She stood at my door—my neighbour’s daughter—silent, flushed, barely holding herself together. She didn’t speak, just looked at me like someone who’d run out of language. I didn’t ask what had happened. I didn’t offer tea. I just stepped aside & let her in.
We sat.
In the stillness.
No fixing. No filling.
Just sitting.
And in that quiet, something familiar stirred.
A memory.
Warm & unexpected, like a cardigan still holding someone else’s shape.
There was a woman who lived three doors down when I was younger. Not mine. Not anyone’s, really. She was the sort of person you didn’t notice at first, but once you did, you wondered how you ever missed her. Her hair was the colour of flour—soft & fine, always a little undone, like she’d just come in from wind.
She kept a cardigan draped over the back of her kitchen chair & never turned on the overhead light—just a lamp with a warm, crooked shade. It felt like a room that knew how to hold people without touching them.
I was in my early twenties when I found myself there more often than not. She never asked why. She didn’t offer tea or advice. She just made room. Sometimes hummed. Sat quietly. There was a steadiness in her silence that made me want to stay longer than I should’ve.
Once, when I arrived on the edge of tears, she handed me a bowl of plums & said, “Eat something sweet. Sadness makes the mouth forget.” That was it. No probing. No performance. Just fruit & stillness & the gentle clink of her spoon in a teacup.
I don’t think she knew she was teaching.
And I didn’t know I was learning—
not until now.
With this girl in my kitchen, unspeaking.
And me, sitting beside her,
doing everything I was once given.
That’s the thing about love.
You don’t always recognise your teachers—
not until your hands remember what they once received.
The lovely ways that love is shared, given, received, it can be on so many levels, so many layers. You’ve shared such a beautiful love story! Thank you!❤️❣️🫶🏼
And so lovely that you replied to each heart that your story touched. I truly hope that you continue to write these stories, bc you write beautifully, poetically and as you can see, it has touched many… it is something that a friend had told me, so I too, started to write. If only for myself, it taught me so many things. I’ve always had a love for the written “ word” and some, just know how to do it so very well. I believe, you have this “ soul” to write! 🙏🏼❤️☮️🌱🙌🏼
A full-circle moment — not just for you, but for anyone who’s ever clung to a book like a lifeline. You’ve written a love letter to literature itself: how it cracks us open when the world feels sealed shut, how it teaches us to endure, to reach, to hope.
The story of DMing John Green and receiving a response within hours feels less like serendipity and more like what happens when you dare to believe that love — real, deep, human love — is reciprocal, even in art. I love the way you weave personal transformation with literary reverence, as if you’ve alchemised suffering into a compass pointing directly to meaning.
And perhaps that’s what makes this so affecting: it’s not just a tale of meeting your hero, but of becoming the kind of person your twenty-two-year-old self needed. The kind who doesn’t flinch from grief, who understands that love is a plural noun, and who knows that writing — when done well — isn’t self-expression, it’s self-extension.
Your story reminds us that great books don’t just reflect who we are; they make us brave enough to become someone new.
Suleika and all here at TIJ. Truly, you have been teachers for me. This quote..."about the precariousness of being human and the fragility of our lives, about death and despair but also hope and love" speaks to me about something I've grown in, just by being part of this community. I didn't realize how black or white my thinking was until I began reading your words here, Suleika, and began to process and internalize the thinking that life includes both suffering and joy, that we can despair and also have hope. That we don't need to be constantly striving to push away the ugly and hold onto the beauty with such tight grips. That allowing for both is much more peaceful.
As a young adult cancer awareness advocate and a parent of a young adult who died from cancer, John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars”, was the first book/film I recommended to the multitude of young adults and parents I met during my 20+ years advocacy work throughout Canada, the USA and Europe. So, Suleika, I was delighted to hear how meaningful and impactful John’s book was for you, too. And, that meeting your “hero” did not disappoint.
Ever since you introduced TIJ community to Yung Pueblo’s writings, I have found comfort in his perspectives on life, forgiveness and love.
