Howdy.

How’ve you been?

Coming to you live from a coffee shop in Brooklyn, from people watching and farmer’s markets to sipping martinis in 70s-inspired cocktail lounges, here are the wild things I’ve been up to as of late.

PEOPLE WATCHING

First off, a note on the journey here.

There’s something exciting about walking over to your gate at the airport and seeing what random sampling of humanity you will be traversing the continent with. I always try to figure out if they are coming or going, if they look exhausted or bright-eyed. Waiting for the plane, I was sitting near a mom with her two teenage sons and unintentionally hearing everything that they said. Or, what she said while they kind of just grunted and slouched deeper into their hoodies. Definitely going home. There was also a mom with her toddler in tow, who she kept telling Its okay baby, come on. I thought that was the sweetest thing because it made me think about how we all start off that way, needing someone to hold our hand and tell us that it will be alright, and then we learn how to hold our own hands. I was holding my own hand, but I remembered all the times that that mom might as well have been my own.

When we were taking off, I imagined that I was moving to New York, that I wouldn’t be back, just to see how it would feel. I expected sadness, but it just felt like relief. It was cathartic to watch the only world I have ever known grow smaller and smaller. When the wheels finally let go of the ground, I looked out the window and saw all of my memories blurring into the background. My high school football field, downtown, the freeways, all behind me now. I can’t tell you how freeing it felt to know that I would not run into any of them in the place where I was going.

As for the flight, the people watching only got more entertaining. Because the thing about airplanes is that you pretty much have to accept that anything that you watch or do or say is going to be a source of mild entertainment to someone else. Or maybe other people don’t pay attention, maybe they don’t care what you’re doing. But I do. I can’t help it. It’s raw material. Like the mom sitting in front of me, watching a Spanish soap opera that, I’m not going to lie, I might have to start watching now because for five hours I read the subtitles and all I have to say is, that Spanish class came quite in handy. Then, to my right, there was a girl my age shamelessly watching Love Island for the entire flight. Bold move. Every time I looked over someone was naked or kissing or crying, usually some drunken combination of the three. Brilliant.

When I got to my Airbnb, after completing the ever-arduous task that is locating your Uber in a sea of identical Ubers at JFK, in typical fashion, I had to carry my forty pound suitcase up two incredibly steep flights of narrow stairs, neither of which I would place must faith in the sturdiness of the railings. They looked like the stairs that my doll houses had as a kid. But that’s New York. It’s what we come for. We accept that a constant threat of death is inherent to historical charm. You can’t have one without the other.

ROOFTOP BARS IN BROOKLYN

In other news, dreams do come true. I climbed a dark set of stairs and looked up to see the string lights of an actual Brooklyn roof top bar waiting for me. I thought of all of the times that I have written and dreamed about those lights, about all of the times that I imagined my 20s and saw those lights hanging over them. And then there they were, illuminating a world I was stepping into for the first time. I walked over to the bar, ordered a rosemary gimlet, and drank it while sitting at a table with a view of the empire state building, all lit up. I was the only one alone, which feels a bit like sitting in a restaurant alone, but I had New York. That was enough. I texted my older brother a photo of the scene and he sent back I’m so excited for you to start that part of your life. Me too.

But the thing that stood out the most to me? The life. It was ten p.m on a Thursday night, but everywhere you looked, it might as well have been the middle of a Saturday afternoon. That’s what New York is like. Alive. There were soccer games and guys running around the track and friends out to dinner. There was a photoshoot happening in the middle of the street, some bedazzled model holding a purse up to her face, friends laughing. There was a guy walking down the street with a box of pizza, casually eating a slice as he looked around at his world. I realize these might not sound like strange things. You might tell me that I need to get out more. But I’m telling you, there’s an energy to it all. It’s like there’s music perpetually playing, and everyone is moving in sync with it.

THE SOUND OF NEW YORK

I’m a homebody. Just ask my family. Growing up, it didn’t matter where we went, I was always ready to come home. I loved nothing more than the comfort of my familiar routine in my familiar space. Until I came here. It could not be more different from California, more foreign or far away, but there is something in me that belongs among it all. It comforts me as if it were my home.

For one, there’s the sound. I think it was perhaps the first thing that I ever loved about New York. It’s six a.m and I’m listening to that sound through an open window in Brooklyn. I’ve missed it. An engine is always running, a delivery truck beeping, a toddler squawking. But it’s not just honking horns and car alarms, its birds singing and the distinctive sound of wind rustling through the trees. I don’t know if others notice the sound of the trees, but when you grow up in California with nothing but palm fronds silently waving, you notice it. It doesn’t matter how hot it is, I have to open the window to hear it.

