This morning walking east on 72nd street towards the bus stop for my morning routine of waiting-for-the-bus-for-the-fifty-minute-commute-across-town, a man passed me and asked me point blank how the prom was.
"How was the prom?" he asked with a big smile on his face. The prom?
I guess you always have to be prepared in New York because you just don’t know what it's going to throw at you – especially that early in the morning. The inflection of his voice at first threw me, because walking down the street on any given day I tend to hear men say the most ridiculous (and mostly crude) things to me.
But how was the prom? I was wondering how this was supposed to equal some form of pick-up line, or whatever it is these men are trying to accomplish when saying random things to random women on the street. It seemed like the verbal equivalent of a honked horn (which happens more than one would think) always leaving me to wonder: what are you really getting out of doing that except solidifying my opinion that men have not, in fact, evolved.
Prom guy was skinny with white pants and a grey t-shirt and was, I then realized, naturally, flamboyantly gay (I say naturally because I don’t think you’d find too many straight men so inquisitive about prom). He knew me. At least he thought he knew me. He thought I’d just returned from what was supposed to be the greatest experience in my teenage life up until that point, compete with hair, make-up, a limo, a cheesy pastel dress and matching vest for my too-much-hair-gelled date.
I had my big sunglasses on because it was early and I hadn’t had coffee yet and it’s been a long time since I’ve personally been to the prom, an event that, looking back, I altogether could have done without
"Ummm," I said bringing a hand tentatively up to my sunglasses thinking, should I just take them off and let him see his gaffe? But then I felt bad. I'd let our awkward moment go on for too long and his face was so genuine, his tone so concerned about the outcome of this particular girls’ night at the prom, that I couldn’t help myself but stop, pay tribute, and lie. "Ok?" I said feeling ridiculous.
Because New York is nothing if not a place where you can be whoever you want on any give day and I figured I might as well go with it. He noticed however, that I seemed confused.
"Ohhh!" he said, a hint of recognition in his voice. This is it! He realizes I am not who he thinks! "I thought you were your sister! You two look so much alike I can never tell!"
I nodded and smiled in agreement. What is wrong with this guy? The sister? Not only did he think I was someone else, he then thought I was someone else on top of being someone else! "Oh well!" I said and opened my hands in front of my like I was offering him something and shrugged my shoulders in a very it-happens-all-the-time sort of way.
I do happen to have a sister that people think I look just like and upon first meeting confuse us. She always gets upset, giving a look like, ew, I don’t look that much like her, do I? that I try not to get offended by.
Prom guy and I parted ways and I took my place in the crowd of waiting bus-goers. I could feel all their eyes on me, all silently wondering why I didn’t offer this apparent-friend more information about my twin sister’s night at the prom, not even giving so much as an "I’ll call you later," upon our departure.
But what else can you do in a city full of so many people that no one knows you enough to even know that you’re not someone else.
June 18, 2007
I've never been the gambling type.
"Do you ever play the lotto down in Manhattan?" Dad asks as we drive to the train station. It is a hot night in the suburbs which means it’s going to be an event hotter night in the city.
I never buy the lotto.
"You should really do it one day. Just a lucky number, birthday, anniversary..."
I suppose I should do it, one day. One day when I think that luck is on my side. One day just to pass the time. But I’ve always thought that you have to really believe in something in order to reap the benefits of it. Once you stop believing in the tooth fairy you stop getting a dollar under your pillow. If you don’t believe in true love you never seem to quite find it, and if you don’t believe in luck you’ll never strike it big.
"Just try it sometime. You never can tell."
People down on their luck are always believing in it more than they deep-down-know they should. Against all odds they put all their chips out on the table because they believe in that last almost tangible sliver of a chance that might turn their luck around. But luck is just what is caught up in the spinning axis of the universe that you can’t reach out and take control of. Luck is (unlike the lotto ticket) out of your hands. Numbers are just numbers. Birthday are just birthdays. Anniversaries are just anniversaries - and they mean something to you but they don’t mean anything to the automated machine that selects them at random.
We can’t control much, (tomorrow, you just don’t know), so we scratch those little boxes on those little pink tickets thinking we’re taking control of our lives. What would we do with all that money? What would we do first? We dream. We hope. We deep-down-know better.
Keep your luck to yourself, I say, your numbers, your birthdays, your anniversaries, and go about your daily chores in life - the hard living and working and loving (where teeth aren’t worth a thing) and pretend to yourself that every day is like your own personal lotto ticket. It may change how you think about luck. Just try it sometime. You never can tell.
I never buy the lotto.
"You should really do it one day. Just a lucky number, birthday, anniversary..."
I suppose I should do it, one day. One day when I think that luck is on my side. One day just to pass the time. But I’ve always thought that you have to really believe in something in order to reap the benefits of it. Once you stop believing in the tooth fairy you stop getting a dollar under your pillow. If you don’t believe in true love you never seem to quite find it, and if you don’t believe in luck you’ll never strike it big.
"Just try it sometime. You never can tell."
People down on their luck are always believing in it more than they deep-down-know they should. Against all odds they put all their chips out on the table because they believe in that last almost tangible sliver of a chance that might turn their luck around. But luck is just what is caught up in the spinning axis of the universe that you can’t reach out and take control of. Luck is (unlike the lotto ticket) out of your hands. Numbers are just numbers. Birthday are just birthdays. Anniversaries are just anniversaries - and they mean something to you but they don’t mean anything to the automated machine that selects them at random.
We can’t control much, (tomorrow, you just don’t know), so we scratch those little boxes on those little pink tickets thinking we’re taking control of our lives. What would we do with all that money? What would we do first? We dream. We hope. We deep-down-know better.
Keep your luck to yourself, I say, your numbers, your birthdays, your anniversaries, and go about your daily chores in life - the hard living and working and loving (where teeth aren’t worth a thing) and pretend to yourself that every day is like your own personal lotto ticket. It may change how you think about luck. Just try it sometime. You never can tell.
June 13, 2007
You've been here before.
It happens to me on occasion, where I’ve walked past the exact same apartment building that something was chasing me out of in my dream the night before. I look up for a minute at that front bay window and the greying black of the bricks and that same tree. Yes, that same exact tree was in my way last night, right there in the middle of my getaway as I ran in slow motion away from something that made so much more sense before I woke up with a start and thought "huh?" before I thought "ohhh," when I realized that nice thing you get to realize when bad things happen to you at night - it was just a dream.
The bad moments are when bad things happen and you’re stuck with that "huh?" moment for far longer than you’d like. You’ve been here before and it stinks worse than that pile of laundry in the corner you keep telling yourself you’ll bring to the laundromat tomorrow.
And then if you’re like me and you’ve come to a state in your mind where you’re starting to forget in the fog of your life what’s real and what’s not, you’ll find yourself staring at a person on the subway the way you do when you think you know them but aren’t confident enough to speak up, (forcing them to do what any normal person on the subway would do when someone is awkwardly staring at them - which is roll your eyes and turn away), and you think yourself: how do I know them?
