Make Love to Your Days #1
A new series
Hello friends,
Some updates from me, and newness over here at Be Difficult, Darling. This is the first letter in a fortnightly series for paid subscribers, called Make Love to Your Days. A soft space for remembering the beauty in ordinary things, slowing down for long enough to savour them, and an antidote for the incessant shouting, and snark that floods our feeds. Here you’ll find musings on seducing your life, micro-practices to embed into your day, love letters to the mundane, places I’ve been exploring, art I’ve been inspired by and things I’m cooking, making, smelling, listening to, and reading.
For free subscribers, you will continue to receive my writing as normal, but now, it’ll be every other week instead of weekly. There’s an extended preview below of Make Love to Your Days, so if you’d like to receive these going forward, or just to offer a gift of gratitude, then do consider upgrading to a paid subscription.
Adore you all, thank you so much for being here!
Gigi x
Make Love to Your Days
This week: Joys of a new season, being absorbed in doing puzzles, nourishing veg bowls, lessons from my boyfriend’s Swimathon, romancing yourself by booking a photoshoot, what I’m dancing to this week, and the slow art of pin-curls.
SEE YOURSELF, NO, REALLY SEE YOURSELF
My dear friend, fellow Substack writer, and incredible photographer Nadia Meli, took these portraits of me last week, and these photographs have been such rich invitations into seeing myself more intimately. We often feel the need to justify romancing ourselves. We “invest” in ourselves for business purposes, self-development or if we’ve tired our bodies to the point of no return and have to quickly book in for a spa treatment. The same goes for photography. With so much access on our phones, we take quick selfies and mirror shots, but only book in for a photoshoot if a milestone is heading our way or we need new headshots for a website, podcast, or book.
Isn’t allowing yourself to be seen, and to in turn, see yourself, enough?
What if we made it enough, to show up as you are, just because you deserve to be witnessed and acknowledged as a human walking on this earth. I experienced something akin to an out of body experience when I saw these photos. Seeing the woman I am at 35 years old, how I’ve grown, the love, joy, and grief in me. Noticing the shifts in my confidence, assuredness, and love for myself over the years. This shoot felt different, because I was different, and different I will be by the time I do another one. We must make time to see our differences. I will treasure these photos for the rest of my life. I will do them again. These markers of a moment. Who I am now. Who I once was, and all the life I am still yet to taste.
AN ANYTHING BUT COMPLEX BOWL OF VEG
In the never-ending relentlessness of adulthood, and decision fatigue of what to cook and what to eat; comfort comes after exhausting days by just throwing some vegetables in a bowl. The perfumed sizzle of garlic and ginger, dancing in their diced state in a reassuringly fiery wok. Strips of tender carrots the first in. Pak choi queuing to go next. Seasoned with salt, pepper, and drips of sesame oil. Chilli crisp making its way fashionably late to the culinary gathering. Out of the heat and into a bowl. Each ingredient snuggling up next to the other. Sesame seeds like celebratory confetti acting as a congratulations for choosing to nourish yourself.
MY PARTNER DID A 15K SWIMATHON, HERE’S WHAT I LEARNED FROM COUNTING ALL HIS LENGTHS
Sometimes love looks like counting up to 600, each one a line scribbled into a bright yellow Smythson notebook and matching pen, that neatly fits into my handbag. Of course, I was overdressed for my unofficial role as counter and poolside support. As someone whose name does not come next to athletic, I am forever in awe at his devotion to swimming. This meditative home in the water that he describes so poetically to me, in between bites of shared dinners, and long car rides where conversations never pause.