50k q&a
hello.
i’ve been meaning to do one of these for a while, and hitting 50k felt like the right moment to slow down and actually reflect. thank you to all of you who submitted your questions on substack and instagram. there were a lot of them, but i chose the ones that felt the most aligned with milk fed: thoughts on books and perfume and philosophy. rituals and contradictions. what makes me feel alive. what i’ve learned so far. what i’m still trying to understand.
there’s something a bit disarming and tender about being asked questions, especially the ones that catch you off guard. the ones that don’t just want information, but insight. it made me realize that most of us are trying to do the same thing: name the things we don’t have language for yet, put shape to what we love, what we long for, what keeps us here.
so this is my attempt to answer some of those questions. or at least sit with them long enough to understand why they matter.
thank you again for being a reader of milk fed. i hope these letters have met you in the quiet parts of your life, the places that don’t always get spoken to. and i hope, in some small way, they’ve offered the kind of nourishment the world sometimes forgets to give.
what would your body and blood be if there was a communion of you?
a perfect piece of dark chocolate and black coffee. something rich, slightly bitter, and made to be savored in silence. the kind of communion you take in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep and you need to remember you’re still a person. body as indulgence, blood as clarity. together: depth, restraint, survival. and if there had to be a second offering, it would be the best loaf of bread from the bakery. still warm. something torn, not sliced.
what are five specific things that make you happy?
my daughter. always her. the second would be the feeling of arriving in a brand-new place. the liminal in between of dragging your suitcase through a city you don’t know yet but might someday love. third: perfume. scent is a form of memory, and i like to wear mine. fourth: books that break me open. the ones that remind me why i’m alive. and fifth: evenings filled with conversation and candles and wine and records and people who feel like soul soil. people who don’t drain you. people who make you remember that being alive can actually be sweet.
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book that made you like literature?
i have several but let me mention a couple top of mind. água viva by clarice lispector was the first book that felt alive to me. it doesn’t follow any structure, doesn’t try to prove anything. it just thinks and feels on the page. it reads like someone mid-thought, mid-prayer, mid-breakdown. there’s no plot, no resolution. just a woman trying to name the unnameable. and somehow, that felt more honest than anything else i’d ever read.
fear and trembling is another one. i didn’t expect to connect with kierkegaard, but he asked questions i had already been asking. about faith, about sacrifice, about what it means to choose something so fully that it breaks you. he didn’t offer comfort. he offered tension and i think that’s what drew me in. both books taught me that you don’t need to resolve something for it to be worth writing. you just have to be willing to sit inside the ache.
how do you balance everything—school, career, writing, social media, etc?
i don’t. i let a lot of things drop. and then i pick them up again. i think balance is a myth we tell ourselves to avoid confronting the mess. what helps me: write down your priorities and actually rank them. it forces clarity, and then the night before a new day, write out your plans both in your notes app and on paper in order of importance. we don’t need to do everything, we need to do the right things. and sometimes that’s rest. sometimes that’s one task done well. sometimes it’s sitting with your coffee and choosing not to spiral.
what’s your favorite clarice lispector book?
água viva feels like language rearranged by someone who remembers what it felt like before we were born. it’s like reading the inside of someone’s pulse. there’s no plot. just sensation, thought, instinct. and a breath of life. it’s brutal and gorgeous… a dialogue between creator and creation, god and woman, desire and despair. clarice isn’t interested in telling stories, she’s interested in dismantling reality. her books don’t ask to be understood, they ask to be felt.
thoughts on buddhism?
i’m still learning and fumbling my way through it, but buddhism speaks to something that has always quietly lived in me, even before i had the words for it. the idea that life is full of suffering, not because we’ve done something wrong but because suffering is part of being alive, feels unexpectedly tender. it doesn’t ask you to fix yourself or fight your pain. it asks you to notice it, to be present with it, and to let it move through you. there is no god to impress, no system of rewards. just breath and awareness and the act of returning to yourself, over and over. i think that’s what moves me most. it doesn’t offer escape, it offers attention. and attention, more than anything, feels like a kind of love.
favorite le labo scent?