There’s something about living in a city with so many people that if you find one person you know, if you happen to be in the same section of the same 1 train with this person, you have an obligation as a fellow lonely insignificant New Yorker to speak up, to make the connection of: "Oh yeah, you’re Mark, right? I met you at that bar on Rivington like a month ago. You’re friends with my friend Jessica?" And then it’s ohh’s and ahh’s all around as you can show everyone around you and prove to yourself that you’re making something of yourself in this place - you know people.
But if you’re like me, you know people, sure, but not a lot, and chances are that this person you’re staring at in the same section of the same 1 train isn’t anyone you’ve ever met before. Plus, you’re thinking to yourself, you’d probably really remember someone who is that cute. You just want to think that you know this person so that you have a reason to talk to them because everyone knows that no one in New York talks to anyone when they don’t have to.
And he’s cute, yes, and you haven’t been on a date since....and you think to yourself that if this guy just got to know you he’d never want to leave you. He’d realize how lucky he was, how much of a catch you really are. It’s because we all know how great we are, how much potential we have - but in a city full of so many people who don’t talk to each other, it’s very easy for no one to ever really get to know you at all.
That an it is also a little known fact among all New Yorkers that men of a certain age who are relatively attractive, put together and are wearing a tie that matches his dress shirt (tucked in), and is carrying some form of briefcase (ie: no backpack), and doesn’t have a ring on his finger - is gay.
So he gets off the train at 28th street and you laugh at yourself because you realize how ridiculous you’re becoming - you know very well you didn’t know him at all. Does it smell of desperation? Does it ooze loneliness? Or is it just this city taking it’s toll where all you need is to connect with someone else? Who knows. No one knows if their reality will ever catch up with their dreams.
And the subway carries on slow and steady and so you do because, (huh?), you think to yourself, you’ve been here before.
(Oh).
The bad moments are when bad things happen and you’re stuck with that "huh?" moment for far longer than you’d like. You’ve been here before and it stinks worse than that pile of laundry in the corner you keep telling yourself you’ll bring to the laundromat tomorrow.
And then if you’re like me and you’ve come to a state in your mind where you’re starting to forget in the fog of your life what’s real and what’s not, you’ll find yourself staring at a person on the subway the way you do when you think you know them but aren’t confident enough to speak up, (forcing them to do what any normal person on the subway would do when someone is awkwardly staring at them - which is roll your eyes and turn away), and you think yourself: how do I know them?
There’s something about living in a city with so many people that if you find one person you know, if you happen to be in the same section of the same 1 train with this person, you have an obligation as a fellow lonely insignificant New Yorker to speak up, to make the connection of: "Oh yeah, you’re Mark, right? I met you at that bar on Rivington like a month ago. You’re friends with my friend Jessica?" And then it’s ohh’s and ahh’s all around as you can show everyone around you and prove to yourself that you’re making something of yourself in this place - you know people.
But if you’re like me, you know people, sure, but not a lot, and chances are that this person you’re staring at in the same section of the same 1 train isn’t anyone you’ve ever met before. Plus, you’re thinking to yourself, you’d probably really remember someone who is that cute. You just want to think that you know this person so that you have a reason to talk to them because everyone knows that no one in New York talks to anyone when they don’t have to.
And he’s cute, yes, and you haven’t been on a date since....and you think to yourself that if this guy just got to know you he’d never want to leave you. He’d realize how lucky he was, how much of a catch you really are. It’s because we all know how great we are, how much potential we have - but in a city full of so many people who don’t talk to each other, it’s very easy for no one to ever really get to know you at all.
That an it is also a little known fact among all New Yorkers that men of a certain age who are relatively attractive, put together and are wearing a tie that matches his dress shirt (tucked in), and is carrying some form of briefcase (ie: no backpack), and doesn’t have a ring on his finger - is gay.
So he gets off the train at 28th street and you laugh at yourself because you realize how ridiculous you’re becoming - you know very well you didn’t know him at all. Does it smell of desperation? Does it ooze loneliness? Or is it just this city taking it’s toll where all you need is to connect with someone else? Who knows. No one knows if their reality will ever catch up with their dreams.
And the subway carries on slow and steady and so you do because, (huh?), you think to yourself, you’ve been here before.
(Oh).
June 10, 2007
You just never know.
The thing about knowing is that we always think we do. We always think we know more, know better, know enough to get ahead or get what we want, or just get by.
But as much as you know:
how frequently the subway comes
the number beer for you is one-too-many
what you look for in a boyfriend/girlfriend
why you came to new york
your favorite color
Just as easily, one day you:
find it derail and it never shows up.
drink more than you should
find someone who surprises you
realize that all your reasons have changed.
find that maybe green is the new black.
Because you can never know, and that's the scary part. You can never know from one day to the next what's going to happen to change everything in your life and make you walk to work, throw up on the sidewalk, or kiss someone you never thought would.
We like to think we're all smarter than we are, that we've been through so much we must have learned our lessons by now - but what can you know in a city with so many people about who you really are?
You just...Never. Know. when...what you know is always changing.
And in a city with so many people it's impossible to catch up - and you know more than you think (I think), if you let yourself know at least that.
But as much as you know:
how frequently the subway comes
the number beer for you is one-too-many
what you look for in a boyfriend/girlfriend
why you came to new york
your favorite color
Just as easily, one day you:
find it derail and it never shows up.
drink more than you should
find someone who surprises you
realize that all your reasons have changed.
find that maybe green is the new black.
Because you can never know, and that's the scary part. You can never know from one day to the next what's going to happen to change everything in your life and make you walk to work, throw up on the sidewalk, or kiss someone you never thought would.
We like to think we're all smarter than we are, that we've been through so much we must have learned our lessons by now - but what can you know in a city with so many people about who you really are?
You just...Never. Know. when...what you know is always changing.
And in a city with so many people it's impossible to catch up - and you know more than you think (I think), if you let yourself know at least that.
June 5, 2007
gait analysis.
I've taken to walking. Not that I don't walk a lot in this city, because long blocks are everywhere and endless avenues are far, and you have no choice but to hit the pavement to get from point anywhere to point somewhere. But I've taken to walking on an intentional level as a means to clear my head.
Too many nights that I get back from work, late, when the approaching summer heat is still lingering on the more but never entirely empty streets, and I feel trapped. It's easy, isn't it, how quicky you can drown in your own life?
The more tired I get, (ain't it always the way?) the less I can sleep. That's when the restlessness settles in and the walls shrink and I think that if I become just one more nameless face to one more person in this giant metropolis of people all wanting so much to mean something, I'm going to implode.