Keeping Hope alive during trying times can be challenging so I am grateful to you Suleika for sharing with us your own Love stories and your two Love ambassadors like Green and Pueblo. Love and Hope go hand in hand. Let us all be Love-Hope Ambassadors. The World needs us now.
Suleika, ever since we first met in 2011, I have seen you as one of my favourite Teachers on Love.
Yung Pueblo's words about those having endured hardship having a greater capacity for love resonate with me. I have been fortunate in having many wonderful teachers of love in my life. Most of what I wrote is too personal to share, but I do want to say. That one of the most important teachers of love I have is myself. I have learned that I have to be my biggest friend and supporter. Liz Gilbert taught me about Dear Love letters that you write to yourself and talk to yourself as you would to a friend. I find that to be a very helpful practice. In the end it is vital to find love within yourself.
I used to wonder why women cry at weddings—the mothers, aunts, sisters, but especially the grandmothers. The grandmothers cry rivers, heavy streams of tears flow down the furrows of their careworn faces.
They cried at my wedding, too. My aunts sitting together in a single row, hankies in hand, joyful looks amidst the tears, and something more, something I couldn’t place. I thought they were tears of relief, that I was finally married after all these years, the old maid no more. There was nothing wrong with me, after all.
And you, my new husband, were perfect— “Just like a movie star,” they gushed while I beamed proudly over my perfect find. Redemption at last.
That day, we gazed at each other, through the photograph sessions, the ceremony, joy evident in our faces, our happiness assaulting our less fortunate and single friends.
“I’ll always take care of you,” you whisper so only I can hear.
Now, years later, I’m looking at our wedding pictures. We are young, expectant, faces full of hope and confidence. Nothing can mar our love. We have the expected wedding ring pictures, our hands clasped protectively together, no age spots evident, just youthful skin. Our rings are shiny, untarnished, just like our future.
Sometimes now, I can’t sleep. I lie awake in the cool darkness and stare at you. You’re on your back, mouth open, gently snoring, slowly, evenly. You wake up suddenly with a jolt.
“What’s wrong?” you ask, alarmed.
“Nothing,” I reply. “Just insomnia. Go back to sleep.” Sometimes now I sleep better alone.
The next day we start a project together—a garden. We are new to gardening but have all the proper tools. I watch as you dig perfect, even rows, for the seeds we will sow. I feel overwhelmed, staring at my seeds so small and pitiful in my hand. I wonder how they will ever grow into a plant.
You cup your seeds protectively, then carefully and gently put them into the ground. You pat the oil into a perfect small mound, over and over for each group of seeds, until your row is finished.
“A garden needs a lot of care,” you say. I nodded in agreement wondering if I have that much care in me. That night I lay awake staring at you for a long time. You do not wake up.
Our garden needs a wall, a brick wall as an ornamental backdrop. You have arranged our bricks tidily to one side. We will build this wall together. We work silently, for an hour or so. I watch the bricks stack up, one by one, yours neat, mine sloppy. However, the result is the same as you patiently wipe my mess away. I study your technique as the wall grows between us, one brick at a time. I hear tools scraping your bricks free of mortar, free of mess. For some reason, this irritates me. I feel a slow even burn coming from within.
Suddenly, I am filled with rage at your tidiness, your perfect little rows. I cannot stand you at this moment. I walk over to your side of the wall, knock it down, glaring defiantly at you, with the bricks and mortar lying like started messy dominoes at your feet.
Shocked, you sputter “What is your problem?!”
“You…you are the problem,” I say with barely controlled anger. “You and these stupid bricks.” I sit down on the ground, my anger now spent. I am tired, empty, wounded. We are silent for a while, surveying the mess around us, wondering if we should rebuild.
Suddenly, you start laughing. I stare at you in disbelief. You knock down the rest of the wall which survived my rampage.
“There,” you say, still laughing. “You missed some.” You plop down next to me, quietly studying my face.
“You have some mortar on your chin,” you say and gently wipe it away. I am crying now. “I’ll always take care of you,” my mind whispers.
“Look at the mess I’ve made,” I say with tears streaming down my face.
