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| A Gits in her natural state |
Thursday I hit the road bright and early under the banner of a sun-washed sky. The mountains looked ridiculously picturesque. Vermont was showing itself to its full advantage as if to say "you SURE you want to leave me?" Fuck yes I'm sure, I have actual humans to hug and about seventeen slices of pizza to consume. Toodeloo VT.
I scooped up my pal Kyle and his very cool dog friend Ted and away we went. Thing were boding well. We stopped in a place called Pottersville and sat at a for real old timey lunch counter and struck up a convo with our no-nonsense waitress Jerri and two old locals who were marveling at my ability to put away a huge club sandwich the side of a small child in a matter of minutes. When a cordial septugenarian asked how I worked up such an appetite I told him, "I'm a farmer!" I realized I'd never said that out loud before.
As I'd anticipated, I had an immediate and visceral reaction to crossing into New York state from Vermont. The second I saw the sign I got this tickly feeling like how I used to feel when I had taken acid and knew it was starting to kick in -- spoiler alert I did acid -- as though tiny elves were poking at my lower back with feathers. A combination of
With just about no brushes with death, I delivered Kyle safely to his adorable parents' house in Westchester and then proceeded to take a series of wrongish turns (fuck you Google maps for real) that forced me onto the West Side Highway smack dab in the middle of rush hour. Oh New York. You sure know how to welcome a girl back into the fold.
But I was unsinkable. As I blasted my Handsome Boy Modeling School cd (the fucking nineties are back haven't you heard?) I smiled like a damned buffoon peeping all the humans on bikes and walking and living their lives, feeling a swell of generosity and love towards everyone I saw that felt truly drug-addled. I hollered at the High Line as I passed - - "HI ...... line!" and dissolved into fits of giggling as I inched interminably toward the Battery Park Tunnel. Oh the good looking ladies and gents astride their CitiBikes! Even when the mild annoyance of having been inside of a car for 9 hours began to surface it was but a faint mosquito-like buzz.
Crossing into Brooklyn was a relief. I parked (without dying or damaging property or ANYTHING!) and carted my ass to Bethany's apartment, where we hugged for a good 45 seconds (girl is an expert hugger) and then dispatched a truly glorious bottle of Cru Beaujolais that made me feel like the most pampered bitch in all of the land. Then it was off to the Apollo Theater to see Chromeo. In all of my time as a musically inclined New Yorker, I'd never seen a show at the Apollo -- largely, I suspect, because I was too lazy to make the trek to fucking Harlem -- and was amped to get to see the majestic glory of it. I proceeded to drink a fuckton of tequila, dance my ass off as I teetered on the steep rockface of our backrow seats, and spontaneously stumble on a new political mission, which was to compliment as many people as I could, especially women. "Don't take this wrong but you're gorge," I said as unlecherously as possible to the silken haired youth in the world's tightest jeans. "You guys are gonna make the coolest parents!" I screeched at a dancing couple, the lady of which was mega-preg. It all of a sudden felt like my life's purpose to inject positivity into every fucking interaction I encountered. Was this the Vermont in me seeping out? Or just the Beaujoulais/tequila cocktail?
I'll give you a hint: it was the latter. By the time we returned to Brooklyn, whereupon I insisted in hollering at my long lost love pizza, I was making violent threats towards hapless MTA workers and generally connecting with my more aggro drunk New York self. Bethany tucked me into bed with a belly full of pizza and I woke up to find a series of texts from the various ex boyfriends I'd sent messages to in my ebullient drunken haze.
Some things never goddamned change.
Friday was when the scales began to tip. I descended upon my best boo Heela and her tiny darling baby child Lila Jo, who is quite possibly the smiliest thing that's ever existed. I met up with my homeboy Dan and he took me to lunch at Prime Meats, where I had my second turkey club in as many days and saw his killer apartment. An old, naggy feeling started to creep over me -- the one in which I began comparing myself to my peers and coming up veryveryveryvery short. With few exceptions, my friends have all arrived at levels of professional success and financial security and general life stability to afford them nice, clean, well appointed apartments and healthy romantic partnerships. They went through the usual paces, not without struggle of course, but wound up more or less set up in the stations that early and mid-thirties humans are supposed to dwell in. And I am 35 (almost), single with zero prospects and shovel goat shit for minimum wage (basically). How did this happen?
I mean, I sort of know how this happened. I chose it. I knew what I was getting into. But it isn't as though I abandoned the path that would have lead me to a different outcome. I was never on that path. Never anywhere near it. I wouldn't know how to find the damned path if I tried. Not with a compass or high tech GPS and CERTAINLY not with Google Maps. Fuck Google Maps.
I was adamant about walking as much as I could from point A to point B, the goal being to soak up as much New York as I could, ideally with my headphones in like I was in a damned music video. But like every other fucking person I passed on the street, I was instead glued to my iPhone device, looking at maps, trying to figure out how to log into my email and otherwise taking for granted the thrum of activity around me. I forced myself to look up occasionally, to take in the smell of roses blooming in the fronts of peoples' brownstones and the dude cursing and speaking Arabic in front of the automechanic and similar. I reprimanded myself for so quickly and unceremoniously slipping back into the narrow self-absorption of daily life in New York.