So that's why I've taken to walking, because being out on the streets is the only way to feel like you're a part of something you can never fully grasp - your existence in a place where everything is up, the buildings, the rent, the price of a beer, and financial plans, plans for the future and everything is up, up, up.
Not me. I like my feet settled firmly on the ground. Not up, but straight, on an even keel, balanced, planted step in front of planted step. That's why I've taken to walking, late at night when people are locked away in their expensive high-rise cages all waiting to go to sleep to dream about getting through tomorrow.
The less I can sleep the more tired I get, and so the further I walk. And long blocks and endless avenues go by like the past, and I think that if I become just one more nameless face to one more person in this giant metropolis of people all wanting so much to just mean something, I'll walk forever. I'll walk on forever with my feet settled firmly on the ground. No more lofty expectations, no more pipe dreams, no more unrealistic ideas or hopes or goals - no more...up. Just planted step in front of planted step, walking me straight and fast out a life that, (easy, isn't it?) can so quickly make me feel trapped.
Too many nights that I get back from work, late, when the approaching summer heat is still lingering on the more but never entirely empty streets, and I feel trapped. It's easy, isn't it, how quicky you can drown in your own life?
The more tired I get, (ain't it always the way?) the less I can sleep. That's when the restlessness settles in and the walls shrink and I think that if I become just one more nameless face to one more person in this giant metropolis of people all wanting so much to mean something, I'm going to implode.
So that's why I've taken to walking, because being out on the streets is the only way to feel like you're a part of something you can never fully grasp - your existence in a place where everything is up, the buildings, the rent, the price of a beer, and financial plans, plans for the future and everything is up, up, up.
Not me. I like my feet settled firmly on the ground. Not up, but straight, on an even keel, balanced, planted step in front of planted step. That's why I've taken to walking, late at night when people are locked away in their expensive high-rise cages all waiting to go to sleep to dream about getting through tomorrow.
The less I can sleep the more tired I get, and so the further I walk. And long blocks and endless avenues go by like the past, and I think that if I become just one more nameless face to one more person in this giant metropolis of people all wanting so much to just mean something, I'll walk forever. I'll walk on forever with my feet settled firmly on the ground. No more lofty expectations, no more pipe dreams, no more unrealistic ideas or hopes or goals - no more...up. Just planted step in front of planted step, walking me straight and fast out a life that, (easy, isn't it?) can so quickly make me feel trapped.
May 31, 2007
5°C (40°F)
There are things in life that we just don't want to address. There are truths that we know we have to come to terms with eventually, but tell ourselves we'll wait until later, wait until tomorrow, wait until we have more time.
Until, until, until.
It's like those mysterious tupperware containers in the back of my refrigerator. They've been there for a while, sitting and waiting in the back for me to reach in and take a chance on them. And I've been thinking about them, too, every time I open that refrigerator door and see their silhouettes slanted against the carton of milk, and the orange juice and the loaf of bread.
Each time I open the door the smell gets a little bit stronger, gets a little bit worse - but I tell myself that they're still good, that I shouldn't throw them away just yet.
So I wait. And day in and day out the door opens and shuts, the light goes on and off and there they are - just waiting for me to take a chance on them. I don't know why I keep waiting for later or tomorrow or until I have more time just to clean out the fridge. And now, because I didn't want to face the problem head on, it only got worse. I foolishly didn't deal with it right then and there when I knew the truth about how those mysterious containters of greening pasta and greying vegetables were never going to amount to much.
I could have easily just thrown it all away and started fresh. That's what I should have done. But we're accustomed to holding on to the smallest and most ordinary of things and making them feel like they're worth so much more. And it's all just a waste. All of it. Keeping things thermally insulated doesn't always protect them, making them numb doesn't always make them go away.
And it's not until, until, until you can barely breathe when you open the door do you realize that there are some truths in life you can only avoid for so long.
Until, until, until.
It's like those mysterious tupperware containers in the back of my refrigerator. They've been there for a while, sitting and waiting in the back for me to reach in and take a chance on them. And I've been thinking about them, too, every time I open that refrigerator door and see their silhouettes slanted against the carton of milk, and the orange juice and the loaf of bread.
Each time I open the door the smell gets a little bit stronger, gets a little bit worse - but I tell myself that they're still good, that I shouldn't throw them away just yet.
So I wait. And day in and day out the door opens and shuts, the light goes on and off and there they are - just waiting for me to take a chance on them. I don't know why I keep waiting for later or tomorrow or until I have more time just to clean out the fridge. And now, because I didn't want to face the problem head on, it only got worse. I foolishly didn't deal with it right then and there when I knew the truth about how those mysterious containters of greening pasta and greying vegetables were never going to amount to much.
I could have easily just thrown it all away and started fresh. That's what I should have done. But we're accustomed to holding on to the smallest and most ordinary of things and making them feel like they're worth so much more. And it's all just a waste. All of it. Keeping things thermally insulated doesn't always protect them, making them numb doesn't always make them go away.
And it's not until, until, until you can barely breathe when you open the door do you realize that there are some truths in life you can only avoid for so long.
May 29, 2007
Listen to the tap.
You're tapping your foot. Do you like this song?
Pardon?
Tapping. You're (gestures to my foot) tapping your foot. That usually means you like the song.
Oh (I look at my foot and make it stop). Yes.
So you like jazz?
(What is it about jazz that makes men think things they normally wouldn't?)
Yeah, I do.
That's interesting.
Right.
Do you even know what song is this?
(What is it about a girl liking jazz that always makes men want to quiz you?)
It's Dave Brubeck (easy one) Pick Up Sticks.
Nice.
(I could have said Miles Davis or Coltrane, or Ricky Martin and he wouldn't have known the difference).
Yes, it is.
(then):
What's your name/where are you from/how long have you been in the city/what do you do/do you have a boyfriend?
(I answer all questions honestly and there's only one answer he pays attention to).
How do you not have a boyfriend?
Because (I say), I've yet to meet anyone who actually listens.
Pardon?
Tapping. You're (gestures to my foot) tapping your foot. That usually means you like the song.
Oh (I look at my foot and make it stop). Yes.
So you like jazz?
(What is it about jazz that makes men think things they normally wouldn't?)
Yeah, I do.
That's interesting.
Right.
Do you even know what song is this?
(What is it about a girl liking jazz that always makes men want to quiz you?)
It's Dave Brubeck (easy one) Pick Up Sticks.
Nice.
(I could have said Miles Davis or Coltrane, or Ricky Martin and he wouldn't have known the difference).
Yes, it is.
(then):
What's your name/where are you from/how long have you been in the city/what do you do/do you have a boyfriend?
(I answer all questions honestly and there's only one answer he pays attention to).
How do you not have a boyfriend?
Because (I say), I've yet to meet anyone who actually listens.
May 23, 2007
You know things are bad when...