“That’s okay,” you reply. “We’ll clean it up, together.” Then you smile your perfect smile, the one made boyish by your slight overbite.
That night I sleep soundly in the cool darkness.
The next week we go to your cousin’s wedding, a big traditional affair, the kind I hate. The bridesmaids wear unflattering mauve satin dresses. They’re smiling, but deep down, they wish it was for them, this special day. I know, having filled that role many times.
And then the organ plays the wedding march, and we turn to view the bride. She comes slowly, proudly, her face aglow. She meets her groom at the altar. He is beaming. The minister speaks of commitment, of good times and bad. I look at their hopeful, innocent faces.
And then come the tears. I feel them streaming down my cheeks. Embarrassed, I try to stop them. I look down at my hands as a tear drop falls onto my wedding ring. There is a deep gash on one side. “I must have scratched it in the garden,” I think. It has many small scratches now, tiny battle scars.
My husband covers my hand with his, squeezing it gently. He hands me a tissue. “I’ll always take care of you,” my mind whispers.
Water symbolizes life so as the tears of women folk flow, they represent the life force. Many layers to your writing. Thanks for making me pause and reflect.
Suleika, I return to your words every Sunday morning via Substack and genuinely look forward to the email alerting me to a new piece of your writing. I get my coffee, I curl up on my couch and I take however long it takes me to digest your words. When I read your writing, I feel like I’m sitting across from you in a living room with a fireplace lit, listening to you effortlessly speak, soft, true, kind words that some how fill my soul with a peace and warmth I don’t much get throughout my days. I could have a thousand things to do when I wake up on Sunday morning but I keep getting called back to “what does Suleika have to say this week?” I feel very connected to your thoughts and words and I simply want to say thank you. I read the excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Book of Alchemy and it reads effortlessly, smoothly. Somehow, your words calm my anxious brain. When I attempt to write, it feels too heavy, too burdensome. Like if I start, it will just come across as vomit. I was fascinated by Silvia Plath as an adolescent because her words, albeit often dark and sad, drew me in because they made me curious and I connected with her musings at the time. But the connection got me through a tough part of my life, I didn’t feel so alone.
I’ve never heard your voice, I don’t even know how to actually pronounce your name, I just truly enjoy taking a small slice out of my day to read your writing. That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say. If I were to comment on love, THAT could be a book in itself perhaps. Thank you truly, for sharing all that you are.
Kelly, I have both the book-book & the audio of Between Two Kingdoms, & listening to Suleika speak... her voice feels like a room with the light left on—familiar, warm, waiting without asking. The kind of presence that lets you exhale.
Maybe my greatest teacher of Love is life itself. Mankind also, a simple contraction of 'man' and 'kind' that sums it all up. Love is such an individual path, it's hard to break it down to just one person. I remind many of those I met, friends or strangers, who, through a gesture, a word, a silence, a smile, a hug, a presence, a promise kept, a piece of freshly baked cake, taught me about love. For me, love is the sum of so many lessons. But if really I need to choose, it would be my parents. They were and still are far from perfect. But they taught me unconditional love. However incongruous or unconventional my lifestyle choices, they always lovingly supported me, never tried to intervene. Even though, and I perfectly know it, I caused them sleepless nights and sometimes sadness. But when I travel to their place, there is this warm hug, a caring presence, there is joy and yummy cooking, nothing extraordinary, just genuine kindness and acceptance. I consider myself as extremely lucky, as not all parents are like this. However, thanks to them, I learned that love is not about words or material things, but a continuous and regardful training for open hearts.
My dear friend, Rev William Grant, who died many years ago. We were interfaith ministers together at Tribeca Spiritual Center, NYC. I asked William one day: with all the goodness you bring us do you ever expect it back. William said: if I did I could not do this work “. My belief is accepting my loved ones for who they are, not who I want them to be” and if I feel our friendship is fading I let go with love. The folks I let go of may not feel the same as me, but I know in my heart, our friendship has changed & we’re walking in different directions
Hello All. I loved again your whole life experience this week, it is the essence of love. And I loved “We live in hope—that life will get better, and more importantly that it will go on, and that love will survive even though we will not.” I continue to look forward to the book. And grateful for you and this community.
