🫖 Gm! Welcome to the weekly newsletter. Last week, I moralized about why you should consider becoming a paid subscriber, and this week I’m discussing change, particularly pertaining to leaving. It’s a series of vignettes responding to quotes from the Joan Didion essay, “Goodbye To All That.” As this post is being published, I’m on an airplane from New York to Los Angeles. But don’t worry, dolls, I’ll be back. Not ready to say goodbye yet. 🫖
I.
“It’s easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends. I can remember now, with a clarity that makes the nerves in the back of my neck constrict, when New York began for me, but I cannot lay my finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was.”
Out of coffee, I evaluated a jar of Earl Grey leaves with suspicion. Would this brown mulch be enough to satisfy me, over my preferred form of caffeinated dust? I tiptoed to fill the kettle, hoping not to disturb the matchbook-sized cockroach that may or may not be in my apartment. We ran into each other a few nights ago, and he retreated grouchily into what I presume was his home under the oven. I’ve been giving him space ever since.
I reclined on the couch with my knees bent into a lectern for my laptop. A warm pink mug rested steadily on my sternum.
I reread Joan Didion’s “Goodbye to All That,” then decided to call my friend Sarah. To do so, I scrolled through my recent phone calls, searching for her name. It appeared and I tapped, instinctively. On the list, Sarah’s name sat right next to the Executive Director of my company, Sara. For a split second, my adrenaline surged in a wave of doubt. Graciously, my dexterity prevailed. I had tapped the name of the right Sara(h), saving me from embarrasment.
I quit my job on Monday. In two weeks, I’ll say goodbye and in one calendar month, I’ll start a new job. Like all good quitters, I had an exit plan.
Sarah is moving back to LA. I’m leaving New York for the month of September. My cowboy boots will be misunderstood in California, then Germany. When I return, I foresee a second start. The last two months have brought enough change to make my head spin. Family stuff, career stuff, life stuff. It’s been a symphony of endings and beginnings.
On the phone with Sarah, we forged a plan: I would head to Greenpoint to provide moral support as she packed up the remnants of her apartment. “Can I bring anything? Bagel? Coffee? Pastry?” I said coffee in the middle, casually, to prove that it is a super chill addiction for me. “Coffee would be nice!” said she.
II.
“I was late to meet someone but I stopped on Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and knew that I had come out of the West and reached the mirage. I could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and I could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume and I knew that it would cost something sooner or later—because I did not belong there, did not come from there—but when you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs.”
At twenty-four, I douse myself with knockoff perfumes that market themselves as a social good. Democratize luxury, queen! I seek scents that are challenging, complex, unisex (and therefore sexless), because that’s what’s in vogue. These are the notes that are full of money. Like Daisy’s voice, musk, vetiver and neroli supply the inxhaustible charm that rises and falls. The jingle and the cymbals’ song. Particularly awful bars are a miasma of Santal 33.
Isaac tried to kill a mouse in his apartment by throwing a bottle of Supergoop! sunscreen at it. I informed him that if he was looking to replace his spilled goop, I’ve heard that the Trader Joes has a decent dupe. I am not willing to pay whatever it costs.
III.
“I never bought any furniture in New York.”
“I could sleep a few hours and then go to work. I could work then on two or three hours’ sleep and a container of coffee from Chock Full O’ Nuts.”
Furniture.
Oh, Joany, you’re so romantic. I fill every cranny with stuff. I’m a nester at heart. I pillage trash heaps for furniture. I tell myself that I might make an “art project” out of cellophane wrappers, rolls of caution tape, and the bag of lightly soiled children’s ballet slippers I found.
Against my natural instincts, I packed no more than the contents of a small suitcase bag and shoulder bag for my month of travel. I self-soothe with the affirmation: You are traveling to civilization.
Sleep.
On Thursday night, I got five hours of sleep. Friday was my last day working in-person. I wandered the office, overcome by nostalgia. I emptied the bulletin board above my desk and pinned up a note that said, “Bye, guys!” I like the thought of someone seeing it after I leave, and thinking fondly of me. The second death, and all that.
On my way home, I stood on the L train platform listening to music to make myself cry. I boarded the train next to a woman with a large potted plant sprouting out of a rolling cart. The waterworks began when I noticed her absentmindedly fondling the leaves. That moment of horticultural tenderness was too much to bear.
I decided to take a nap at 8 pm, from which I never awoke. I had at least three plans later that evening which I had to sheepishly apologize for sleeping through.
IV.
“Nothing was irrevocable; everything was within reach. Just around every corner lay something curious and interesting, something I had never before seen or done or known about.”
Joan had to leave New York because she got jaded and depressed and stopped taking care of herself. Despair is how she described it. But New York also made her feel like this, which is pretty sweet and special. New York is best when approached with curiosity, interest, and ignorance. I think I’ll be able to hold onto my happiness the longer I relinquish the desire to understand, to be smart, to be relevant. A few weeks wearing sweatpants in sunny, stupid Los Angeles will do me good. Goodbye martinis. Goodbye plans for every night of the week. Goodbye cockroach roommates and goodbye
I’m going West, baby.
5 Songs for leaving New York
“Leaving on a Jet Plane,” Peter, Paul and Mary
🎶 But the dawn is breakin, it’s early morn, the taxi’s waitin he’s blowin his horn. 🎶
“Go West,” Liz Phair”
🎶 Safe on the interstate, New York is three thousand miles away. 🎶
“Go And Leave Me,” Kacy & Clayton
🎶 Now go and leave me if you wish to. Never let me cross your mind. If you think I’ve been unworthy, go and leave me, I don’t mind. 🎶
“The Background,” Third Eye Blind
🎶 I do the things we did before, I walk Haight Street to the store, and they say “Where’s that crazy girl? You don’t get drunk on red wine and fight no more.” 🎶
“Home at Last,” HOMESHAKE
🎶 All my running, I just got to get away. Sure is fun, and I think that I won’t stay. 🎶
🫖 With love, CM. I hope you have a delightful Sunday. If you are enjoying this newsletter, consider supporting my work by liking, sharing, or upgrading your subscription. I love doing this, and paying subscribers make this project worth my time and energy. Plus, you’ll get extra content like poems, illustrations & reading recs, so that’s cool. 🫖
Your writing is so beautiful! This post somehow made me feel simultaneously nostalgic for leaving NY and coming back to NY at once 😊