Nina is back! Fallina is back!

We are continuing our challenge of reading David Copperfield. I had been so slow with the book because it is a story from a long time ago, filled with all those intriguing English words and patterns. I was so afraid I would drop it, since it had been sitting on my desk for weeks without any progress. And before that, it had been on my bookshelf for months.

But after meeting with Nina, a strange sense of freshness came back to me, because Fallina felt like Fallina once again. It was only at that moment that I realized how much I had missed Nina all this time. Somehow, Fallina was never quite complete without Nina here. I feel so happy that we are back together again.

Nina’s Poetry Book

Grand news: Nina published her poetry book. We’ve been talking about this long before we started the book club, and to be honest, I was a bit worried about whether she was really going to publish it or not. In the very beginning of our friendship, we shared lots of shame about letting others read our writing. There was always something vulnerable and scary about letting other people see the things we had written. But she did. She did it. I’m so proud of her.

It reminded me of when I first published my book, Long Long Dating. It was way less perfect, but somehow, I’m not ashamed of listing my book on the front page of my website and letting strangers read it anymore. I guess they were right: publishing it was already a very important first step.

After reading some of Nina’s poems, all of a sudden, I wanted to write some poems as well. It’s so inspiring every time I meet Nina for our reading sessions. There are lots of occasions when I just wish to keep those moments between us, never to share them with anyone else. But I know it’s better to broadcast that energy to the world.

A Slow Friday

We met at a coffee shop literally downstairs from both our apartments. It’s been so long since the last time I wore a dress and walked slowly to a Fallina reading session. Most of the time, I need to be on my bike to get to the spot.

I miss how we started Fallina in the first place, wishing for all the perfect circumstances: something like a random time and a place close to us. The coffee shop was somewhere I’ve been to multiple times, but this was the first time I sat outside, with the tipsy autumn breeze on a Friday afternoon, right before sunset.

I love how the wind and light intertwine between the pages. I love how slow and peaceful life can be. I love how comfortable it feels to sit across the table from Nina. “I am so glad you are back”, and I think I’ve repeated that same line hundreds of times, both out loud and inside my heart.

Life is good. Fallina is fine. We don’t have many new Falliannas joining us, but we’ve always got each other. That was more than enough.