It must be true that living with intention, focusing your gifts, energy, and imagination on a dream, risking failure and disappointment, will set in motion all kinds of miracles. Miracles that often look so different from what we expect. Your journey reminds me how kind the world can be when we surrender to our muse.
My dear priest reminds me what love and kindness look like in the face of heartbreak. He has lost both of his children, young, and still he greets us, his little band of believers, with great joy. A hearty laugh, a wonderful sense of humor and wonder, still, at the loveliness of the world.
His life is a testament to love my life, broken it may be at times.
Thank you for your story, Suleika, and for the beautiful poetry.
The words on love. The enormity of how we love, who we love and why. I met a new friend a few months ago. A fellow cancernaut.
We both have the same mutated stage 4 lung cancer. She is younger than me - I feel such a maternal urge to protect her, champion her. Few words are needed as we both know despair, fear, annihilating shock.
One day I said in a message to her, I love you.
Then worried that it was inappropriate.
After all, I hardly knew her.
She replied, love comes in many forms, romantic love is only one of them.
I, she said, love you too.
And we do. ❤️
Ps I am quite certain that in your capacity as my heroine, cancer angel and all round bad ass human, if I were to meet you, I would feel zero disappointment Suleika. Just sayin’!
I will see Jon’s concert in London; a passage to you. 🩷🧡❤️💜🩵💙💚
“I wrote a chapter on love, though it’s not the narrow lens of romantic love, but a larger, more community-minded sense of the word.”
Oh, Suleika—you are my jam! The need for communal love has not been more significant in my lifetime. You always get it!🫶🏾
My Greatest Teacher on Love -
My Dear Tyler, My Husband, My Teacher on acceptance, unbotheredness, and consistency, who brings his own kind of magic to the world because he is a fountain of quiet strength, resilience, and inner peace that affects the lives of everyone he interacts with. He accepts the bad with the good and, without being overly optimistic, points towards a solution, a way out, and a reason for hope. Tyler is somewhat spiritual and a whole lot practical. He keeps me grounded while appreciating my faith and mission to serve others. He has firm boundaries and a kind and gentle heart. He is careful to conserve his time and energy for those he loves, and he is never a drain to anyone. Tyler is a servant leader, far from perfect, and rich in character and integrity - the Love of My Life!♡
My greatest teacher about love was my mother. And not because it was perfect. It was not, in so many tumultuous ways. But it was always there, like an underground stream, emerging and flowing and then submerging again. Even when we didn’t understand each other, or said hurtful things, there was always a way back. Like the poem by Rumi about finding a field beyond wrongdoing and right doing—she knew how to love like that.
Suleika, your experience meeting John was similar to one of my top life moments meeting you last year! You are the epitome of someone who brings magic into the world. Thank you for sharing your gifts with this community.
She stood at my door—my neighbour’s daughter—silent, flushed, barely holding herself together. She didn’t speak, just looked at me like someone who’d run out of language. I didn’t ask what had happened. I didn’t offer tea. I just stepped aside & let her in.
We sat.
In the stillness.
No fixing. No filling.
Just sitting.
And in that quiet, something familiar stirred.
A memory.
Warm & unexpected, like a cardigan still holding someone else’s shape.
There was a woman who lived three doors down when I was younger. Not mine. Not anyone’s, really. She was the sort of person you didn’t notice at first, but once you did, you wondered how you ever missed her. Her hair was the colour of flour—soft & fine, always a little undone, like she’d just come in from wind.
She kept a cardigan draped over the back of her kitchen chair & never turned on the overhead light—just a lamp with a warm, crooked shade. It felt like a room that knew how to hold people without touching them.
I was in my early twenties when I found myself there more often than not. She never asked why. She didn’t offer tea or advice. She just made room. Sometimes hummed. Sat quietly. There was a steadiness in her silence that made me want to stay longer than I should’ve.
