What I’ve Learned Lately #7
On summer and reading, again.
Every now and then, I write a letter about what I’ve learned lately. This was the seventh one, sent on September 2, 2012.
New York
Two weeks ago, I bought three cardboard boxes. I knew that soon, my New York bedroom — the second of the summer, its walls pale cadet blue — would be empty. The boxes would be full.
I picked up the boxes reluctantly, resolutely; I wasn’t ready to go. But leaving also felt natural — almost normal. As far as I could tell, New York is always ending and beginning. In twelve weeks, in a tight territory of just a few blocks, I saw shops I loved go out of business and new ones surface; people moved in and out. Old-timers (shops and residents alike) anchored reality, and everything else hummed and orbited around them. It was dizzying and unnerving and comforting. You can come and go as you please, but that doesn’t mean the city doesn’t need you, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t need it.
So even though they feel far away already, here are twelve summer moments: top to bottom, left to right, in something resembling reverse chronological order.
First and second: Camp Kickstarter, a canvas flag waving, the whole company on an island together. Hammocks and twin beds low to the ground, grilled vegetables and card games — Anomia, especially.
Third: licorice sauce leftover from one of twelve courses at wd~50, where Erik and I ate what I think we agreed was the best meal of our lives.
Fourth: the city from above, at Art.sy with Alexander.
Fifth: after sailing with Cassie and Perry.
Sixth: Storm King with Inessa. A short bus ride from New York — if you haven’t been, please go! The sculptures are majestic, and so is the landscape. In their presence, I felt overwhelmed and grateful for art.
Seventh: the most intense haircut I’ve ever received, at Misin Shin on the Lower East Side. Over four and a half hours, Misin earned my trust. Your hair is your design…
Eighth: Sculpey with Amit in Brooklyn.
Ninth: rowing with Erik in Central Park.
Tenth: subway series at Yankee Stadium. (We were rooting for the Mets.)
Eleventh: my new favorite yogurt, recommended by the Ladies’ Graphos Society. Tart and creamy. You can get it at Murray’s Cheese in the West Village or at their stand in Grand Central Station.
Twelfth: the apartment I lived in for my first two months in New York, filled with fading light.
Living in New York was like going back to read a book after seeing the movie adaptation a thousand times: the plot was familiar, but the density of detail was still mesmerizing. Looking at those pictures, I’m knocked off-balance: remembering how overwhelming they were when filled my vision, realizing how locket-like they are now that they’re small and all in rows.
Knowing I’d write this letter, I’ve been trying to think about what I’ve learned lately. Since lately is summer and summer was New York, it occurred to me that real question might be one I asked myself at the beginning of the summer: what does it mean to feel at home in a place?
I feel at home in Ann Arbor because it’s where I grew up; my family and eighteen years of memories are still there. I feel at home in Boston and Cambridge because I was born there and later came back to learn — it’s a place where my mind can be energetically at rest. I feel at home in San Francisco because I moved there for love of the city, and it’s love that keeps me coming back.
So, why did I feel at home in Manhattan? It’s a place I never thought I’d be. Brooklyn, sure; Manhattan, never. Yet work was on the Lower East Side, and while scouring the internet for sublets, I decided that a compact life was worth a try. This meant that even though I lived in two different places over the course of the summer, both ended up being within blocks of the office. It also meant that habits quickly took hold: weekday or weekend, I’d go to the same place for beet juice in the mornings.
In life, I alternate between being a homebody and an explorer; I know this about myself, and I think I expected New York to strain the tendency — to ask me to be ready for an adventure every day. But it was so much easier than I expected to just be me. It feels obvious to say that New York never sleeps, that it’s a place where you can find anything you please, but it startled me every time. I was on my computer in my apartment late one night, thinking idly that I was hungry and there was nothing in the fridge. But then get up get up, you can put on your shoes, you can do anything! rose in my mind. I shuffled lightly down the stairs, down the street, and picked up a pint of ice cream at my morning beet juice place, then shuffled back with a smile on my face. Even such a simple act made me feel like anything might be possible.