(despite the online discourse around le labo, they make incredible fragrances) the noir 29 feels like literature in perfume form. it opens with this smoky sweetness, almost like burning tea leaves and dried figs, and it unfolds slowly on the skin. it smells intellectual without trying to be and mysterious but grounded. it reminds me of libraries, dim lamps, and writing things you’re not ready to say out loud. guaiac 10 is the opposite. it’s clean skin after a long bath. it’s warmth, intimacy, a kind of quiet softness that feels almost private. the scent of someone you love sleeping beside you. and lastly, another 13, which is harder to explain. it doesn’t smell like a thing, it smells like the absence of one. like static. like the lingering feeling of having just cried. it’s ghostly and clean, but also strange and a little cold.
together, these three make up the closest thing i have to a le labo scent identity. they are minimal but emotional, familiar but not quite knowable. i don’t wear perfume to be perceived, i wear it to anchor myself and signal something unspoken. they’re a kind of armor, but also a kind of confession.
existentialism, nihilism, or absurdism?
i want to say existentialism, because it gives you a way to live. it asks you to take responsibility for your choices and create meaning where there is none. to live deliberately in a world that offers you no guarantees. it feels structured in its chaos, like there’s at least a direction to move in, even if the road is falling apart beneath your feet. but if i’m being honest, most days i live inside absurdism in the quiet, almost comical act of trying to make meaning out of absolutely nothing. there’s a strange kind of joy in that. like placing your whole heart into things you know are fleeting: morning routines, coffee rituals, playlists for imaginary lovers, conversations that almost mean something. building little altars out of leftovers and poems and to-do lists. nihilism has never appealed to me. it feels too clean, too certain, and too empty. absurdism makes space for contradiction. it lets you laugh without needing to pretend anything makes sense. and existentialism, when you’re ready, reminds you that you can still choose, act, and become. even if the world doesn’t care, you still can. and maybe that’s enough.
what's your favorite color?
brown. people tend to overlook it, but that’s part of what makes me love it. it’s the color of earth, tree bark, old books, coffee and quiet interiors. it feels warm without trying. steady without demanding attention. brown is grounding. it knows how to hold weight and doesn’t ask to be admired. it just is. brown feels like home… something lived in. it reminds me of mornings spent reading in silence, and worn-in sweaters, and things that age well. it’s not here to impress you. when i think of comforting moments in my life: wooden tables, dim light, bare feet on warm floors, stacks of books on the floor, soft blankets that smell like old perfume, a well worn coat you always reach for in early autumn. they’re all some shade of brown. it’s the color of things that have been touched, used, kept. it’s the color of slowness. it’s not the kind of beauty you notice right away. but once you feel it, you keep coming back.
how did you get into philosophy?
i had my first existential crisis before i had the language for it. i didn’t know what it was at the time, only that life felt hollow and I couldn’t explain why. i found epictetus in a used bookstore by accident, and suddenly the ache had structure. his words felt steadying, like someone was calmly explaining the chaos i was drowning in. then i read simone de beauvoir, and something shifted. she didn’t offer comfort, just clarity. she made me feel like my questions had ancestry. that i wasn’t alone in them. i didn’t study philosophy in school, i studied it in solitude. in the quiet after heartbreak and in margin notes and long walks and nights when sleep wouldn’t come. it wasn’t academic initially, it felt like a way of surviving. and eventually, it became a way of living.
what interests do you share with your partner? / preferred reading settings?
i’ve been single for over 14 years. but if i were to fall in love, it would be with someone who moves through the world with curiosity and reverence. someone who reads and loves culture, travel, stillness, beauty, and slowness. i’d want overlap but also difference. we should both be learning from each other. as for reading, i love the new york public library. cafés where the espresso is strong and the chairs are uncomfortable but romantic. there’s something deeply comforting in the sounds and atmosphere of certain cafés, where the espresso machine hisses and the sounds of conversation fade into background music. chairs scrape against worn floors, silverware clinks, someone laughs softly two tables over. it’s all just noise, but it’s the kind that holds you. the kind that makes solitude feel full instead of empty. i love that kind of environment… the low murmur of life continuing around you while you sit still, reading, thinking, just existing. it feels like the world is moving, but gently. like it’s letting you breathe. i also enjoy reading at used bookstores where it smells like time. i like reading near people, but not with them. i like being alone in a room full of strangers who love silence.
want to read more classics. where should I start?
start with frankenstein if you want philosophy, pain, and poetry stitched into one. it’s gothic and existential and surprisingly modern in its questions about creation, responsibility, and what it means to be human. jane eyre if you’re craving something stubborn and romantic, with a narrator who refuses to become anything less than herself, no matter what’s asked of her. the stranger if you want to feel quietly undone by how indifferent the world can be, and how strange it is to live inside a body you don’t always understand. and the metamorphosis, because at some point, you should meet yourself in something unrecognizable, and realize it still sees you.
