A Femininomenon Summer

Summer, Nostalgia, Moments, and Friendship

Brat summer is winding down and none of us want it to end…Pumpkin Spice is overrated anyways. Simone Biles, Chappell Roan, Charli et al. continue to raise the roof for legends of an infinitely extending high-rise that is 2024 (the year of women) inching closer into orbit; Vice President Kamala Harris levitates past each story in the building’s elevator as the Democratic nominee for President, increasing in support and presence as each new goal is outdone; the next ceiling surpassed. Femininomenon. Powell announced interest rate cuts sans useful details (not very mindful, not very demure). Bennifer is no more. Hillbily Elegy called the kettle black. Sabrina Carpenter is really, really, really pissed. We miss Michelle and Barack Obama and anyone who watched the DNC feels energized. Hopeful. Inspired. A wee tired. A note: transparency on speech lengths is useful for producorial knowledge.

I’m growing my bangs (it’s been two years too long), going through menopause according to Gemini after googling my symptoms generated a newfound diagnosis, wearing flip-flops around the city a little too confidently, and drinking water out of a Pyrex measuring cup. I’m in the process of moving apartments and all items of necessity have been packed and ubered over (moving from Williamsburg to Greenpoint to live with Gemma, Emma, and Maggie!!!!!). I have limited items in the sunsetting apartment where I still reside and even fewer functional items accessible, including, but not limited to, a measuring cup I’ve supplanted as a water vessel, my “I LOVE NYC” airplane neck pillow that cost me $65 at LGA, nine different brands of blush in varying shades and textures, Meyer’s Rose room freshener, and a resistance band I don’t know what to do with from PT for my stress fracture (real diagnosis; real MRI) from running in heels to catch the L due to chronic lateness. Truly.

This summer’s yielded high marks. It’s been such a terrific past few months that I’m having the hardest time articulating and doing something with my gratitude for all the great memories: a trip to Coney Island for a bite of Nathan’s Hot Dogs with Maura; Johnny’s constant enthusiasm for the Pickle Jar; Talia’s recurring commute between NY and Boston; Baby blues with Rebecca; hours of facetimes at the laundromat where we forget to speak or that I’m in the bathroom with big sister WELCH <3; a Citibiking & drenched Michelle; a Kiki’s Goodbye dinner to Philly for Mel; Milo doing a pickle jar ad on Instagram; the conclusion of just me and Maggie being roomies at our sweet Williamsburg 5th floor walkup; a scavenger hunt convening in McCarren with the best of the best coupled with Garvey’s special birthday surprise; celebrating Ellie’s engagement; reading pages slowly while Emmanuelle reads impressively fast by the pool under a sky so blue it pierces and questions the very notion that magic doesn’t exist; tubing and singing to Fleetwood Mac in Smith Mountain Lake with Kales & co (Lauren’s knee tape = main character); laughing with my mom until we have to sit down to breathe simply because of my dad’s questionable dish choice of using a plate instead of a bowl to harbor his DNC snack pick: peanuts. “How many are you picking up at a time?” “One;” laughing with Gemma every moment of Summer (p.s. she is the best moral compass and sometimes an okay GPS); Hannah flying arduously and tirelessly to the East Coast and New York, despite flight delays and a reschedule, and fulfilling the game master prophecy; a Magnolia’s Banana-pudding birthday singing and dancing eve and a book of quotes dedicated to the Pickle Jar (G), printed and gifted; and, finally, to all the memories of this summer with roommates, old and new, coworker-turned-sisters-who-leave-you-for-another-job-but-you-still-forgive-them-because-they-became-instant-family-and-guardian-angels (Maya…come back), nmh-ers and uva-ers, Billon background actors, Julians (10/10 gifter), production assistant poets, and more. Noteworthy mention for a sadder moment of this summer, sobbing at Gemma’s on Bowery with Gemma and Emma during the last supper as we all wore black to mourn a New York pillar moving to San Fran (Anna: CA resident = derogatory). Still not over it Anna!!

In knowing each great moment will dissolve shortly thereafter, we sometimes attempt to pause the passage of time so we hold it back, gulping it down to squeeze it past our chest cavity for shelter. But before we can add in more preventative measures to harbor the memory, acid reflex arrives and the moment projectiles mid-air, expelled from our very being. Even though you’re the youngest you’ll ever be in this moment. And again now. And again, then. I’ve realized the best way to be grateful for great moments is to be fully present. When you’re back in (Chicago you feel it) your apartment alone after it’s all said and done, grab a Stewart’s diet root beer, fall asleep with your sunglasses on your head (because you use them as a hairband constantly due to embarrassingly long bangs), and play 2048 to maintain that summer feel. Personally, I’m awful at living in the moment given early onset nostalgia; I remember at eight years old feeling anxious, flabbergasted, and noticeably turning pale, upon realizing the sleepover or playdate of today, tomorrow will be no more. It might have also been from moving at a cadence growing up that I began to anticipate the rhythm of newness and goodbyes. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. I wish I could pause each memory the way Apple’s circa 2007 rainbow-colored circle would arduously spin anytime you had more than five applications open, freezing your computer in its tracks, only if it could freeze the memory while still being able to run in the present.

Fighting for a slice of the New York dream. Carrie Bradshaw says you’re always looking for one: an apartment, a job, or a boyfriend. I have the first two. I have the apartment just in the process of moving…I celebrated my birthday with an evening Mamma Mia Drag Show at 3 dollar bill (best night of my life) followed by a scavenger hunt around Williamsburg the next day I created that turned into a very wet and rainy adventure as we were met with an afternoon of stubborn thunderstorms that started and ended at Skinny Dennis...we never left. Notably (not most), an unnecessary and regrettable j-walking decision, coupled with the tire of a yellow taxi in Brooklyn hitting a flooded pothole, yielded an impressively cavernous tidal wave of New York rainwater to crash down on me as cars drove by both ways, washing away all anxieties with bits of sewage and cholera. To be a woman is to live a life of contradictions. At that moment, my life splashed before my eyes, and though a nebula of pompous self-judgment overcame me, all I could think of was my friends behind me. Back to Carrie’s point, when that flash flood of water soaked my white skirt in black sludge (hyperbole - it dried clear) would having a boyfriend really have saved me? Nope. See, at that moment, I turned around to see my friends huddle under the scaffolding (next to the FDNY Battalion on Metropolitan) cackling so hard runoff stormwater was dropping into agape mouths as their unison and vibrating laughter had them oscillating in the air like a school of fish darting through the ocean in Nemo. Though for a split-second I needed the SOS of the FDNY, once I remembered my friends were there, I squinted scrupulously through their snickers to see they were there calling back: So, when you're near [us], darling, we can hear [your] SOS!

I’ll leave you with this quote from Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life: I have never identified with a sentiment more.

“You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”

(sunglasses)