You walk 12 blocks to Best Buy twice in one day to bring your computer that has been plagued by Blue Screen Of Death for the past few weeks (first trip to assess, second to drop off with appropriate CDs you’re surprised you even had). You spend $100 on System Recovery (whatever that is). You spend $130 on a new hard drive (you don’t even know what those really do). You spend $100 on installation (because how can you install something you don’t understand)?
You wait two days, happily thinking you’ve done what you always do, which is throw money at the problem and get good results. After spending $330 you walk 12 blocks back to the store and get that look that people who know things about technology always give you when they know you don’t know as much as you probably should. You feel bad about yourself. You feel even worse when you mentally factor how you’re going to pay next month’s rent with this huge financial blow. But you smile anyway because at least, you think to yourself, you’ll have your computer back.
You walk 12 blocks home, rub your hands together after you turn on your computer the way you do when you’re really excited about something. You wait. You are excited. Then after mere moments, you see none other than the infamous Blue Screen that you’ve come to hate (while still not really understanding it).
While waiting for your eyes to remember how to blink you consider your options: throw computer out the window. Give up on technology entirely. Buy pens with whatever money you have left (about $5) and learn better how to write more legibly by hand.
Instead, you call your friend to complain to him about your problem, knowing full well that complaining has never fixed anything, but it sure does make you feel better. Then you listen as he laughs in disbelief and tells you that maybe, just maybe, some peoples lives (yours) are simply just meant to always be Blue Screens.
Note: You can buy a 10-pack of Bic’s for $4.75. Donations are welcome. Preferably in black.
You wait two days, happily thinking you’ve done what you always do, which is throw money at the problem and get good results. After spending $330 you walk 12 blocks back to the store and get that look that people who know things about technology always give you when they know you don’t know as much as you probably should. You feel bad about yourself. You feel even worse when you mentally factor how you’re going to pay next month’s rent with this huge financial blow. But you smile anyway because at least, you think to yourself, you’ll have your computer back.
You walk 12 blocks home, rub your hands together after you turn on your computer the way you do when you’re really excited about something. You wait. You are excited. Then after mere moments, you see none other than the infamous Blue Screen that you’ve come to hate (while still not really understanding it).
While waiting for your eyes to remember how to blink you consider your options: throw computer out the window. Give up on technology entirely. Buy pens with whatever money you have left (about $5) and learn better how to write more legibly by hand.
Instead, you call your friend to complain to him about your problem, knowing full well that complaining has never fixed anything, but it sure does make you feel better. Then you listen as he laughs in disbelief and tells you that maybe, just maybe, some peoples lives (yours) are simply just meant to always be Blue Screens.
Note: You can buy a 10-pack of Bic’s for $4.75. Donations are welcome. Preferably in black.
May 20, 2007
because you can't plan the weather.
Sometimes when you lose something you never thought you’d ever really lose, you begin to realize you’re losing more than just that – you begin to realize you’re losing things like: time, your mind, the reason why you get up in the morning and breathe in and breathe out.
And people in Manhattan with their maps on bright and sunny Saturdays lose themselves and start to feel that panic too, that loss of time and their minds Haven’t we already been on this corner? Have we just gone around in a circle? Because we like things out in the open where we can see them. We don’t like things to be lost: keys, chances, loves, afternoons, favorite t-shirts. We spend our days trying to find things, recapture them or claim them. Get, not lose. Acquire, not let go.
But bright and sunny Saturdays can just as quickly turn to dark and stormy ones. And then lost tourists have no choice but to ditch their maps and run, accept the loss, the socks that won’t dry for another few hours, and their inability now to have enough time to make it all the way uptown to see the Guggenheim.
Now they do only what the rest of us do who feel like we’re losing things like time and our minds and the reason why we get up in the morning – simply take shelter and wait for the storm to subside.
And people in Manhattan with their maps on bright and sunny Saturdays lose themselves and start to feel that panic too, that loss of time and their minds Haven’t we already been on this corner? Have we just gone around in a circle? Because we like things out in the open where we can see them. We don’t like things to be lost: keys, chances, loves, afternoons, favorite t-shirts. We spend our days trying to find things, recapture them or claim them. Get, not lose. Acquire, not let go.
But bright and sunny Saturdays can just as quickly turn to dark and stormy ones. And then lost tourists have no choice but to ditch their maps and run, accept the loss, the socks that won’t dry for another few hours, and their inability now to have enough time to make it all the way uptown to see the Guggenheim.
Now they do only what the rest of us do who feel like we’re losing things like time and our minds and the reason why we get up in the morning – simply take shelter and wait for the storm to subside.
May 18, 2007
dysfunctional.
Someone sent this to me today.
I don’t know if I should be offended, or just take comfort in the fact that all of my friends have simply come to terms with the fact that I may never be in (or find) a successful relationship.
And it’s not me. It’s only me when it’s you. And it’s always you.
I don’t know if I should be offended, or just take comfort in the fact that all of my friends have simply come to terms with the fact that I may never be in (or find) a successful relationship.
And it’s not me. It’s only me when it’s you. And it’s always you.
May 16, 2007
lend a hand?
I never pay any attention to what’s going on. People who come to New York to visit always complain that New Yorkers don’t care about other people. They say that New Yorkers are mean spirited, they avoid you and just shake their heads impolitely when their group of tourists with maps and fanny packs, all standing in the middle of the sidewalk like no one else in the world exists, extend their arms an open their mouths with that we know is going to be a question of “Where am I?”
In our minds we say: You are already here. Just walk.
And it’s not that we’re rude or impolite, it’s just that in a city with so many people we covet those sacred moments when we get to be alone. When we can walk free and unobstructed (mostly) and clear our heads, out of the elevators and subways and busy offices that we’re crammed into all day long. And yes, of course we know how to get to Rockefeller Center from 70th and Park, but we’re not going to tell you how because you have a map(s), and even without a map(s), to us this city is the easiest place to navigate in the world, and you should, by all means, be able to just walk, and figure it out.
Sometimes, however, we have no choice but to stop and recognize the fact that no matter what we do we’re not alone here (or anywhere, really). On the 1 express train this morning I wasn’t paying attention, seriously reading The New Yorker, (funnily enough American Chronicles with Janet Lepore’s The Meaning of Life), when the woman standing next to me started yelling into the little speaker on the wall near the door which is marked in black and red: EMERGENCY BUTTON.
“HELLO? THIS IS…This is car number 6061 and we’ve got….we’ve got a MAN down near the doors laying on the ground….and people are trying to MOVE him and he’s NOT MOVING. Car 6061. There’s A MAN ON THE FLOOR and he’s NOT MOVING. WE NEED HELP.”
