Write more. Create more. Love more. All without fear.

Today my friend Mika Roque mentioned the phrase “love bombing” to me. I didn’t know what that was. So I did what responsible educated adults do… I didn’t ask, I googled it.

From Wikipedia: “Love bombing is an attempt to influence a person by demonstrations of attention and affection. It can be used in different ways and for either positive or negative purposes.”

I am guilty of this often, and hopefully, it’s the good kind.

So today’s love 💣 goes to my lil sis, queen-rising Mika.

We are different in every way , superficially speaking: from Different cultures, Literal decades apart in age. She teaches English, I, math.

But our Venn diagram has a PROFOUND intersection: Of ❤️, 💃, and passion for language and the written word to name a few.

The jewelry pictured here is from one of my favorite hidden gems in krakow, a jewelry maker specializing in repurposed watch parts and gears.

I visited him this week and he told me he is now making jewelry from repurposed vintage pen nibs.

I was drawn in instantly, as much as I was to the nerdy math gears and the computer motherboard jewelry I had already tossed into my basket with abandon.

I often feel guilt being so consumerist after the temporary high of “feeding my joy” wears off. This time I felt no remorse.

So I select this pair of earrings, and I am compelled to get this necklace for Mika for no reason other than the fact that I knew she would love it, and the sentiment.

I’m often told that giving gifts is my love language. It is, and unfortunately for me and fortunately for everyone else, it’s become a compulsion. I HAVE to do it. It’s something that changed in me after my sister died. I have to “love bomb”

Whenever I feel it; you never know when it wjll have become too late.

It’s been in my bag for days.

Randomly, early this morning, I wound up having some deep and lengthy convo with Mika about myriad things, “writing as process” and our Venn diagram intersection being two of them.

But really, the longer I’m alive the more I believe there is no such thing as “random.”

In fact, even “random number generators” on calculators and computers aren’t random at all. They’re formulated by a seed number that generates those values. If you and I use the same seed number to start generating these numbers, we get the same “random” number outputs, over and over again.

There are no coincidences, of that I’m 99% mathematically certain.

So I present to you, this gift for the both of us, as well as this ode to you that I painstakingly typed with my old and tired eyes on my iPhone, which I deplore doing; 8kg of luggage limitation wouldn’t permit me to bring my tablet.

A gift to remind us…

Write more.

Create more.

Love more.

All without fear.

TQM mi estrellita, sigue brillando