Another thing I love about New York is that you can step out of your door and be in the middle of everything. You don’t have to think about where to go or if there will be parking or traffic on the way back. It’s all just right outside of your door. And the thing about Brooklyn is that you get that, but combined with a communal, neighborhood feeling. I walked over to a coffee shop this morning and saw parents dropping their kids off at school and hipster couples pushing baby strollers and old men reading the newspaper in the park. There were construction workers and joggers and young people carrying books their canvas tote bags. You feel connected to something amidst all of that. Some people don’t understand why I like to come here alone, how that could be fun, if I get bored, lonely, etc. But you’re not alone, not when you’re here. I feel less alone here than I do anywhere else.

NIGHTLIFE

A note on nightlife. I’ve noticed that whenever a new world opens up to me, I try to use that opening to pry my way into feeling normal. When I got to public high school, I tried out dances and football games and all of the things that I felt like I was supposed to enjoy. It only took a few of them for me to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t the kind of person who would ever enjoy these things. I knew who I was, and that made my life in high school a lot harder. But then I got to college and it was all new again and there were parties and clubs to join and all of the things that they tell you will be so much fun. So tried them. I crossed my fingers and hoped that it just be easy and that I would find people like me. But it all felt like going through the motions. None of it sparked joy. Not like writing at a coffee shop or walking through the city or cooking dinner in the evening does. And so that made college a lot harder too. But I chose it that way. I made peace with those tinges of FOMO on Friday nights because I knew I wasn’t actually missing out on anything. I knew that if I were out with a group of friends at some party that I would just be looking for the door. These things gave me a clear sense of who I was, even if they hurt at first.

But now I’m twenty-one and that means that another world has opened. Another world that I am learning how to swim through. So I’m ordering cocktails and going to bars and doing the things that twenty-one allows me to do. And it’s fun, it is. I feel so alive when I’m walking down twinkling streets among photoshoots and friends laughing over dinner. But even still, I find that I’m so much more excited for Saturday morning than Friday night. I would so much rather walk to get a coffee at the crack of dawn and go to the farmer’s market and sit in the park under the rustling trees. I feel more connected to the people in the café at seven a.m than I do to the people in the bar at ten p.m. I like morning people. I like coming to coffee shops after waking up and listening to neighbors greet each other and ask how the kids are over their flat whites and chai lattes. Plus, I feel drunk enough off of just being in New York. I don’t need alcohol to heighten anything. I’m practically falling over just walking down these streets sober.

That being said, I have been exploring all of the coolest bars purely just to experience sitting inside of them. Which, is very fun. I went to one that was decorated like a 70s lounge with a DJ playing actual records in the back. It felt like a scene from a movie.

After leaving the 70s lounge, I went to DUMBO to see the lights. It was probably around nine or ten p.m, but again, it looked like the middle of the day. There were little kids running around and an entire group of teenagers on some organized expedition, each wearing orange shirts. The carousel spun round and round, forks clinked on dinner plates. It was so effortlessly alive. And the view? It looked like an entire galaxy of stars, twinkling at my fingertips.

SATURDAY: PRETENDING TO BE A LOCAL

Saturdays in New York mean farmer’s markets and couples reading on picnic blankets in the grass and people carrying beach towels on the G train to Coney Island. I stopped by the Union Square Farmer’s Market this morning, ended up in Chelsea, trekked down to SoHo, and caught the train back to Brooklyn. I was also asked for directions by some tourists which is always funny and flattering because I am definitely also lost, but it must not show. This was confirmed again later when a guy from the train asked how long I’ve been living in New York. Uh, two days.

This pretending to be a local is my favorite thing about traveling. I love to just go somewhere and pretend like I live there. I don’t set up an itinerary or buy tickets to a millions things or stay in a hotel, I rent an Airbnb and buy groceries and walk to the local coffee shop in the morning. I’ve already seen the Statue of Liberty and Times Square. I’m far more interested in the things that can’t be seen from a Google search. I think you get a more raw view of the world that you have traveled to that way.

Also, here is some street graffiti from SoHo that especially spoke to my soul.

Happy Sunday. ❤

Love always, m.

JOIN THE FUN

Subscribe to give your inbox something to forward to.