I have to admit, regrettably, that I first looked at her with a look of hateful irritation. Here we go, I thought. Another crazy person on my train, going to start yelling random things that don’t make sense. And it’s always my car. Why does it always have to be the car that I’m in that gets the crazy people? Of all the subway cars on all the lines in all the city…
Of course then I looked away from her, peered to my right, and saw it. What I saw at first as the crowd parted and people began muttering to themselves, was simply, a hand. Just a hand. There it was limp on the floor, palm face-up. Someone was attached to that hand but I couldn’t see them. They were on the floor tucked under the seat, blocked by people standing with spring coats and big shopping bags (at 8:30 AM?).
No one seemed to care. No one seemed phased. The one big thing we all seemed to manage was simply to look. We all just looked. The train stopped at 14th street and the subway conductor called for a doctor. As I left the train (to switch to the local) I saw the body attached to the hand on the ground - eyes closed, blue fleece jacket, light brown hair. He was someone.
To us we’re all just anybody. Could be anybody, we all thought. What can we really do about just anybody? People all around him were still. And my heart sank. I watched as they all just went back to their newspapers, silently upset that their few morning moments of peace and quiet on the subway were lost just because of somebody else’s someone.
In our minds we say: You are already here. Just walk.
And it’s not that we’re rude or impolite, it’s just that in a city with so many people we covet those sacred moments when we get to be alone. When we can walk free and unobstructed (mostly) and clear our heads, out of the elevators and subways and busy offices that we’re crammed into all day long. And yes, of course we know how to get to Rockefeller Center from 70th and Park, but we’re not going to tell you how because you have a map(s), and even without a map(s), to us this city is the easiest place to navigate in the world, and you should, by all means, be able to just walk, and figure it out.
Sometimes, however, we have no choice but to stop and recognize the fact that no matter what we do we’re not alone here (or anywhere, really). On the 1 express train this morning I wasn’t paying attention, seriously reading The New Yorker, (funnily enough American Chronicles with Janet Lepore’s The Meaning of Life), when the woman standing next to me started yelling into the little speaker on the wall near the door which is marked in black and red: EMERGENCY BUTTON.
“HELLO? THIS IS…This is car number 6061 and we’ve got….we’ve got a MAN down near the doors laying on the ground….and people are trying to MOVE him and he’s NOT MOVING. Car 6061. There’s A MAN ON THE FLOOR and he’s NOT MOVING. WE NEED HELP.”
I have to admit, regrettably, that I first looked at her with a look of hateful irritation. Here we go, I thought. Another crazy person on my train, going to start yelling random things that don’t make sense. And it’s always my car. Why does it always have to be the car that I’m in that gets the crazy people? Of all the subway cars on all the lines in all the city…
Of course then I looked away from her, peered to my right, and saw it. What I saw at first as the crowd parted and people began muttering to themselves, was simply, a hand. Just a hand. There it was limp on the floor, palm face-up. Someone was attached to that hand but I couldn’t see them. They were on the floor tucked under the seat, blocked by people standing with spring coats and big shopping bags (at 8:30 AM?).
No one seemed to care. No one seemed phased. The one big thing we all seemed to manage was simply to look. We all just looked. The train stopped at 14th street and the subway conductor called for a doctor. As I left the train (to switch to the local) I saw the body attached to the hand on the ground - eyes closed, blue fleece jacket, light brown hair. He was someone.
To us we’re all just anybody. Could be anybody, we all thought. What can we really do about just anybody? People all around him were still. And my heart sank. I watched as they all just went back to their newspapers, silently upset that their few morning moments of peace and quiet on the subway were lost just because of somebody else’s someone.
May 7, 2007
All ignorance toboggans into know.
What is funny is that you can be afraid of things no matter how old you get. You think you’d grow out of it, out of something as silly as being afraid. Because being scared of something seems to be directly associated in our brains to our childhoods – being afraid of the dark, of the next door neighbor’s German Shepard who at the time was relatively the same size as you, of clowns, of being alone, of getting yelled at for spilled ice cream on shirts, for getting a bad grade on a spelling test, or breaking that glass vase that’s been in the family for generations.
What’s funny is that when you get older it’s not that you’re no longer scared, you’re just scared of different things – scared of how you’ll look in the morning when it’s no longer dark, of the next door neighbor’s wrath after you accidentally ran over their German Shepard with your car, of clowns (still), of being alone (forever), of getting yelled at for doing your job wrong, getting fired, then not having enough money to pay the rent.
I left Manhattan for a few days on a plane and I remembered the first time I flew when I was in the first grade. I remembered that I loved to fly. I loved everything about it. How fast the wheels turned before take-off, the ascent into the clouds, the rumble of turbulence, the screeching jolt of the landing. I sat on my knees in the window seat and peered out in what now resonates only as embarrassingly naïve fascination.
Now, trapped between a portly fellow asleep and taking over more than his fair share of arm space, and a girl about eighteen with her quilted Chanel handbag ($1,995), crying before take-off through her pink phone to presumably a friend about how “totally not upset Sean was” about her leaving, and how he “is trying to act all like, mature like, you know, blah blah, like ‘call me when you land,’ or whatever. And I just want to be like, God! Just like be a teenager ya know? We’re not married”) – I started to feel the fear.
What if this is it? What if something happens and the wheels don’t turn fast enough before take-off and the ascent into the clouds is rocky and the rumble of the turbulence takes us out of the air before we can even think about the loud screeching jolt of the landing? And how could I not be afraid when my last image would be of Chanel Handbag applying a full (and might I add, excessive) makeup routine mid-flight lasting over a half hour after waxing sentimental about her future with Sean?
But everything, of course, was fine. My fear faded and we landed. Portly Man woke up and moved his arm so that I could actually sit back in my seat, and Chanel Handbag thanked me (though who am I really to be giving relationship advice?) and complimented me on my own bag, which I neglected to tell her cost me $10 on Broadway and Spring.
Planes and life up you, and up the stakes, and the older you get the more realize that you don’t outgrow being afraid like you did that favorite pair of pajamas with feet (in yellow). We are afraid of flying, of regrets, of missing out on the important things in life, like designer handbags and loving Sean and it just becomes a part of who we are, and we learn (hopefully) to deal with it, (mostly), because aisle, window seat or center, sometimes you just don’t have a choice.
What’s funny is that when you get older it’s not that you’re no longer scared, you’re just scared of different things – scared of how you’ll look in the morning when it’s no longer dark, of the next door neighbor’s wrath after you accidentally ran over their German Shepard with your car, of clowns (still), of being alone (forever), of getting yelled at for doing your job wrong, getting fired, then not having enough money to pay the rent.
I left Manhattan for a few days on a plane and I remembered the first time I flew when I was in the first grade. I remembered that I loved to fly. I loved everything about it. How fast the wheels turned before take-off, the ascent into the clouds, the rumble of turbulence, the screeching jolt of the landing. I sat on my knees in the window seat and peered out in what now resonates only as embarrassingly naïve fascination.
