Howdy.

How’s your world?

Someone commented that I should write about happier things and I thought that that was pretty funny considering that I’m just writing about my life. Also, I think that I do write about happy things? What I love most about writing is that even if it is about heartbreak or loss, by the end of it, I’ve usually arrived at some larger, uplifting meaning. That’s kind of how life works, right? If you want “happy”, go watch a hallmark movie. If you want real, messy things that hopefully make you feel less alone, stay awhile. That’s what I’ve got.

Here are some real things that have been on my mind lately.

ON MY MIND

I went swimming for the first time all summer today. Every year I forget how quiet the world gets when you are underwater and how that quietness has a way of making you feel more human. As I floated on my back and stared up into the July sky, I thought of all of the summers where that sky looked like sadness, like heartbreak, like a baby blue dome containing me inside of something I didn’t know if I would ever crawl out of. But when I looked at it today, it just looked like sky. Like plain, beautiful sky.

I’ve also officially turned on the air conditioner, meaning summer has begun. There’s something nostalgic and cozy about taking a shower after a long day at the beach and relaxing in the cool air with a bowl full of cherries and an episode of Suits. It’s quite fun until you realize that the air won’t be shut off again until November, but we don’t have to think about that. I only have one more fall of hot weather anyway, one last summer in San Diego, before New York shows me what October can really do.

Speaking of New York, I’ve been really into watching these dorky history videos by tomdnyc on YouTube lately. He basically walks around New York and tells you all of these really interesting things about beautiful old buildings or the sewer systems or the story behind a certain sandwich shop. For example, I watched a whole episode on the history of the New York bagel last night. But what I really love about the videos is that they remind me of why I think I fell in love with New York at all. It’s saturated in stories. I remember visiting Ellis Island with my family as a kid and being in awe of the history that seemed to still be alive all around me. I felt like all of those immigrants were ghosts and that they were among us. It felt like being connected to something larger than myself. Later, when I first returned to New York on my own as an adult, that same feeling followed me down every street. I loved that old warehouses and factories that had long since been turned to apartments still whispered secrets of the Industrial Revolution to me as I passed them by. I could see the little boy with his suspenders and hat, handing out newspapers. I could smell the toxins that poisoned our air with indifference. I know it was, truly, an abhorrent time in history, but the industrial era was always my favorite to study. Being in New York is like living inside of all of those textbooks that I used to get lost in. I can feel the ghosts. I can hear their stories.

BOOK TALK

On the note of stories, my latest favorite thing about being a barista is asking people what book is in their hands. I think they think that I’m just making small talk but I actually need to know what they are reading with an intensity that I cannot explain. My motives are purely selfish. I have many random lists of scouted titles that I thought sounded like they could change my life or break my heart. Recently I have scouted one LSAT prep textbook, one parenting manual, two summer beach reads, and a few zines from the harmless hipsters. There’s one guy who always come in with a different book and I can never remember if he likes cream in his coffee or not but I do remember that it was Don Quixote last week and an essay on love this week that made him blush to admit. I saw him smoking a cigarette in the alley when I took the trash out and now it’s basically an indie film summer love affair just waiting to happen. Will keep you posted.

As for my own reading, I have been exploring Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking while rereading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. I recommended the latter to someone recently and when they talked to me about it, I felt compelled to excavate my own copy from my shelves. Flipping through it, I realized that I am rereading not only O’Brien, but also myself. When I first read it at seventeen, I underlined and made little notes all throughout the book that reveal who I was back then. Reading those is like reading little journal entries that I have forgotten about.

To mark or not mark books is a heavily debated topic among readers, but my belief has always been that it is a form of preservation, not unlike journaling. Underline the words that mean something to you today, then read it again next year and see what has changed. Use a different color each time, and when you look back, you are holding not just the author’s visions, but a running collection of your own. It’s a way to document what has mattered to you, what has made you feel something or really think. I have quite a collection of journals stretching back to childhood, but I have even more if you count the books that I have marked. They all serve as records of who I have been and what I have loved and what I thought was beautiful.

I dated a guy once who gave me his copy of Brave New World to read and told me that I could underline it, that he wanted me to. I thought that that was a beautiful way to get to know someone. But sometimes I think about how I essentially tattooed that book and about how every time he opens it, he will see the underlined sentences and passages that meant something to me. I broke up with him, so I tend to feel pretty bad about that, but I suppose it’s sort of like a metaphor too. We let people mark us up. We lend them our hearts and we never get them back in the same condition. They retain the fingerprints and messages of all of those that we have let love them. He let me love his book and he will always have the proof of that. I think that’s pretty cool.

A THESIS FOR LIFE

To close, a bit of Kurt Vonnegut. I found this gem of a quote the other day from said legend:

“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?

And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is — we’re here on Earth to fart around.

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”

Let’s all get up and move around a bit right now… or at least dance.

-Kurt Vonnegut

Not only is this just quintessential Vonnegut, but it’s also something of a thesis for life. I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying an envelope. That’s all. That’s it. Just that.

Love, m.

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