Heading Home Again

shit!

When I swore for the first time, I shrieked the word Shit in our family friend’s garden because the sprinklers soaked me silly when I ran through them on purpose. I had been waiting for this moment - an excuse to swear - for eons. I was eight. This was my baptism, my bat mitzvah, my big break, my rite of passage: my time to finally curse. I remember looking up to the house where the adults were enjoying their morning coffee as I said my swear word of choice. I scanned the peripheral area, shifting my eyes side to side, squinting, like a cartoon fox playing a villain, fingers crossed that someone had witnessed…And someone did. That someone was my mother. Unamused by my ploy to curse loudly and proudly. I was later enrolled in cotillion for the next three years at the American Club in Hong Kong, naturally, as expected. As an only child, a redhead, and an American with a British accent in a sea of intimidation, good manners and learning how to dance with boys was purgatory. I still can’t dance for shit.

It’s May again and nearly June and Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese is calling like the world calls to us for our imagination.

Sofie, Sophie, Me…February??

Max, Chris, Sofie…May!!!

In this year’s past I’ve been blessed with a gold mine of fellow part-time journalists that is our wee cohort. Credits to Chris Troop for the picsssss…We’ve officially finished two semesters/one year/year-one-but-there’s-also-summer-class-before-another-year-so-not-halfway-yet of the master’s, and still can’t (never could) form a complete thought or write a coherent sentence but I don’t think any number of years in grad school will fix that. Do not walk on your knees.

This isn’t Mary Oliver. It’s my Notes app from sitting in Sheep’s Meadow on Saturday with Gemma (naturally). I really thought I was doing something when I jotted this down…confused? Me as well. I think what I was trying to get at is that we should all really do more handstands, shift our points of reference, climb up to a higher step or lie down in Central Park to stare up at the clean blue air. The daunting reality is that we’re the wild geese, heading home again to love what we love, over and over announcing our place in the family of things. And in the process of getting up and heading home, we shifted our perspective, and everything we’ve ever thought doesn’t matter…the world goes on.

Anyways, I’ve always been a bit shit at prioritizing sleep. As you might have deduced from when I publish these. I’ve tried to go to bed early but I just don’t think it’s in the cards for me. But I do love an 8pm nap in the middle of the climax of a movie I picked and convinced everyone to watch, wearing horse riding clothes, smelling like hay, horse and horseshit, sprawled on a friend’s couch, entangled in a blanket (naturally).

I used to stay up so late when I was younger that now it’s somewhat nostalgic; secretly staying awake when I was thirteen was my favorite rebellion (only after cursing proved far too public of an offense to be worth the thrill). And I know sleep is vital…Harvard says it messes with learning ability, quality of life, health and safety, I’d probably form better sentences if I slept more…But somehow its comforting to not sleep (early). When the world’s still for just a few thoughts, a few breaths, a few minutes, as you lie there awake, it’s an unofficial pause on the unruly to-do list and things you keep forgetting but only think about before bed. Just hearing the wind search for sanctuary in the siloed heat of the summer humidity and knowing the hum of your $30 amazon dehumidifier is more of a sound machine than an air whisperer is somehow a relief…it’s all just a load of horseshit.

I remember when I was thirteen and I couldn’t fall asleep for the life of me. It was excruciating. I tried playing Sam Smith’s new album (In the Lonely Hour) to fall asleep to on my iPod nano, count sheep, lay on the floor, swap sides - nothing worked. So I called for my mom. And she got into bed with me, took one earbud of my wired headphones as I kept the other in my right ear, hers in her left. And we listened to Simon & Garfunkel’s America on a loop until I fell asleep. There’s not a song as nostalgic nor soothing. As we hummed in sync to, I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why, an unspoken empathy ran through the wires of my headphones between us that it would be alright; I didn’t know what wouldn’t be but if or when it didn’t, it would be okay in the end…all the doubt and cruel realities of life. But in that moment, I’d fall alseep, she was sure, and it would be okay even though the moment didn’t last forever. And it didn’t and I’m not thirteen anymore. But I fell asleep and I will cherish the feeling of that moment always.

“Kathy, I’m lost”, I said, though I knew she was sleeping

I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike

They've all come to look for America.”

Italy, not America. Me. Mom.

There’s a Magnolia Bakery cake in the kitchen from Emma’s birthday that Maggie, Gemma, Emma and I have been nibbling at all week. It’s quite the treat. Coming home from the pangs of the day to a Magnolia’s yellow sponge cake with the best pink buttercream frosting is a true luxury. And this was a beast of a cake. I’m writing things down and forgetting to read them. Is it the act of reviewing that’s important or the act of writing it down on a page? I’m screenshotting things and never looking at them, except for poems or that cake recipe for Sophie’s bake sale…even though I was already reading the Betty Crocker’s box mix instructions.

Meanwhile the wild geese’ll never know the nostalgia of an iPod Nano or screenshots…but they’ll know what it’s like to head home again. And while we might not have the act of returning to our youth, we sure remember the feeling of it or think of it fondly. Like eating cake when you get home from the day, watching a grandpa on the subway act with the utmost urgency and dismay at an untied shoe lace or setting up a surprise curated home video installation to celebrate a 30th birthday, those are all moments to me that feel like heading home from a long day at school when we dreamt of what we thought the future would be.

And another way of finding that nostalgia…the beach…happy almost summer folks.

Australia. Mom. Me.

Things that have caught my attention recently:

• Community amidst war: As reported by AP, this grandmother in Lebanon is serving breakfast as airstrikes decimate her home country as she lives in a tent in a town that’s not her’s. Displaced and forced to flee the suburbs and find refuge in Beirut as military action persists, she’s making nearly 4,000 pieces of Lebanese flatbread daily. Run entirely by donations.

• CBS Radio went silent today after a 99 year run (if they were going to lay off all of their staff and eradicate the airwave era, they might as well have waited until they reached the 100 years).

• Another CBS headline: the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired tonight. Gone but not forgotten. Check out his final monologue below.

• This song is my new favorite song to run to…and ride the subway to….and walk home from work to.

• Purchase an iPod Nano!!! (click)

• The Times’ 36 Questions that Lead to Love should only be used for entertainment on a slow/stay home night on a girls trip. If you’re pulling that up babe, I’m walking out the door xx

• Season 2 of Beef. Watch it.

• The Ordinary’s genius marketing move - a shuttle bus from Prospect to Domino park. If you haven’t seen it - check it out here. (shoutout to Michelle)

• When it rains in NYC, not all boroughs are treated equal: Flooding in Queens.

• Charli’s new song:

• We’re all just Meryl Streep on the subway, clinging to the pole for footing.

Bye for now xxxx