Now, trapped between a portly fellow asleep and taking over more than his fair share of arm space, and a girl about eighteen with her quilted Chanel handbag ($1,995), crying before take-off through her pink phone to presumably a friend about how “totally not upset Sean was” about her leaving, and how he “is trying to act all like, mature like, you know, blah blah, like ‘call me when you land,’ or whatever. And I just want to be like, God! Just like be a teenager ya know? We’re not married”) – I started to feel the fear.
What if this is it? What if something happens and the wheels don’t turn fast enough before take-off and the ascent into the clouds is rocky and the rumble of the turbulence takes us out of the air before we can even think about the loud screeching jolt of the landing? And how could I not be afraid when my last image would be of Chanel Handbag applying a full (and might I add, excessive) makeup routine mid-flight lasting over a half hour after waxing sentimental about her future with Sean?
But everything, of course, was fine. My fear faded and we landed. Portly Man woke up and moved his arm so that I could actually sit back in my seat, and Chanel Handbag thanked me (though who am I really to be giving relationship advice?) and complimented me on my own bag, which I neglected to tell her cost me $10 on Broadway and Spring.
Planes and life up you, and up the stakes, and the older you get the more realize that you don’t outgrow being afraid like you did that favorite pair of pajamas with feet (in yellow). We are afraid of flying, of regrets, of missing out on the important things in life, like designer handbags and loving Sean and it just becomes a part of who we are, and we learn (hopefully) to deal with it, (mostly), because aisle, window seat or center, sometimes you just don’t have a choice.
May 2, 2007
Might can could, possibly will.
We are all looking for something. The search is what keeps us going. We keep waking up every morning because how can we not? We think: this is it. This could be the day when we find It. This could be the day when all of our searching ends. It is this hopeful disillusion that subconsciously makes us smile as we drink our morning coffee, push through the crowds to work and then through the crowds on the way home.
True, sometimes we can’t help but look out at that person walking their dog or sitting on a bench along the park reading the Times as we pass them, frazzled and late to the office, and wonder, bitterly: don’t they have a job? Don’t they have somewhere to be? That must be nice, we huff, to have all that free time. But then we realize – they must have already found It.
Lucky them.
So we smile subconsciously, at the thought of our own personal searches, as the bus speeds us unsteadily across town, entirely unaware of two facts. One: that we may never really find what it is that we’re looking for. And two, (and this one is much more worrying than the first), we very well already have found it, but we’re just too stupid, too foolishly looking forward to what could be, to recognize what already is.
Luck will break your heart.
True, sometimes we can’t help but look out at that person walking their dog or sitting on a bench along the park reading the Times as we pass them, frazzled and late to the office, and wonder, bitterly: don’t they have a job? Don’t they have somewhere to be? That must be nice, we huff, to have all that free time. But then we realize – they must have already found It.
Lucky them.
So we smile subconsciously, at the thought of our own personal searches, as the bus speeds us unsteadily across town, entirely unaware of two facts. One: that we may never really find what it is that we’re looking for. And two, (and this one is much more worrying than the first), we very well already have found it, but we’re just too stupid, too foolishly looking forward to what could be, to recognize what already is.
Luck will break your heart.
April 29, 2007
Trouble.
It’s times like these, (Sunday nights when you realize you have to go back to your real life that you’ve just been spending the last two days trying to escape), that you think you can’t be bothered.
You can’t be troubled with things like:
The laundry
The dishes
Not meeting anyone
Meeting all the wrong ones
Drinking too much
Missing the train
Being late to work
That light bulb you’ve been meaning to change.
You can’t be bothered with these things anymore when all you can think about are the massive moments in life that you can’t do anything about.
It’s times like these (with the dishes in the sink and the lights still out), that you think about how you try to say out of it, how you’re told to keep away, to avoid at all costs – trouble.
But trouble is like a rain storm, even when you bring an umbrella (and are prepared enough to have brought one), it still gets you.
You can’t be troubled with things like:
The laundry
The dishes
Not meeting anyone
Meeting all the wrong ones
Drinking too much
Missing the train
Being late to work
That light bulb you’ve been meaning to change.
You can’t be bothered with these things anymore when all you can think about are the massive moments in life that you can’t do anything about.
It’s times like these (with the dishes in the sink and the lights still out), that you think about how you try to say out of it, how you’re told to keep away, to avoid at all costs – trouble.
But trouble is like a rain storm, even when you bring an umbrella (and are prepared enough to have brought one), it still gets you.
April 25, 2007
You know things are bad when…
On your desk you have the following:
1 empty (grande) Starbucks coffee (from 8:30AM) with The Way I See It #210 (Raymond Lawson “People should get out of their comfort zones on a daily basis. Take up knitting and boxing. It will make you so much more interesting”).
2 (empty) cans of diet coke.
1 empty (tall) Starbucks coffee (from 1PM) with The Way I See It # 195 (Helen Thomas “Always question the powers that be”).
And you realize:
You’re officially a year older.
It’s only 3:30.
And you have no idea how to knit.
1 empty (grande) Starbucks coffee (from 8:30AM) with The Way I See It #210 (Raymond Lawson “People should get out of their comfort zones on a daily basis. Take up knitting and boxing. It will make you so much more interesting”).
2 (empty) cans of diet coke.
1 empty (tall) Starbucks coffee (from 1PM) with The Way I See It # 195 (Helen Thomas “Always question the powers that be”).
And you realize:
You’re officially a year older.
It’s only 3:30.
And you have no idea how to knit.
April 24, 2007
Anyone lived in a pretty how town
Now that the weather is nice, people are making plans. Of course they don’t realize that this 80 degree streak isn’t going to last for the entirety of April and May. This will change soon, and it will get a little colder before Real Summer settles in for only about one month before it leaves the screen door as quickly as it came in. How easily people forget.
Regardless, they’re excited and talking about how now with the onset of sun and warmth they would like to leave the city to actually enjoy it. No one is ever satisfied. OK, so maybe when it’s hot in the city it can be a little disgusting, what with the millions of people all outside on the same sidewalks at once, sweating, complaining, walking slow (tourists), sweating, making the lines longer at the places you need to go, you know, like Starbucks.
But you have to embrace these people by just accepting and ignoring them. Accept the lines and ignore the slow walkers like you do that guy on the subway (who always seems to end up right next to me while I’m trying to read) who speaks loudly about finding Jesus and how we’re all sinners.
Everyone is dreamer of greener pastures (I think Central Park is just fine). Suddenly all my friends are talking about driving two hours to go camping, to get away from the pavement because apparently the sun is different there. I mean, I guess. I’ve never understood camping, probably because once you’ve seen one tree you’ve seen them all, and I hate bugs. There are few insects that I can really hang with (I know, I know, I’m such a girl), and those include the standard cute bugs like lady bugs and fireflies, both of which you can find in the Park.
