A name here and there, a smell, the noises.. it’s odd that is what is remembered of cities. I prefer the quiet now, living by a small lake, and the ability to hear the peepers as I sleep with the window cracked open.
Absolutely gorgeous prose that hits home. It matters where and how you left when entering The City for the first or 10th or last time. Can't step into the same river twice. The pull is always there, though, the feeling inside our bones.
“It’s interesting how memory, looking back, twists things until they’re lovely” that’s what keeps us sane. People who don’t have that gene either go crazy or become alcoholics. I’m just guessing but sounds about right.
I lived in Brooklyn for 9 months. I loved and hated it. I’m from the remote Scottish highlands so it was a big change. I loved the food, culture and people. I hated feeling hemmed in with no nature or stars in the sky. Frequently I felt trapped. Now I’m out and only occasionally do I miss it. It’s quite something if you think about it.
Absolutely! Going from saying Hi to everyone in the street to shutting up and not looking at anyone was hard! And I learned to use my elbows on the subway 🤣
I love the city but I realize the corner I inhabit is a nest cubbied in the elbow of an old oak. Right here in the center of it I have a bucolic piece with a collapsing barn and 2/3 of an acre, a hill and holler. The house is old needs and demands more attention, but days like today as storm clouds gather (actual and metaphoric) sitting on my porch on the last house of a dead end street, I am nurtured enough to bear it - there is no other place here I could live or want to. The road on the other hand offers infinite possibilities. Your stories remind me of that.
“I blew in off the lake and tumbled through town like a weed…” Last week I wrote something about - lacking roots, at least one can be a tumbleweed. Regardless of coming/going, staying/leaving - even always leaving - one still exists, and that… is enough.
I do wish you’d read the poems too, but that is my only critique. 😉♥️
A good critique! I added them to the text at the last minute—I’d already recorded the audio. Foolish of me. Maybe I’ll add a little Sandburg to this week’s Riffs & Rants ☺️
I've had the same changing relationship with cities. A born and bred New Yawker one day it was all too much for me. Now, when I go to The CIty for a visit, I can have a good time, but a limited time. Your description of Antoine and what was hidden behind the doors of his apartment, that's what cities are like for me. So much so many and so obscured.
I grew up about equidistant to Philadelphia and New York City, but we only ever called nyc the city. It was a couple of hours but my town had its own stop on the Northeast Corridor and it felt so easy to get to. An hour and a half, hello Penn Station.
One of my funniest memories, I took a friend for her first visit to the city via train, and when we were leaving in the evening, we were packed into the main lobby of Penn, waiting. They were still using a ticker board to tell you the tracks of outbound lines at that time. The letter windows started flapping rapidly, coming to a halt with their announcements "LIRR track 5, Albany track 2..." Every face turned upward intently waiting, waiting. I whispered, "Get ready to run."
Tick tick tick "Boston track 8." A slight shifting of each body, anticipation building. Tick tick tick tick tick "Northeast Corridor" tick tick tick "southbound" tick tick tick "track 11" and as the last number froze in place the whole crowd of people moved like a single body, surging into the passageway of track 11 like water into an empty jar suddenly submerged. We had to hold hands not to get separated. When we were finally on, settled in seats, she turned to me. "I didn't think you literally meant 'run'."
I laughed, "Of course I did! I'm the most literal person you know."
She said, "You walked faster while we were there. I've never seen you walk so fast."
That's a slice of the city, to me.
"If we didn't walk fast, people would have constantly been shoving past us or through us, and other people would have been jamming flyers into our hands. You have to make yourself look like you have somewhere important to be in the next minute and you're already five minutes late." But that's Manhattan.
I loved riding my cousin's bike down the street in Queens, leisurely, to get fresh warm bagels from the local bagel shop. Another slice of New York. I loved sitting on the tarred roof of her apartment building at night, looking not at stars but at the rising glow from the city itself, and the twinkle of the Robert F. Kennedy bridge. It was post-9/11, and I was there on 9/11 one time. An image that will always stay with me is standing on a rooftop in Astoria seeing two blazing lines of light rising into the sky from Ground Zero.
There's an enchantingly weird and entertaining story series about New York City by N.K. Jemisin. The first book is titled The City We Became. It's a wonderful ode to The City and to cities in general. Your talk of cities, how they have personalities, reminded me of it. Some cities have one personality, then cities like New York have multiple facets of personalities.
What a time to grow up there, and what a wonder that this story of a childhood in or near New York rings so in tune with the stories of the city I’ve heard from other eras. Another city that is truly and always and in every way itself.
Oh, Marya. This is breathtaking. So much so I just sent it to a friend by text and a professor by email. You’re doing such important work. Yours is the language of empathy and clear-sightedness. So gorgeous.
I'm struck by the first sentence: "Why can't I just [ ] and [ ] and [ ] every now and then?" It seems so important that we each fill in those blanks for ourselves. Whether that means, The City, Chicago, some other city, or woods and water doesn't matter as long as we know what we want and can feel into it as viscerally as you wrote about L's experience and your own.
A name here and there, a smell, the noises.. it’s odd that is what is remembered of cities. I prefer the quiet now, living by a small lake, and the ability to hear the peepers as I sleep with the window cracked open.
I do too—isn’t the open window a whole different kind of deep sleep 💜
Absolutely.
Absolutely gorgeous prose that hits home. It matters where and how you left when entering The City for the first or 10th or last time. Can't step into the same river twice. The pull is always there, though, the feeling inside our bones.
So true, so so so true. And thank you, Evelyn 🙏🏻☺️
Oh please come back to Mpls. and do a reading. Your voice adds such enormous dimension to your writing.