Once, when I arrived on the edge of tears, she handed me a bowl of plums & said, “Eat something sweet. Sadness makes the mouth forget.” That was it. No probing. No performance. Just fruit & stillness & the gentle clink of her spoon in a teacup.
I don’t think she knew she was teaching.
And I didn’t know I was learning—
not until now.
With this girl in my kitchen, unspeaking.
And me, sitting beside her,
doing everything I was once given.
That’s the thing about love.
You don’t always recognise your teachers—
not until your hands remember what they once received.
This poem reads like a vignette from a play. Each detail—her hair, the cardigan, the plums, the click of the spoon—is singularly gorgeous.
Thank you, Holly. A quiet scene with no lines—just light, breath, & the weight of small things. Your tender words are felt & held.
How fortunate to have had this flour haired woman in your life. She reminds me of all the goodness that exists.
Thank you, Rachel. She was a quiet kind of fortune.
Passing on the gift you were given. How good and how beautiful. Thank you for this beautifully written story.
Thank you, Jacqueline. Some gifts are only known in the passing on.
The lovely ways that love is shared, given, received, it can be on so many levels, so many layers. You’ve shared such a beautiful love story! Thank you!❤️❣️🫶🏼
Thank you, Valerie. Love takes so many shapes. This one looked like a chair pulled out in advance.
And so lovely that you replied to each heart that your story touched. I truly hope that you continue to write these stories, bc you write beautifully, poetically and as you can see, it has touched many… it is something that a friend had told me, so I too, started to write. If only for myself, it taught me so many things. I’ve always had a love for the written “ word” and some, just know how to do it so very well. I believe, you have this “ soul” to write! 🙏🏼❤️☮️🌱🙌🏼
This resonated with me, reminding me of my dear friend who was present beyond words and what a gift that is❤️
Thank you, Nancy. The friendships that speak without words. The rarest kind.
What a beautifully told story about a beautiful passing of love from one person to another. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, Bridget. It felt less like passing, more like planting.
Beautiful, words spilling out of you, like jewels. Sadness makes the mouth forget! Took my breath away❤️
Thank you, Bonnie. She said it plainly, like weather.
Thank you...blessings to you.
This spoke powerfully to my heart...
Thank you, Pamela. May the hush linger, just a little.
How beautiful.
Thank you, Dana. Quiet beauty lasts longest, I think.
Thank you 🙏❤️
Thank you, Birte.
this is beautiful, it reads and feels like a soft song.
Thank you, Mallika. I love that. Some memories arrive like that—softly, almost already singing.
A full-circle moment — not just for you, but for anyone who’s ever clung to a book like a lifeline. You’ve written a love letter to literature itself: how it cracks us open when the world feels sealed shut, how it teaches us to endure, to reach, to hope.
The story of DMing John Green and receiving a response within hours feels less like serendipity and more like what happens when you dare to believe that love — real, deep, human love — is reciprocal, even in art. I love the way you weave personal transformation with literary reverence, as if you’ve alchemised suffering into a compass pointing directly to meaning.
And perhaps that’s what makes this so affecting: it’s not just a tale of meeting your hero, but of becoming the kind of person your twenty-two-year-old self needed. The kind who doesn’t flinch from grief, who understands that love is a plural noun, and who knows that writing — when done well — isn’t self-expression, it’s self-extension.
Your story reminds us that great books don’t just reflect who we are; they make us brave enough to become someone new.
Thank you, Suleika!
“Writing—when done well—isn’t self-expression, it’s self extension.” Yes! Beautifully put.
I so loved and appreciated the words you gifted above...thank you.
Suleika and all here at TIJ. Truly, you have been teachers for me. This quote..."about the precariousness of being human and the fragility of our lives, about death and despair but also hope and love" speaks to me about something I've grown in, just by being part of this community. I didn't realize how black or white my thinking was until I began reading your words here, Suleika, and began to process and internalize the thinking that life includes both suffering and joy, that we can despair and also have hope. That we don't need to be constantly striving to push away the ugly and hold onto the beauty with such tight grips. That allowing for both is much more peaceful.
