I have just arrived back at my home in New York City. We have been away, with my parents, for Christmas. They and my now husband, a Yankee-doodle-dandy through and through, have had their qualms in the past, but somehow blood really is thicker than water. Ever since we’ve been married, it’s like the old stuff just silently sank into the carpet. Sure, there are whiffs of it every now and then, but mostly we all want peace and are happy to breathe through our mouths occasionally in order to keep it.
We left the city abruptly three weeks ago with no plan. We are planning to leave for good in three months. I am nearly beside myself about it. The return to the creaky floorboards of my walk-up on the sixth floor feels like stepping into perfectly worn-in boots. People are yelling; there is trash everywhere. I disappear.
On the way back, we’d been driving for two days when instead of running into a wall of stalled rain on the East Coast for the remaining four hours up and into the city, we decided to get a room at a motel in Virginia. A Candlewood Suites. We arrived at 2 am, and the night manager, Julian, seemed surprised when I approached and said I had a reservation. There was a lonesome, thin pile of blank paperwork lined up on the counter behind him. Why wasn’t he expecting me?
He asked if I’d ever stayed at a Candlewood Suites before.
No.
Ashamed, Julian explained that it was an extended stay property and each unit comes with a kitchenette.
Nothing to be ashamed of, Julian.
He told me he’d already set us up with a late check-out and that we were on the fourth floor. The elevator was in the center of the building, and there were staircases at either end, but he recommended we use the elevator, if the dog has no problem with it, because, as he said, our room was on the fourth floor.
Got it. Thanks, Julian.
The room had a single black curl of hair on the white stone countertop in the bathroom, and black mold in the busted wall unit air conditioner.
I’ve been sick for two days since, but I think I’m finally close to fully flushed of it. Just in time to bid farewell to 2023.
A bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln in Louisville, Kentucky was robbed of its hat earlier this month. The statue depicts a seated Lincoln with books of law in tow, an open left hand, and an outwardly beckoning face. His hat, ahem, sat behind him - the direction opposite his earnest and hopeful gaze. It was a coward’s maneuver: To steal his hat from behind his back, creepily, and leave the bronze man ever the victim of a petty theft as echoes of his mortal downfall mock.
I have great fear about the imminent future. People are full of hate and insatiability and seem to have forgotten how much more potent and productive love is. People are being undignified of their humanity, and judged for their behavioral response. I have no time or right to be fearful; there can be no love where fear exists.
Kate McKinnon hosted SNL’s final episode of the year before the break - the “Christmas” episode with all the poinsettias. In her monologue, she expressed that she’s having a hard time discovering her personality since leaving the show. “So far,” she says, “I have a hat.”
New York City is my current personality’s hat. And I have to take it off now. I spent the better part of the year getting comfortable with who I am without my hat. Tucking myself in amongst the sirens and practicing taking it off. It hurts so badly and I cry and cry and cry. I remember that just as I have always wanted to live in this city, I have always used the top hat as my game piece in Monopoly. I am comforted by my own continuity, and think that I can take the city with me.
The discovery of the hat tile in mathematics, and my such discovery of said discovery amongst all these other hats could make one believe in god. The hat tile is a 13 sided, aperiodic tile. An aperiodic tile is one that can fill an entire plane in a never repeating pattern. The hat tile, which in its mystery and prior to the confirmation of its existence was dubbed the Einstein tile, exists within a spectrum of infinite aperiodic, 13 sided tiles. Until this year, its existence has always been suspected, assumed, but never proven.
At the beginning of the month, on the way out to a bonfire with a handful of strangers, a relatively new partner of a dear friend of mine explained that he had always been a ‘fake-it-til-you-make-it’ kinda guy. An hour later, around the bonfire, a friend of a friend, whom I had heard of but never known, expressed her love of rules and utter disgust at the ‘fake-it-til-you-make-it’ type, unbeknownst to the earlier claim of the ethic by our friend’s new partner. I sat between them and stared deep into the flames.
Great stuff.
"but mostly we all want peace and are happy to breathe through our mouths occasionally in order to keep it." - This is brilliant, a micro observation perfectly portrayed. Good luck with your new hat, whatever it may be 🤍