Eva, this is so lovely of you. Soon as I put out another book, I’ll pop in and read, how bout? 😏💕
“It’s interesting how memory, looking back, twists things until they’re lovely” that’s what keeps us sane. People who don’t have that gene either go crazy or become alcoholics. I’m just guessing but sounds about right.
It does sound about right 😂🫶
I lived in Brooklyn for 9 months. I loved and hated it. I’m from the remote Scottish highlands so it was a big change. I loved the food, culture and people. I hated feeling hemmed in with no nature or stars in the sky. Frequently I felt trapped. Now I’m out and only occasionally do I miss it. It’s quite something if you think about it.
It must have been a complete shock to the system!! Like landing on a fascinating but very different planet.
Absolutely! Going from saying Hi to everyone in the street to shutting up and not looking at anyone was hard! And I learned to use my elbows on the subway 🤣
Ha! Those are crucial
I love the city but I realize the corner I inhabit is a nest cubbied in the elbow of an old oak. Right here in the center of it I have a bucolic piece with a collapsing barn and 2/3 of an acre, a hill and holler. The house is old needs and demands more attention, but days like today as storm clouds gather (actual and metaphoric) sitting on my porch on the last house of a dead end street, I am nurtured enough to bear it - there is no other place here I could live or want to. The road on the other hand offers infinite possibilities. Your stories remind me of that.
I tell you, a city containing a collapsing barn with an old oak, a hill, and a holler is a very appealing sort of city living indeed
What people who ask other people if they ever get lonely don’t understand is that loneliness has nothing to do with being alone.
Well now I need to write about this. Thanks a lot, Chris. 🙄 🤣 and you are so right.
Ha, I hope you do! I'd love to read it.
“I blew in off the lake and tumbled through town like a weed…” Last week I wrote something about - lacking roots, at least one can be a tumbleweed. Regardless of coming/going, staying/leaving - even always leaving - one still exists, and that… is enough.
I do wish you’d read the poems too, but that is my only critique. 😉♥️
A good critique! I added them to the text at the last minute—I’d already recorded the audio. Foolish of me. Maybe I’ll add a little Sandburg to this week’s Riffs & Rants ☺️
Gorgeous work.
Thank you, Eileen!!
I've had the same changing relationship with cities. A born and bred New Yawker one day it was all too much for me. Now, when I go to The CIty for a visit, I can have a good time, but a limited time. Your description of Antoine and what was hidden behind the doors of his apartment, that's what cities are like for me. So much so many and so obscured.
“So much so many and so obscured” — beautifully and accurately said.
I grew up about equidistant to Philadelphia and New York City, but we only ever called nyc the city. It was a couple of hours but my town had its own stop on the Northeast Corridor and it felt so easy to get to. An hour and a half, hello Penn Station.
One of my funniest memories, I took a friend for her first visit to the city via train, and when we were leaving in the evening, we were packed into the main lobby of Penn, waiting. They were still using a ticker board to tell you the tracks of outbound lines at that time. The letter windows started flapping rapidly, coming to a halt with their announcements "LIRR track 5, Albany track 2..." Every face turned upward intently waiting, waiting. I whispered, "Get ready to run."
Tick tick tick "Boston track 8." A slight shifting of each body, anticipation building. Tick tick tick tick tick "Northeast Corridor" tick tick tick "southbound" tick tick tick "track 11" and as the last number froze in place the whole crowd of people moved like a single body, surging into the passageway of track 11 like water into an empty jar suddenly submerged. We had to hold hands not to get separated. When we were finally on, settled in seats, she turned to me. "I didn't think you literally meant 'run'."
I laughed, "Of course I did! I'm the most literal person you know."
She said, "You walked faster while we were there. I've never seen you walk so fast."
That's a slice of the city, to me.
"If we didn't walk fast, people would have constantly been shoving past us or through us, and other people would have been jamming flyers into our hands. You have to make yourself look like you have somewhere important to be in the next minute and you're already five minutes late." But that's Manhattan.
I loved riding my cousin's bike down the street in Queens, leisurely, to get fresh warm bagels from the local bagel shop. Another slice of New York. I loved sitting on the tarred roof of her apartment building at night, looking not at stars but at the rising glow from the city itself, and the twinkle of the Robert F. Kennedy bridge. It was post-9/11, and I was there on 9/11 one time. An image that will always stay with me is standing on a rooftop in Astoria seeing two blazing lines of light rising into the sky from Ground Zero.
There's an enchantingly weird and entertaining story series about New York City by N.K. Jemisin. The first book is titled The City We Became. It's a wonderful ode to The City and to cities in general. Your talk of cities, how they have personalities, reminded me of it. Some cities have one personality, then cities like New York have multiple facets of personalities.
What a time to grow up there, and what a wonder that this story of a childhood in or near New York rings so in tune with the stories of the city I’ve heard from other eras. Another city that is truly and always and in every way itself.
Thank you for such an eloquent escape to a similar and familiar place and time.
Why is there water leaking from my face?
That pesky faucet. ☺️ thank you, my dear.
Thank you for keeping me human.
I want to read this over and over and over again. Truly beautiful writing.
Oh, Marya. This is breathtaking. So much so I just sent it to a friend by text and a professor by email. You’re doing such important work. Yours is the language of empathy and clear-sightedness. So gorgeous.
Gorgeous imagery. The feelings this evokes, the depth of humanity, the melancholy, so raw yet polished. Brava.
I'm struck by the first sentence: "Why can't I just [ ] and [ ] and [ ] every now and then?" It seems so important that we each fill in those blanks for ourselves. Whether that means, The City, Chicago, some other city, or woods and water doesn't matter as long as we know what we want and can feel into it as viscerally as you wrote about L's experience and your own.