what is your mbti?
intj. it fits me more than i’d like to admit. i’m introspective to a fault, always turning things over in my mind before i say them out loud. strategic, often to the point of paralysis. i don’t speak unless i’ve thought it through. i don’t open up unless it feels safe. and i don’t love casually. when i care about someone, i care completely, even if it doesn’t always show on the surface. i’m calm in a crisis, steady when things fall apart, but underneath, there’s usually a storm. we’re not emotionless. we just hold it all inward, quietly, until we’re ready to hand it over. and when we do, it means something.
do you reread books?
yes. obsessively. i don’t care about reading a hundred books a year. i care about knowing a handful of them deeply. like tartt said: it’s better to know one book intimately than a dozen superficially. i reread the same sentences the way some people listen to the same song on repeat until they understand it.
have you ever felt truly seen?
yes. but rarely by people. more often, i feel seen by the things that don’t ask anything of me. books that speak in the exact language of a feeling i thought was mine alone. a line of poetry that understands me better than most conversations ever could. sometimes it’s music, the kind that makes you stop what you’re doing because it somehow it meets you where you’re at emotionally. or art, especially the kind that feels unfinished, like it’s still reaching for you.
what kind of book would you write?
one day, i’ll write a novel that’s a blend of philosophy and literary fiction. maybe a semi autobiographical novel that traces the life of a girl who turns her survival into sacredness, not through triumph, but through observation. maybe i’ll write a children’s book. something gentle and strange and full of love.
immediate and 5-year goals?
some things lose power when spoken aloud. i believe in keeping most of my goals sacred. but know this, i am building something. and it matters to me more than anything.
why do you think your voice resonates with so many people?
because i try to tell the truth. not the polished truth. the shaky, broken, still-trying kind. i think people are desperate to feel something real. and when they hear someone be raw and unembarrassed about their ache, they exhale a little. we’re all just looking for mirrors.
how does one know what they want to pursue? or is uncertainty where you find solace?
you never really know. that’s the part no one says out loud. we talk about clarity like it arrives fully formed, but most of the time, it doesn’t. you try something, then you try again. and somewhere in that process, you begin to narrow in on what feels right, even if it’s still a little blurry. despite how oversaturated this has become, i think about sylvia plath’s fig tree often, the image of all these lives hanging in front of you, each one rich with possibility. but if you wait too long to choose, they start to fall. they rot before you ever taste them. uncertainty is a part of it, yes, and sometimes it teaches you more than certainty ever could. but eventually, you still have to reach for something. because not choosing is also a decision. and in my experience, regret is much louder than failure. at least when you try, you’re in motion. and motion creates its own kind of clarity.
how did you grow your substack?
i stopped trying to be impressive. i stopped writing what i thought people wanted to hear and started writing what i actually meant. things shifted when i let go of the performance and focused on honesty. i think people can tell when you’re being disingenuous and when you’re not. and when it’s real, they stay. they might not always agree, but they recognize something true. and that matters more than numbers.
do you want to become a professor one day?
sometimes i imagine myself as a slightly intimidating hot philosophy professor. always dressed in black. soft spoken but unflinching. the kind of professor who changes your life just by asking a good question. maybe one day.
do you have a favorite latin american writer?
clarice lispector is everything to me. her work feels like what happens when language forgets how to behave and when it slips out of its structure and starts pulsing. she doesn’t write from the brain, she writes from the nervous system, from the body, and from somewhere just beneath the skin. her sentences don’t explain, they exist. they unravel and breathe and have minds of their own. reading her feels like standing in front of a mirror that doesn’t reflect what you look like, but what you feel like before the thought even forms. she showed me that writing doesn’t have to build a world. sometimes it just has to hold one.
what are your favorite subjects?
philosophy, neuroscience, math, literature, biochemistry, physics. i love the mind. the body. the stars. the unknown. the interior and the cosmic. what’s more human than wanting to understand it all?
okay, that’s all for today. if you enjoyed this style of newsletter, maybe i can do these more frequently? let me know if this is something you want more of.
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i love you.
bye.
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I loved getting to know you a bit better through this Q&A. Your writing voice is just like your speaking voice- soothing, genuine, evocative. I would love a second round!
the answer to brown — my word. poetry in motion!