Real Summer isn’t even here yet anyway. This is Fake Summer, also known as Spring, and I don’t think us city-dwellers need to go far to enjoy it. It’s supposed to rain this weekend anyway, and the temperature is slated to drop about thirty degrees. I think that’s going to be about the time all those campers are going to wish they weren’t so quick to quit the city, and had simply stayed here.
Regardless, they’re excited and talking about how now with the onset of sun and warmth they would like to leave the city to actually enjoy it. No one is ever satisfied. OK, so maybe when it’s hot in the city it can be a little disgusting, what with the millions of people all outside on the same sidewalks at once, sweating, complaining, walking slow (tourists), sweating, making the lines longer at the places you need to go, you know, like Starbucks.
But you have to embrace these people by just accepting and ignoring them. Accept the lines and ignore the slow walkers like you do that guy on the subway (who always seems to end up right next to me while I’m trying to read) who speaks loudly about finding Jesus and how we’re all sinners.
Everyone is dreamer of greener pastures (I think Central Park is just fine). Suddenly all my friends are talking about driving two hours to go camping, to get away from the pavement because apparently the sun is different there. I mean, I guess. I’ve never understood camping, probably because once you’ve seen one tree you’ve seen them all, and I hate bugs. There are few insects that I can really hang with (I know, I know, I’m such a girl), and those include the standard cute bugs like lady bugs and fireflies, both of which you can find in the Park.
Real Summer isn’t even here yet anyway. This is Fake Summer, also known as Spring, and I don’t think us city-dwellers need to go far to enjoy it. It’s supposed to rain this weekend anyway, and the temperature is slated to drop about thirty degrees. I think that’s going to be about the time all those campers are going to wish they weren’t so quick to quit the city, and had simply stayed here.
April 17, 2007
We gauge our lives by years.
I have a birthday tomorrow, and I have to admit I’ve never entirely understood celebrating birthdays. Maybe at one point they made sense, but all they make me feel now is nostalgic for the past, the way things used to be when birthdays were when I invited literally everyone from my grade school class, (even the kids I never talked to), and wore a party dress with a big bow and ate cake with pastel icing on it and played silly games like pin the tail on the donkey, and duck duck goose and that one where you try to drop as many clothes pins into a small jar as possible (personal record: 8).
And everyone brought a present. That’s when presents weren’t clothes but things you really needed – you know, toys. Birthdays were the only time during the year except Christmas where you could stock up on the essentials: Barbies, more Rubik’s cubes you swore you’d one day figure out, board games, fake food for your thriving four star restaurant in the basement, and the latest Disney movie on VHS to add to your collection.
Now it’s just a day where I can see how much everything has changed, (without cake or Barbie’s). A day that reminds me of all the things I haven’t done that I said I’d do by now. Birthday’s for grown-ups is really just one big kick in the face, a whole day dedicated to you to remind you just how much time you’ve actually been wasting.
I know that sounds cynical, but I’m a realist, and any good realist will tell you that birthday’s are complete crap. They’re the holiday equivalent of New Years. Why are we celebrating the passage of time? Shouldn’t we be sad to see it come and go? Another day? Another year? Another 365 days that you hardly feel were your own life at all?
And yet they’ve happened to you regardless. We gauge our lives by years but it seems to me we should gauge them by hours and minutes. That’s when the real stuff happens, the real dirt of life, the real messiness, the real living. I know we can’t celebrate ourselves every second of every day, but we should remember more that it’s not just our age that we should weigh ourselves by, rather, just how we get through every day.
Birthdays aren’t what they used to be because life isn’t the way it used to be either. It’s messy and real and fragile and it’s in those seconds you never think about that it happens. It comes at you fast, before you even have a chance to blow out the candles and wish that it didn’t.
And everyone brought a present. That’s when presents weren’t clothes but things you really needed – you know, toys. Birthdays were the only time during the year except Christmas where you could stock up on the essentials: Barbies, more Rubik’s cubes you swore you’d one day figure out, board games, fake food for your thriving four star restaurant in the basement, and the latest Disney movie on VHS to add to your collection.
Now it’s just a day where I can see how much everything has changed, (without cake or Barbie’s). A day that reminds me of all the things I haven’t done that I said I’d do by now. Birthday’s for grown-ups is really just one big kick in the face, a whole day dedicated to you to remind you just how much time you’ve actually been wasting.
I know that sounds cynical, but I’m a realist, and any good realist will tell you that birthday’s are complete crap. They’re the holiday equivalent of New Years. Why are we celebrating the passage of time? Shouldn’t we be sad to see it come and go? Another day? Another year? Another 365 days that you hardly feel were your own life at all?
And yet they’ve happened to you regardless. We gauge our lives by years but it seems to me we should gauge them by hours and minutes. That’s when the real stuff happens, the real dirt of life, the real messiness, the real living. I know we can’t celebrate ourselves every second of every day, but we should remember more that it’s not just our age that we should weigh ourselves by, rather, just how we get through every day.
Birthdays aren’t what they used to be because life isn’t the way it used to be either. It’s messy and real and fragile and it’s in those seconds you never think about that it happens. It comes at you fast, before you even have a chance to blow out the candles and wish that it didn’t.
April 12, 2007
You know things are bad when…
The person you went on a date with last week,
You suddenly see in the New York Times Style Section —
With a nice photo of him and his wife.
Whom he just married.
Two day ago.
You suddenly see in the New York Times Style Section —
With a nice photo of him and his wife.
Whom he just married.
Two day ago.
April 9, 2007
Vehicle for hire.
Why is it that in New York, at the exact moment you find yourself needing something you feel like you can’t get it?
Like, say, a cab?
(holding luggage, alone, 35th street, late at night, tired, cold)
You can’t find one. Or they’re all, lights out. And then you can see it in your head like a movie of your life going in fast forward, all those times you, standing on street corners looking at cabs you don’t need and you’ve never once seen so many with lights out. Not once.
And suddenly you hear yourself say, arm outstretched with your best finger-pointing-to-the-sky cab hailing move, out loud to no one in particular: Unbelievable. Is there like a cab shortage in the city all of a sudden? Have we run out of cabs? You’ve got to be kidding me.
And then the guy on the corner with the trendy glasses who heard you, (who you know always gets what he wants at the exact moment he wants it), looks at you with his best oh you poor unlucky girl smile, and shakes his head, and you realize, that you’ve become that New Yorker.
It was only a matter of time, anyway.
Like, say, a cab?
(holding luggage, alone, 35th street, late at night, tired, cold)
You can’t find one. Or they’re all, lights out. And then you can see it in your head like a movie of your life going in fast forward, all those times you, standing on street corners looking at cabs you don’t need and you’ve never once seen so many with lights out. Not once.
And suddenly you hear yourself say, arm outstretched with your best finger-pointing-to-the-sky cab hailing move, out loud to no one in particular: Unbelievable. Is there like a cab shortage in the city all of a sudden? Have we run out of cabs? You’ve got to be kidding me.