Beautiful said, Linda. There is peace in the in between.
...and we spend most of our lives in the "in between"...a gift we don't always necessarily understand or appreciate...
Thank you...
As a young adult cancer awareness advocate and a parent of a young adult who died from cancer, John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars”, was the first book/film I recommended to the multitude of young adults and parents I met during my 20+ years advocacy work throughout Canada, the USA and Europe. So, Suleika, I was delighted to hear how meaningful and impactful John’s book was for you, too. And, that meeting your “hero” did not disappoint.
Ever since you introduced TIJ community to Yung Pueblo’s writings, I have found comfort in his perspectives on life, forgiveness and love.
Keeping Hope alive during trying times can be challenging so I am grateful to you Suleika for sharing with us your own Love stories and your two Love ambassadors like Green and Pueblo. Love and Hope go hand in hand. Let us all be Love-Hope Ambassadors. The World needs us now.
Suleika, ever since we first met in 2011, I have seen you as one of my favourite Teachers on Love.
Yung Pueblo's words about those having endured hardship having a greater capacity for love resonate with me. I have been fortunate in having many wonderful teachers of love in my life. Most of what I wrote is too personal to share, but I do want to say. That one of the most important teachers of love I have is myself. I have learned that I have to be my biggest friend and supporter. Liz Gilbert taught me about Dear Love letters that you write to yourself and talk to yourself as you would to a friend. I find that to be a very helpful practice. In the end it is vital to find love within yourself.
Gardens, walls and weddings--A lesson in love
I used to wonder why women cry at weddings—the mothers, aunts, sisters, but especially the grandmothers. The grandmothers cry rivers, heavy streams of tears flow down the furrows of their careworn faces.
They cried at my wedding, too. My aunts sitting together in a single row, hankies in hand, joyful looks amidst the tears, and something more, something I couldn’t place. I thought they were tears of relief, that I was finally married after all these years, the old maid no more. There was nothing wrong with me, after all.
And you, my new husband, were perfect— “Just like a movie star,” they gushed while I beamed proudly over my perfect find. Redemption at last.
That day, we gazed at each other, through the photograph sessions, the ceremony, joy evident in our faces, our happiness assaulting our less fortunate and single friends.
“I’ll always take care of you,” you whisper so only I can hear.
Now, years later, I’m looking at our wedding pictures. We are young, expectant, faces full of hope and confidence. Nothing can mar our love. We have the expected wedding ring pictures, our hands clasped protectively together, no age spots evident, just youthful skin. Our rings are shiny, untarnished, just like our future.
Sometimes now, I can’t sleep. I lie awake in the cool darkness and stare at you. You’re on your back, mouth open, gently snoring, slowly, evenly. You wake up suddenly with a jolt.
“What’s wrong?” you ask, alarmed.
“Nothing,” I reply. “Just insomnia. Go back to sleep.” Sometimes now I sleep better alone.
The next day we start a project together—a garden. We are new to gardening but have all the proper tools. I watch as you dig perfect, even rows, for the seeds we will sow. I feel overwhelmed, staring at my seeds so small and pitiful in my hand. I wonder how they will ever grow into a plant.
You cup your seeds protectively, then carefully and gently put them into the ground. You pat the oil into a perfect small mound, over and over for each group of seeds, until your row is finished.
“A garden needs a lot of care,” you say. I nodded in agreement wondering if I have that much care in me. That night I lay awake staring at you for a long time. You do not wake up.
Our garden needs a wall, a brick wall as an ornamental backdrop. You have arranged our bricks tidily to one side. We will build this wall together. We work silently, for an hour or so. I watch the bricks stack up, one by one, yours neat, mine sloppy. However, the result is the same as you patiently wipe my mess away. I study your technique as the wall grows between us, one brick at a time. I hear tools scraping your bricks free of mortar, free of mess. For some reason, this irritates me. I feel a slow even burn coming from within.
