shot thunder through my spine. I glanced at my hands: trembling, flushed, pulsing with a violent power I never knew existed. I picked up the fractured black phone and threw it again and again and again until a thousand sharp veins spread violently across its screen. God, it felt better than crying, better than shaking him awake and arguing the evidence, better than screaming until my voice grew hoarse, better than asking who the fuck Tasha was, and why he’d never mentioned her.See, misery loves company, but jealousy works alone. It stalks its prey. Eating with its eyes, believing everything it sees. Oh, and it’s always hungry. Insatiable. Sucking marrow from the barest bones of betrayal. That night, it hovered over my shoulder, leaned in, pursed its lips to my ear, and whispered: you’ve been good. In two years you’ve never gone through his phone. It’s curiosity and no more. If it’s nothing you’ll find nothing, but, don’t you think you deserve to know?I grabbed the phone, flipped it over.My heart raced.Fingers typed the passcode.Unlocked.Home Screen.Messages.Nothing.Names I recognized.Friends.Then…Flesh.An unknown number.I clicked. Scrolled up.Devoured.And, mind you, it could’ve been a colleague, his friend who got a new number, a cousin. It didn’t fuckin’ matter. When jealousy is hungry, jealously must eat.This series is about getting more comfortable with the never-ending, magically forgiving process of revision. In the words of Annie Dillard:sOne of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.Thank you for allowing me the space to share snippets of my manuscript and the forthcoming season of Passing Through The Podcast. I’m ecstatic to be recording again. — Nneka This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lettersfromastranger.com/subscribe
How many times can one heart break?
Dear Nneka,How many times can one heart break? I hope you don’t think this is a dumb question, Nneka. It’s one I’ve been asking myself, so, I thought maybe I’d ask you too. I’m in a committed on and off relationship, that’s more committed to being off than on. It’s been almost 4 years of intense passion, pleasure, and pain. He knows what hurts me. I know what hurts him. My friends have told me to try dating other people, and I’ve tried. I really have. But, I always go back. Now, I’ve just learned to hide things, and I’ve stopped talking to my friends about this situation altogether. When I’m with someone else, they don’t come close to how this person makes me feel. I know it’s not “good,” but why is it so hard to leave the things that we know aren’t “good” for us? I find myself selfishly wishing that real life was like the movies. I wish he’d come back and be back for good. I wish it were easy, but our entire relationship has been hard. I should know better. I know. PS. It’s right around Valentine’s Day and I’m left with my heart in my hands, again. Signed,NiaLong Beach, CADear Nia,“How many times can one heart break,” is far from a dumb question.Our hearts will break many more times. Love and loss are eternally intertwined, rising and setting at different points on life’s horizon, making who we love and who we know we’ll inevitably “lose” incredibly important. This bitter fact begs the question, what and who is worthy of your time and your courage to love? You deserve a level of ease in your relationships that sits in exact opposition to the addictive, never-ending cycle of passion, pleasure, and pain.A relationship that thrives on extremes will convince you that love isn’t being “done properly” if it isn’t hard. But, it’s merely the contrast that makes the dysfunction so delicious, so intoxicating. The break-ups that throw you into a tailspin, the make-ups that send you soaring back into the other person’s arms. I’ve lived it, and I lied to my friends too, only to realize, three years later, that loving someone doesn’t have to be hard. On this day, a decade ago, my high-school boyfriend was waiting in the driveway of my parents’ house. I ran outside and slid into the passenger seat, giddy about our first Valentine’s Day together. He reached towards the trunks and handed me a bouquet of blood-red roses with tiny slips of paper poking out the petals. Each strip had something he liked about me scribbled in blue. I blushed as I read each one aloud, rubbing his neck on the way to the restaurant. The night ended with him calling me ungrateful as I slammed the car door outside an Italian spot downtown. I was crying about a text I saw from a girl he’d eventually cheat with. That night was only a small prelude to a relationship that was never worthy of my time or my courage to love.“Allow it to be easy.” I read this line in an article I was skimming last week. Allow it to be easy. Such a small but mighty sentence. What if we stopped resisting peace? What if we allowed relationships to be light and deep? What if we stopped trying to pry open the palms of people who are ill-equipped to hold our hearts? Allow love to be easy, Nia.Warmly,Nneka Julia This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lettersfromastranger.com/subscribe