I love how you spin time here, letting October 16th and 18th mingle like characters in a half-dreamed narrative. I’m drawn in by the way you wander Bethnal Green’s streets, slipping between now and then, as if each memory is simply folded into a larger topological map of your experience—like the doughnut and the cup, indistinct and yet, here in your telling, alive with their own idiosyncrasies.
There’s a quiet, gleeful irony in the parallel you draw between your half-marathon training and this meander, so different and yet, somehow, much the same. And there’s this delicious interweaving of both inner and outer landscapes, each as hazy or fixed as the other, each a strange, shifting mirror. I feel like I’m right there beside you, threading through the fairy-tale houses, drawn by your refusal to speed up or chase, instead letting the world simply wrap around you in gentle, contemplative spirals.
Your memories of youth, of that friend with his lazy wisdom, glisten with the authenticity of small epiphanies that somehow seem more profound with each retelling. And Euler, of all people, arrives just when he’s needed, as though he’s been lurking on the fringes all along, only to surface now, adding his weight to the swirl of half-comprehended theories and half-forgotten walks. You don’t solve the puzzle of Königsberg, of course—not outright—but instead reveal the delightful entanglement of ideas, places, and people that echo back to it, each folding effortlessly into this October walk.
Your way of observing is a gift, a slow attention that renders each layer of your world palpable.
oh wow, thank you for this. the comment is far more impressive than the post! this is the level of attention that one dreams people will pay to their writing, i'm so grateful <3
You write like I think, but 1000 times more eloquently.
Math jokes are fun, but I particularly enjoy the history behind mathematicians that went mad thinking about infinity.
I don't know why I like that, it must not have been terribly fun to go mad, but it's just so perfect, like a balanced equation. You think about infinity, and suddenly, infinity thinks about you.
I think someone else’s writing always feels more eloquent to us. All I think about reading other people’s things is “why do I think the same things but can’t say them like THAT”! Euler would be fun at dinner parties I think. Put him in the corner of the table so whoever sits next to him is trapped in an evening long conversation about his newest mathematical fixation 🤭
> why do I think the same things but can’t say them like THAT
My entire life reading things on Substack ;_;
Oh Euler must have been great at parties! He'd be the guy that was always stone cold sober, but who always ends up causing mayhem, confusion, and the occasional arrest. Genius, madness, gratuitous nudity, but most critically: theorems! THEOREMS, BY GOD!
I love how you spin time here, letting October 16th and 18th mingle like characters in a half-dreamed narrative. I’m drawn in by the way you wander Bethnal Green’s streets, slipping between now and then, as if each memory is simply folded into a larger topological map of your experience—like the doughnut and the cup, indistinct and yet, here in your telling, alive with their own idiosyncrasies.
There’s a quiet, gleeful irony in the parallel you draw between your half-marathon training and this meander, so different and yet, somehow, much the same. And there’s this delicious interweaving of both inner and outer landscapes, each as hazy or fixed as the other, each a strange, shifting mirror. I feel like I’m right there beside you, threading through the fairy-tale houses, drawn by your refusal to speed up or chase, instead letting the world simply wrap around you in gentle, contemplative spirals.
Your memories of youth, of that friend with his lazy wisdom, glisten with the authenticity of small epiphanies that somehow seem more profound with each retelling. And Euler, of all people, arrives just when he’s needed, as though he’s been lurking on the fringes all along, only to surface now, adding his weight to the swirl of half-comprehended theories and half-forgotten walks. You don’t solve the puzzle of Königsberg, of course—not outright—but instead reveal the delightful entanglement of ideas, places, and people that echo back to it, each folding effortlessly into this October walk.
Your way of observing is a gift, a slow attention that renders each layer of your world palpable.
oh wow, thank you for this. the comment is far more impressive than the post! this is the level of attention that one dreams people will pay to their writing, i'm so grateful <3
You’re so so welcome!! Your work deserves all the attention, absolutely it does. 💕
Love the writing! Thanks for sharing :)
You write like I think, but 1000 times more eloquently.
Math jokes are fun, but I particularly enjoy the history behind mathematicians that went mad thinking about infinity.
I don't know why I like that, it must not have been terribly fun to go mad, but it's just so perfect, like a balanced equation. You think about infinity, and suddenly, infinity thinks about you.
Euler was a bit of a character too :D
I think someone else’s writing always feels more eloquent to us. All I think about reading other people’s things is “why do I think the same things but can’t say them like THAT”! Euler would be fun at dinner parties I think. Put him in the corner of the table so whoever sits next to him is trapped in an evening long conversation about his newest mathematical fixation 🤭
> why do I think the same things but can’t say them like THAT
My entire life reading things on Substack ;_;
Oh Euler must have been great at parties! He'd be the guy that was always stone cold sober, but who always ends up causing mayhem, confusion, and the occasional arrest. Genius, madness, gratuitous nudity, but most critically: theorems! THEOREMS, BY GOD!
I missed this. And you. 🥲
I’m here 😭
I truly hope you are working on a novel, Ani. xo
If I ever come up with something to write a novel about 😅🤦♀️😭
It’s there. Trust me. xo