Suddenly, I am filled with rage at your tidiness, your perfect little rows. I cannot stand you at this moment. I walk over to your side of the wall, knock it down, glaring defiantly at you, with the bricks and mortar lying like started messy dominoes at your feet.
Shocked, you sputter “What is your problem?!”
“You…you are the problem,” I say with barely controlled anger. “You and these stupid bricks.” I sit down on the ground, my anger now spent. I am tired, empty, wounded. We are silent for a while, surveying the mess around us, wondering if we should rebuild.
Suddenly, you start laughing. I stare at you in disbelief. You knock down the rest of the wall which survived my rampage.
“There,” you say, still laughing. “You missed some.” You plop down next to me, quietly studying my face.
“You have some mortar on your chin,” you say and gently wipe it away. I am crying now. “I’ll always take care of you,” my mind whispers.
“Look at the mess I’ve made,” I say with tears streaming down my face.
“That’s okay,” you reply. “We’ll clean it up, together.” Then you smile your perfect smile, the one made boyish by your slight overbite.
That night I sleep soundly in the cool darkness.
The next week we go to your cousin’s wedding, a big traditional affair, the kind I hate. The bridesmaids wear unflattering mauve satin dresses. They’re smiling, but deep down, they wish it was for them, this special day. I know, having filled that role many times.
And then the organ plays the wedding march, and we turn to view the bride. She comes slowly, proudly, her face aglow. She meets her groom at the altar. He is beaming. The minister speaks of commitment, of good times and bad. I look at their hopeful, innocent faces.
And then come the tears. I feel them streaming down my cheeks. Embarrassed, I try to stop them. I look down at my hands as a tear drop falls onto my wedding ring. There is a deep gash on one side. “I must have scratched it in the garden,” I think. It has many small scratches now, tiny battle scars.
My husband covers my hand with his, squeezing it gently. He hands me a tissue. “I’ll always take care of you,” my mind whispers.
Water symbolizes life so as the tears of women folk flow, they represent the life force. Many layers to your writing. Thanks for making me pause and reflect.
Suleika, I return to your words every Sunday morning via Substack and genuinely look forward to the email alerting me to a new piece of your writing. I get my coffee, I curl up on my couch and I take however long it takes me to digest your words. When I read your writing, I feel like I’m sitting across from you in a living room with a fireplace lit, listening to you effortlessly speak, soft, true, kind words that some how fill my soul with a peace and warmth I don’t much get throughout my days. I could have a thousand things to do when I wake up on Sunday morning but I keep getting called back to “what does Suleika have to say this week?” I feel very connected to your thoughts and words and I simply want to say thank you. I read the excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Book of Alchemy and it reads effortlessly, smoothly. Somehow, your words calm my anxious brain. When I attempt to write, it feels too heavy, too burdensome. Like if I start, it will just come across as vomit. I was fascinated by Silvia Plath as an adolescent because her words, albeit often dark and sad, drew me in because they made me curious and I connected with her musings at the time. But the connection got me through a tough part of my life, I didn’t feel so alone.
I’ve never heard your voice, I don’t even know how to actually pronounce your name, I just truly enjoy taking a small slice out of my day to read your writing. That’s it. That’s all I wanted to say. If I were to comment on love, THAT could be a book in itself perhaps. Thank you truly, for sharing all that you are.
Kelly, I have both the book-book & the audio of Between Two Kingdoms, & listening to Suleika speak... her voice feels like a room with the light left on—familiar, warm, waiting without asking. The kind of presence that lets you exhale.
Maybe my greatest teacher of Love is life itself. Mankind also, a simple contraction of 'man' and 'kind' that sums it all up. Love is such an individual path, it's hard to break it down to just one person. I remind many of those I met, friends or strangers, who, through a gesture, a word, a silence, a smile, a hug, a presence, a promise kept, a piece of freshly baked cake, taught me about love. For me, love is the sum of so many lessons. But if really I need to choose, it would be my parents. They were and still are far from perfect. But they taught me unconditional love. However incongruous or unconventional my lifestyle choices, they always lovingly supported me, never tried to intervene. Even though, and I perfectly know it, I caused them sleepless nights and sometimes sadness. But when I travel to their place, there is this warm hug, a caring presence, there is joy and yummy cooking, nothing extraordinary, just genuine kindness and acceptance. I consider myself as extremely lucky, as not all parents are like this. However, thanks to them, I learned that love is not about words or material things, but a continuous and regardful training for open hearts.
