a new york state of mind
meditations on being alone
Hi friends,
It’s that time of the year again: sentimental season. Another year of university comes to a close, and instead of studying for finals we’re finding ourselves glued to our phones looking at photos from life BC (before corona).
This week, we thought we’d update you all with the things we were doing this time last year.
N:
This time last year, my brother graduated high school! It was endearing to see him at the conclusion of a very important chapter in his life. This is a rare photo of him smiling because he usually doesn’t appreciate the camera being turned on him.
The view of the Schuylkill on a late night walk. A velvet-y sky.
Strange food - Yak Milk Ice Cream. Despite the strange advertising, it was surprisingly delectable! 10/10 would recommend it.
Pretty street decorations in Li Jiang, a city in the Northwest part of China’s Yunnan Province.
J:
My friend Katie (hi slimshiady!) and I came across this rabbit balloon walking around Fitler Square. Early May is a chaotic time for university students, but seeing this lil guy was a nice reminder to smile.
Another memento from a solo adventures around Philly
“We Need to Talk” was a public art intervention that my group worked on for my Graphic Design class. If you’re looking for something to watch, you can find our final video here.
This, folks, is the beginning of it all - one sweaty 7 AM ride, and the rest is history.
On this week’s call, we were chatting about other travel highlights and noticed that both of us have gone on solo trips in the past year. It made us think more about being alone, in all its various shapes and forms.
J: One of the greatest gifts in college is a four-day class schedule. With Fridays off, I decided to take a break from campus one week and go on a day trip to New York City.
Traveling with a group of people is one way of bringing out the Type A in me. Especially for a city like New York, I am adamant that the day runs like clockwork - there is a folder full of saved establishments to try and galleries to visit. The prospect of a solo trip offered a break from all that. This time, I wanted to explore the city that never sleeps at 0.5x speed.
One of my favorite lines from a movie comes from the 1998 Nora Ephron classic, You’ve Got Mail.
“Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”
I thought about this quote as I was disembarking the Megabus. Alone, I felt like I was getting dropped off for my first day of school. Even now, I can’t quite put that feeling into words: it was something like excitement tempered with a tinge of fear, or jittery, newfound liberation. I took the early bus to the city, and the streets were still empty. This is my favorite time of day - the feeling of a city holding its breath.
I remember these 12 hours in New York through a series of empty park benches. For the first time, I wasn’t annoyed that my favorite 16-seater coffee shop was at full capacity. I asked if I could take the rest of my cortado to-go, and found a space in the corner of Madison Square Park. Alone, I realized that the city ruckus wasn’t always so hostile. There were a pair of street-food vendors - friends - yelling to say hi from opposite ends of the block. There were random outbursts of song; not the Enchanted kind, but charming regardless. I avoided Broadway, favoring the quieter streets: the ones lined with carts of books for sale, where concrete gives way to cobblestone and old ladies walk their tiny dogs. And then there was the subway. Alone and trying my best to resist my phone, I did nothing but make awkward eye contact. I even started to do it intentionally, like a low-stakes game of Russian Roulette. A scowl here, a reciprocated nod there. But I miss it - the way the city keeps you on your feet.
Before a state of solitude became the new norm, I wish I could have told myself to experience life the way I did traveling solo: fully present.
N:
You know, I’ve never really considered myself a ‘New York’ person. New York tends to be very polarizing. It is an odd, intense sort of haven. Many tell me that Manhattan is simultaneously the most anonymous, and intimate place they’ve ever been. You can find everyone you know if you look hard enough, but mostly no one really looks hard enough. There is a certain loneliness that you feel even in the densest city. As Laing wrote, “Loneliness doesn't necessarily require physical solitude, but rather an absence...of closeness, kinship”.
Admittedly, I hadn’t been outside of Manhattan so my view of New York was skewed. There had to be a reason why people adored, craved, loved New York. On a whim, I booked a $10 bus ticket to Manhattan and a train to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Brooklyn winter day was exactly what I needed. A day at my own pace. For breakfast, I found a dumpling restaurant full of amber light. The star of the show: pork and vegetable dumplings pan-fried with a crispy, charred bottom. It was nice being alone and having time to linger - I roamed the flea markets and vintage shops, sifted through old records, tried on strange articles of clothing (see rockin’ pink shades), drank a strong latte at Oslo Coffee Roasters, waited for the December fog to lift.
At the end of the night, I returned to the city and met up with close friends. We sat, cross legged, in a friend’s living room and I ate my second dumpling round of the day. In the warm orange light, New York felt different than I remembered - friendlier, sweeter.
Some people say they know exactly where they want to be, where they feel the most connected. For me, that statement is still a question. I feel myopic now, thinking about it. I thought I didn’t like New York, but do I really know San Francisco (where I’m likely going after graduation) any better? Did I make the right choice? Could, and would, I alter that choice now?
Who knows what decisions will change in time. In a year, we might all be in very different places. But I hope some things won’t change: from watching Netflix together, tagging friends in memes, to weekly Kopiclub zoom calls. In times like these - as the poet Larkin wrote - what will survive of us is love.
Hugs,
J & N