And then the guy on the corner with the trendy glasses who heard you, (who you know always gets what he wants at the exact moment he wants it), looks at you with his best oh you poor unlucky girl smile, and shakes his head, and you realize, that you’ve become that New Yorker.
It was only a matter of time, anyway.
April 4, 2007
Write it again, Sam.
When I think Marlene Dietrich all I can think of is her deep seducing voice singing “Falling in Love Again,” about how she never wanted to, but couldn’t help it. It’s so noir, so 1930’s, so in-your-face-femme that it makes me want to cut my hair and iron it into nice, short, un-moveable waves and dye it blonde.
When I think of Ernest Hemingway I think of lots of polydactyl cats hanging around Key West and how much I hated reading A Farewell to Arms in my Major Figure: Hemingway class in college. The book was too dramatic, too ridiculous, too frustrating in how long it took Henry and Catherine to get it together (and by “it” I mean them). I know, I know, love in the time of war can’t be easy, nursing jaundice and fighting Germans and then going AWOL and whatnot. Still, it’s a good thing I kept reading Hemingway long after my annoyance with those two faded away, because he came to be one of my favorite writers of all time (please see The Sun Also Rises and In Our Time).
Anyway, I know Ernest was a bit of a womanizer and never really knew what he wanted - however these letters have aided in brightening my overall already glowing opinion of him. All writers struggle with how to deal with the outside world because they don’t entirely know how to interact with other people. They aren’t good at voicing how they feel because they’re so used to (and are more comfortable with) keeping the world inside their heads. Intrinsically they are better off on their own, so I’m not surprised in a way, that Ernest spent a lot of his time isolated in the woods of Northern Michigan, was married four times and committed suicide at the age of 61. (Ok, so maybe I’m a little surprised - insanity did, after all, run in his family).
In 30 letters to Marlene from 1949 to 1959 (now a complete addition to the 31 she sent to him) Hemingway confesses his admiration for her in what experts have come to conclude as an entirely non-physical relationship: “What do you really want to do for a life work? Break everybody's heart for a dime? You could always break mine for a nickel and I'd bring the nickel.” I guess that’s one of the great things about having a writer fall in love with you – they can express it with more eloquence than most.
However, what I love most about this finding is that they were victims of un-synchronized passion. That even the irritating Henry and Catherine found the right timing, but Hemingway himself could not. Those times when he was out of love, she was deep in some romantic tribulation, and “on those occasions when Dietrich was on the surface and swimming about with those marvelously seeking eyes, I was submerged.”
What is it about timing that left these two sending ridiculously romantic letters to each other for at least ten years? Dietrich began a 1951 letter, “I think it is high time to tell you that I think of you constantly. I read your letters over and over and speak of you with a few chosen men. I have moved your photograph to my bedroom and mostly look at it rather helplessly.”
This whole finding has made me hate the fact the letter writing is a long lost art form. There’s something about email that doesn’t quite capture the personal quality that comes through with letters. Granted, some people (like myself) have horrible handwriting. For a long time I’d always longed to have those nice, bubbly, perfectly round letters that are directly associate with “girl” handwriting (though I found it highly offensive when they would dot their “I’s” with hearts), however I’ve come to accept my doctor-like scratch. And regardless, handwriting is a part of who you are, barely legible or not, and there’s something so open and raw about that. Writing by hand takes time, takes more thought and means more to the reader knowing that someone took the time to find a pen and paper and didn’t just push keys on a keyboard.
While I’ve never received a love letter, and don’t know that anyone in my generation ever actually has, I have to admit that I was reading their correspondence with one hand over my mouth in rapt-near-silence unlike I ever did while turning the pages of Farewell. Maybe that’s because sometimes just plain life is somehow always more interesting than what you’ll ever find in a book, no matter who writes it.
When I think of Ernest Hemingway I think of lots of polydactyl cats hanging around Key West and how much I hated reading A Farewell to Arms in my Major Figure: Hemingway class in college. The book was too dramatic, too ridiculous, too frustrating in how long it took Henry and Catherine to get it together (and by “it” I mean them). I know, I know, love in the time of war can’t be easy, nursing jaundice and fighting Germans and then going AWOL and whatnot. Still, it’s a good thing I kept reading Hemingway long after my annoyance with those two faded away, because he came to be one of my favorite writers of all time (please see The Sun Also Rises and In Our Time).
Anyway, I know Ernest was a bit of a womanizer and never really knew what he wanted - however these letters have aided in brightening my overall already glowing opinion of him. All writers struggle with how to deal with the outside world because they don’t entirely know how to interact with other people. They aren’t good at voicing how they feel because they’re so used to (and are more comfortable with) keeping the world inside their heads. Intrinsically they are better off on their own, so I’m not surprised in a way, that Ernest spent a lot of his time isolated in the woods of Northern Michigan, was married four times and committed suicide at the age of 61. (Ok, so maybe I’m a little surprised - insanity did, after all, run in his family).
In 30 letters to Marlene from 1949 to 1959 (now a complete addition to the 31 she sent to him) Hemingway confesses his admiration for her in what experts have come to conclude as an entirely non-physical relationship: “What do you really want to do for a life work? Break everybody's heart for a dime? You could always break mine for a nickel and I'd bring the nickel.” I guess that’s one of the great things about having a writer fall in love with you – they can express it with more eloquence than most.
However, what I love most about this finding is that they were victims of un-synchronized passion. That even the irritating Henry and Catherine found the right timing, but Hemingway himself could not. Those times when he was out of love, she was deep in some romantic tribulation, and “on those occasions when Dietrich was on the surface and swimming about with those marvelously seeking eyes, I was submerged.”
What is it about timing that left these two sending ridiculously romantic letters to each other for at least ten years? Dietrich began a 1951 letter, “I think it is high time to tell you that I think of you constantly. I read your letters over and over and speak of you with a few chosen men. I have moved your photograph to my bedroom and mostly look at it rather helplessly.”
This whole finding has made me hate the fact the letter writing is a long lost art form. There’s something about email that doesn’t quite capture the personal quality that comes through with letters. Granted, some people (like myself) have horrible handwriting. For a long time I’d always longed to have those nice, bubbly, perfectly round letters that are directly associate with “girl” handwriting (though I found it highly offensive when they would dot their “I’s” with hearts), however I’ve come to accept my doctor-like scratch. And regardless, handwriting is a part of who you are, barely legible or not, and there’s something so open and raw about that. Writing by hand takes time, takes more thought and means more to the reader knowing that someone took the time to find a pen and paper and didn’t just push keys on a keyboard.
While I’ve never received a love letter, and don’t know that anyone in my generation ever actually has, I have to admit that I was reading their correspondence with one hand over my mouth in rapt-near-silence unlike I ever did while turning the pages of Farewell. Maybe that’s because sometimes just plain life is somehow always more interesting than what you’ll ever find in a book, no matter who writes it.
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