Archive | City Matters
Paris, Our Sister
I’ve been awake for hours, early even for me except it’s not really my time I’m on but the time of the Parisians, many of whom will not be able to wake up from this nightmare for months to come. We longtime New Yorkers have a sense of how this feels. But each time the insouciance of daily life is replaced by an unanticipated human-made disaster of this scale, the nature of the living nightmare is horribly unique. Only one thing remains the same: that there is no true rest for a long, long time. I am sending love, so much love–the energetic equivalent of a cool hand upon the forehead. At this rawest of hours (at every hour, really) it is everything that we can give.
Autumn of My Discontent
Begin here. It is Monday and deadlines once again loom. I have films to watch, review copy to write, eyebrows to wax. I have done what I can to prepare—my laundry is done, my house is spotless, meals has been cooked for the week. And once again almost everything on my to-do list is something I like. But aspects of this week require Churchill’s “courage to continue,” and my nervous system registers this shrilly. Just another day on the IRT, as they used to say. To abate my anxiety, I can take another dance class; I can go down to the water and make some offerings; I can plan an end-of-day drink with a friend. I will likely do all of these things. But the blank slate that I desire—a week of fireplaces and tromps through the woods and reading by the fire and gorgeous meals I did not cook and ogling big skies—still evades me. Even yesterday I was pulled into action. The sun was bright, friends were in town, errands demanded to be run. I was a blur.
I am lucky enough to have realized some of the dreams of my youth, and to know I may realize even more. But today, this fall, this year, my fantasy is so prosaic that I am amused that it keeps moving out of my reach. Utopia: perfect place, no place. Ah, well. Perhaps I will have a Winter of My Content.