how to love people: a guide

 how to love people: a guide 

i am not a people person. i don’t understand how to respond to texts on time or to ask my parents how they actually feel — hell, i barely can pick up video calls from my best friend unless she gives me two days’ notice. but there is a certain kind of people i understand; people comprised of fiction. they all have arcs for one; redemption arcs, hero arcs, arcs of their lives that usually are projectiles if they’re lucky. these people are all great conversationalist (Lane: “I resent that. I’m a witty conversationalist.”) and they are friendly with the shape of grammar, unless it must be discontinued because of factors such as dialect, cultural background, a strong character that seeps into their very dialogue. now, though i’ve spent days analyzing such people and their deals (“We commit a cruelty against existence if we do not interpret it to death.”) and this is the only difference i’ve found between real people and people in books: people in books can take care of themselves. the people i know want to share their last packet of noodles with me, they worry if their materialistic burdens will burden me, and they ignore my emotional immaturity to speak of ideas (or rather, lies) like free will with me. days at home, more than i expected, made me realize that i’m a person, and i, too, do perplexing things. i listen to songs full of angst over the lack of a teenage dream and i watch seven seasons about a green-haired boy achieving his dream, watching his need to help others grow more and more, eventually transforming his relationship with his childhood bully into a common solidarity (enemies are never friends). 

i am not a dog person. school from school, i spent all my handshakes and head-pats on elusive and grizzly cats;  arguing and advocating for them in philosophy class (“They have a sense of self-sufficiency and their arrogance is admirable!”), and disapproving my roommate’s boyfriend for scaring the cat who always snuck into our courtyard to sit with fresh laundry and sometimes, to let himself be petted. this was all in the pre-Oscar age; a lifetime of dilemmas and changes was to come for me. the name Oscar (“All art is quite useless.”) was my choice but his dog-ness was not. though already quite swayed by the multitude of pictures of him sleeping on his back, i couldn’t believe that the latest resident in my house was a ball (well, a ball only when sleeping. other times; “a little monster”) of unadulterated fierceness and fur. the first time i properly touched him — he was trying to get a bite of my flesh all the other times — i realized fur is more cotton than clouds. Oscar loves hard and his love is tough love, very much in the literal sense. cuts littering my arms are testimony. but all is forgiven the moment he snuggles next to me, placing his head beside mine on my pillow and lies still for a little before some principle of his steers him back to the foot of the bed where he sleeps best. the first few nights he slept with us on the bed, i couldn’t sleep well — he couldn’t sleep well. he was, still is, like a restless tide at night, shuffling from one position to another.

all is forgiven when he quietly comes to sit by my feet and falls asleep. being around Oscar has made me more careful - god forbid that i leave my airpods or my books unguarded on the bed and taping manga panels to my wall has been quite the ordeal when i find a page or two missing. but when we accidentally drop a cube of ice, we exclaim in unison, “give it to Oscar!” and when he whines (those whines of him! why are they so perfectly sadness-inducing?) at the miserable hour of five in the morning, my body moves on its own to let him out of the room. he throws tantrums and he’s forgiving (and exceptionally loud). and somehow, i’ve been converted because i find myself grimacing at people who are afraid of him because i’m beginning to think this: if i wasn’t an Oscar person, would i be a person at all?

but i’m clearly digressing. i wanted to say this: with people, you don’t need much. standing by kitchen sink and relishing in the mango gutlis, usually only behind the scenes of the usual diced mangoes and whose rare appearances adds to its flavour the component ‘forbidden’, and by the side are eggs boiling away, water beginning to steam up, like the one time i was on a ship. days, entirely lazy, punctuated by well-timed naps on the bright orange loungers on the terrace that leave me well-rested and in the background lorde’s latest song, soft and familiar like a hug (“I’m kind of like a prettier Jesus”). evenings bound by sky-watching and the astonishment at the incredible shifting of clouds from day to day, of colors moving from stormy grays to kind saffrons, and of the sudden conclusion that buildings can be nice. and the other days where death at the hands of heat is almost guaranteed but despite the gloominess bubbling inside, i find inside myself genuine laughter and patience to let Oscar walk over my laptop to get to his favourite corner of the bed.  people on screens, entertaining and challenging; shadows of people embracing, shivering; lists of people, those who inspire; people of promises and people of practice. and with people, you don’t need much, except a hill and a dog.