And that was just the homebody side. The explorer side was in heaven, too: one day I set out to visit one museum on my own, and ended up visiting two. My friend Inessa asked me if I wanted to see Storm King, and I did — so we did, and hitchhiked from the parking lot to a burger shop in the rain. There was a dinner at The Intercourse, and I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but found myself with friends outside a giant gallery in Red Hook, in a sprawling yard strung with lights. It all happened as a matter of course.
Writing all of this down, I’m starting to think that feeling at home in New York may have something to do with my relationship to excitement. I went to run a search to figure out how many emails I’ve ever sent containing the word “excited,” and Gmail wouldn’t even tell me a number — just “many.” Paging through, it looks like I send about one a day (or more). Excitement is my default stance toward the future. New York makes that right.
Surprise is a part of it, too. Surprise goes hand-in-hand with excitement, but it has to do with expectations; it’s what you feel when the unexpected happens. I didn’t expect to ever be in New York for any meaningful length of time, let alone live there for twelve weeks. I think I was surprised by how possible it turned out to be — not easy, necessarily, but possible. At the beginning of the summer, my roommate and I picked up our apartment keys from the sandwich shop downstairs, and that was it — there were were. Even a city stuffed to bursting could find a place for me.
What I learned in New York is that it’s a place I could call home again. Maybe someday, I will.
Reading
Aside from New York, the other major chord of the summer was experimenting with reading. It started with an attempt to read James Gleick’s The Information in a single day. (It took me ten and a half solid hours, but I did it!)
Then, I decided to see what would happen if I posted a paper book that I was interested in reading and offered to read it, annotate it, and forward it on the first person who sent it my way. The mechanism: a single-item Amazon wishlist linked to my summer address. It took fifteen minutes for someone to take up the cause, and The Cultural Cold War arrived at my desk a week later. I’m still happily churning away at it. (The book, as it turns out, is very dense! But amazing, too.)
Next, I decided to give up non-work reading altogether for a week, which soon stretched into two; I stepped away from Twitter, Tumblr, and books alike. It was illuminating and made a lot of room in my life, but I was relieved to return.
Then, a quick detour into learning about the art of bookselling.
Finally, last weekend: a trip to Big Sur with friends — two days spent reading essays we chose for ourselves and one another; a test to see whether the idea was worth tackling and scaling. It was Patrick who thought to call the weekend “Readtreat.” We all liked it, so it stuck. I’m excited (there it goes again!) to write more about it soon.
My approach to reading has been more extreme this summer than most, but I think the primary force is the same as it’s always been: my love for books is constant, but time away from school means that books become a playground again. While in school, I often lament that I don’t “read more” — yet I’m reading all the time, for every class. Assigned reading is somehow cordoned off from voluntary reading in my mind (though both are important to me), and a sense of freedom seizes me as soon as finals are over.
The difference this summer was that I shared that process more widely, which led to other people sharing their reactions in return. And that might have been the best part of all: hearing that friends picked up The Information after seeing my marathon reading session, or marking up my copy of The Cultural Cold War with colored pencil knowing that someone else will get to read that very copy as soon as I’m through.
A new semester’s about to begin (my second to last), so I want to be realistic about what will be possible. But I know this is a thread I want to keep pulling on. Reading out loud, in public, is one of the very best things.
(Listening)
Some music before I go:
- Metric’s acoustic album Plug in, Plug Out stands in beautiful contrast to the rest of their precise, rigid rock. I love both, but I might love this more. (Link goes to SoundCloud, where you can listen for free!)
- Why? has a new short album out called Sod in the Seed — I’ve been listening nonstop.
- Still can’t get over Alt-J’s album (also on SoundCloud!), An Awesome Wave. Thanks again to Kirk for the recommendation.
- Copenhagen Dreams, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s latest, is perfect writing music.
- Did you know that Patrick Ewing is a mixtape genius? His “warm focus” playlist is still one of my all-time favorites (especially for working), and “Bookshop Casanova” is every bit as charming as it sounds.
Thank you for welcoming this letter into your inbox — I hope it finds a home burrowed in among everything urgent and distant. And I hope I’ll hear from you in return sometime, whenever that may be.
til next time, and always,
Diana
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