My dear friend, Rev William Grant, who died many years ago. We were interfaith ministers together at Tribeca Spiritual Center, NYC. I asked William one day: with all the goodness you bring us do you ever expect it back. William said: if I did I could not do this work “. My belief is accepting my loved ones for who they are, not who I want them to be” and if I feel our friendship is fading I let go with love. The folks I let go of may not feel the same as me, but I know in my heart, our friendship has changed & we’re walking in different directions
Hello All. I loved again your whole life experience this week, it is the essence of love. And I loved “We live in hope—that life will get better, and more importantly that it will go on, and that love will survive even though we will not.” I continue to look forward to the book. And grateful for you and this community.
It must be true that living with intention, focusing your gifts, energy, and imagination on a dream, risking failure and disappointment, will set in motion all kinds of miracles. Miracles that often look so different from what we expect. Your journey reminds me how kind the world can be when we surrender to our muse.
My dear priest reminds me what love and kindness look like in the face of heartbreak. He has lost both of his children, young, and still he greets us, his little band of believers, with great joy. A hearty laugh, a wonderful sense of humor and wonder, still, at the loveliness of the world.
His life is a testament to love my life, broken it may be at times.
Thank you for your story, Suleika, and for the beautiful poetry.
I wish you every good thing.
The words on love. The enormity of how we love, who we love and why. I met a new friend a few months ago. A fellow cancernaut.
We both have the same mutated stage 4 lung cancer. She is younger than me - I feel such a maternal urge to protect her, champion her. Few words are needed as we both know despair, fear, annihilating shock.
One day I said in a message to her, I love you.
Then worried that it was inappropriate.
After all, I hardly knew her.
She replied, love comes in many forms, romantic love is only one of them.
I, she said, love you too.
And we do. ❤️
Ps I am quite certain that in your capacity as my heroine, cancer angel and all round bad ass human, if I were to meet you, I would feel zero disappointment Suleika. Just sayin’!
I will see Jon’s concert in London; a passage to you. 🩷🧡❤️💜🩵💙💚
“I wrote a chapter on love, though it’s not the narrow lens of romantic love, but a larger, more community-minded sense of the word.”
Oh, Suleika—you are my jam! The need for communal love has not been more significant in my lifetime. You always get it!🫶🏾
My Greatest Teacher on Love -
My Dear Tyler, My Husband, My Teacher on acceptance, unbotheredness, and consistency, who brings his own kind of magic to the world because he is a fountain of quiet strength, resilience, and inner peace that affects the lives of everyone he interacts with. He accepts the bad with the good and, without being overly optimistic, points towards a solution, a way out, and a reason for hope. Tyler is somewhat spiritual and a whole lot practical. He keeps me grounded while appreciating my faith and mission to serve others. He has firm boundaries and a kind and gentle heart. He is careful to conserve his time and energy for those he loves, and he is never a drain to anyone. Tyler is a servant leader, far from perfect, and rich in character and integrity - the Love of My Life!♡
My greatest teacher about love was my mother. And not because it was perfect. It was not, in so many tumultuous ways. But it was always there, like an underground stream, emerging and flowing and then submerging again. Even when we didn’t understand each other, or said hurtful things, there was always a way back. Like the poem by Rumi about finding a field beyond wrongdoing and right doing—she knew how to love like that.
Olympia, my cat
Yes, I wholeheartedly concur. Felines—silent masters of love.
Suleika, your experience meeting John was similar to one of my top life moments meeting you last year! You are the epitome of someone who brings magic into the world. Thank you for sharing your gifts with this community.
I am a 63 year old fangirl. 😂
Can I sign up to the fan club too Carol? Aged 57? 😊
Of course! 💕