Buoyed by pure joy and anticipation upon my arrival, I could feel my face open and smiley as I walked down the street and boarded the subway, but within hours I had my guards up again -- you aren't supposed to let people know you're looking at them, aren't supposed to make eye contact with strangers or notice them noticing you, lest you invite unwanted interaction. I stood on the subway and could physically feel my facial expressions start to change, my openness shuttering protectively and the simultaneously excited and vulnerable sensation of having strangers' eyes on me.
I realize now that the subway was to me what the cheese cave is now -- a meditative space. I found myself looking at and assessing people, judging them harshly at first and then unpacking my judgment. The Indian dude wearing a Bourne Ultimatum baseball cap: why the fuck was he wearing that? Did he think that made him look cool? Did he LOVE that movie so much? Did he work on it and was it thus an emblem of pride? Was it something he got as a freebie and wore because he didn't have other hats? Did he like how his face looked better when we had a baseball hat on? The skinny, made up young black girl with perfectly a ringlet-ed ombre weave and a silk bomber jacket and menacingly lacquered talons, who I went back and forth between admiring for taking such obvious pride in her appearance and reviling for being so obviously vain. The tall, chubby glamazon with a spackled porcelain face and bright orange lipstick, vinyl pants and big gold sunglasses, who clearly put a lot of effort into her look in defiance of her non-hot waif-like appearance.
By the end of Day 2, I was tired and defeated. I turned in early and lie in bed wracked with anxiety, weighted with a nearly physical pressure on my chest, ashamed and inadequate and foolish feeling.
And then on Day 3 everything was magical again. Divine providence fairly rained down upon me for the remainder of my visit, guarding me from potential property damage, drunken weepiness, financial ruin or social anxiety and didn't remit until I found myself cashless on the Triboro Bridge heading out of town and proceeded to enrage a line of cars behind me as I waited for a police officer to sign off on a mail-in payment ticket. Oh New York. You sure know how to send a girl packing.
In so many ways, this trip was the polar opposite of my first visit back to the city -- my expectations were minimal and were exceeded at every turn. Nearly every day was jammed full of organic, happenstance hangs with people I loved, and I ate and drank the best foods ever and it wasn't disgustingly hot out and the city just enveloped me in a comfortable and loving embrace and then smacked me on the ass as I left (see above).
I went for a rain-soaked run in Prospect Park, ate brunch and dished on wieners with my friend Meelz, ran into my old roommate Kristina, waddled around the Brooklyn Flea and contemplated buying a totally backless dress that some might call an "apron" before realizing LOL I'm a broke ass farmer and can't afford anything. When I approached my old neighborhood and saw the old familiar billboards and street signs, I fully expected to feel pangs of nostalgia and longing -- two things I excel at -- but was surprised and delighted to feel instead a comfortable joy, marveling, as all those who leave New York do, at all the things that have changed since my departure. I got only minorly pissed at the lady trying to price gouge me into a spa pedicure I did not request at the nail place, spent roughly $15 on non-alcoholic beverages, and managed to visit both my old place of employ and my old apartment without becoming panicky or lacrymose. I saw not one but two ex-boyfriends, drank good fucking coffee, danced on a rooftop to Taylor Swift (kill me) while a swollen, Doritos-hued moon hung pregnant in the sky and tripped drunkenly up my old avenue, all the while not crying or doing anything self-destructive. I went to Long Island to see a baby get named and cried enough for the whole week seeing my beautiful friend and her beautiful family in a beautiful place full of love. (Seriously someone stop me.) I walked and walked and walked for miles in my little corset sandals, narrowly avoided getting many parking tickets, popped into a newly opened and buzzed-about boite and was pleasantly surprised at how un-clusterfucky and generally awesome and genial it was. I chatted with people I might otherwise have been too intimidated to engage with but felt effortlessly at ease with, emboldened by my farmer muscles and a half-bottle of Pineau D'Aunis to the face. The stakes were so low they were barely visible.
New York I love you.
No Buts.
I felt only a little bit sad as I pulled away from the Triboro Bridge (after a fucking million years and a lot of sweating). I know now that I can go back whenever I want. Crossing back into Vermont, whereupon I imMEDiately bought three large bottles of Polar seltzer in assorted flavors and breathed the heavy green air into my lungs voraciously, I felt less giddy at the prospect of the unknown and more resigned to the known -- more grueling work, more solitude, more physical and emotional toiling. New York is a vacation now the same way Vermont used to be. I got just a tiny, charmed glimpse of my old city, enough to be smitten with it once again.
As for Vermont, it's not home yet. I'm not sure what it is, or how to feel about it. I was glad to be back in the cave this morning, and to nuzzle my goat pals on my way out for my afternoon break. And right now, this moment, that's enough.
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