Everyone gets to a point where New York (City) doesn’t feel like real life. The reasons we say it are individual, but say it we do. New York isn’t real life because jobs are too important here, everything’s expensive, we live so far apart, people are always “on.” Etc. etc.
Everyone, really? Who am I to talk? Fine, then maybe it’s just me. Here I am, in a Lyft, speeding towards the airport because my catsitting gig made me late (cat was distractingly cute), en route to Florida where Oma lives and the roads are dirt and the dog is dying.
Another reason New York isn’t working for me: there’s no place to scream. During my recent bought of depression, I asked friends if they had a scream inside their head. Not like, the ambient feeling of frustration. Not the sensation of wanting to scream. But the sound of a real scream, lodged in your mind like the voice of a lost loved one. And just as simply as you start humming while recalling a tune, your throat leaps to meet it.
But you can’t let it out cause it’s New York City. People will look at you funny, or, God forbid, try to help. And that’s not even the main concern. The problem is: you can’t scream effectively, the way that you need to—primal and violent and ongoing—with all that audience. So like a good citizen, you do not scream, and the sound in your head gets louder and louder. At best, you bite your tongue.
No one (so far) has quite related to my plight. I’ve arrived at the airport. I’m wearing comfortable pants and my emotional support hoodie. I’ll check back in later.
***
It’s been a few days here. Counter to the entirety of my life heretofore, mornings are my favorite. Alone, I journal on the dock and feel hopeful about the things I might produce. I return to the house for a second cup of tea and I write, still hopeful. I’ve established a workable routine up until 10AM, when the first caretaker arrives. Then, the presence of another person, another set of opinions about my family and grandma and the dog, shoots my focus and resolve. I know I’ve lost when the lake turns bright blue, a reflection of the day barreling on without me.
I am impatient for this mood to break. I can’t say how long I’ve been in it. Certainly weeks and probably years. Not forever; I used to find depression so unrelatable. Something to talk friends through. Now I understand that words don’t help much. At a certain point, negative patterns turn chemical. It will take more than Vitamin D and the other pill to break out: a firm routine must be established. The evil consequence: any blip my the routine is the enemy. I’ve become a snippy, short-circuited person.
The lake, my ancestral body of water, is supposed to fix me. I haven’t been here this long since I was a teenager. Stupid me, to ignore my natural ways and assume isolation is the answer. I remind myself: it’s only the second day. But no, it’s the third. I’m losing track already. I’m writing now, from a moment of darkness, to capture the before. I will take off my sweater and have lunch and then see how I feel.
Salvation lies somewhere between full meals, exercise, sobriety, supportive relationships with funny people, and a balance between discipline and self-acceptance. Am I the only one overwhelmed by the prospect of nailing all of that in one day?
***
After crying to my mom over the phone, a video tells me that tonight’s full moon is here to illuminate the soul’s fragmentation. I find this deeply comforting, because before indeed I was looking at shards—questions with no place to grip. Now I understand this mess as a fated tableaux. This broken image of myself, expected and perfectly timed. There’s nothing so urgent, now that my troubles have found an astronomical metaphor. Another anomaly: a comet that will be visible to the naked eye at sunset tomorrow.
***
When I have great thoughts, I feel a rush to write them down. I do not like this trait. It reminds me of being friends with standup comedians in my early twenties. After the quake of any laughter, someone would inevitably whip out their phone and jot a note for the stage. What I’m doing—saving profound turns of phrase for prose—really ain’t no different.
To my credit, ¾ of my grandparents have lost their minds at the end. I find my own mental demise a certain inevitability. Has it started already? Oma is my last surviving grandparent. She is “with it,” as they say, but I’ve still had trouble breaking the habit of speaking to her with that dumbed-down, sanitized voice reserved for children and old people. Whenever I fight it, I end up overcompensating: oversharing and overcussing. But that is the real me.
I feel myself settling in since yesterday’s doompost (hold your horses, its not yet 10AM). I’ve had enough time here to observe Oma’s natural routine. We watched TV all day on the first day. Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures, Law and Order: Criminal Justice, and The Crown. This marathon programming is a side-effect of the difficulty in getting her up and down. Once she’s on the couch, that’s pretty much it. Second day, I made some adjustments for my own sanity. We wheeled down to the lake. I investigated my own impatience in looking at nature (I later googled “how to enjoy boredom,”—top tip: start journaling). We caught a frog. It was a good day, until a snafu with some hospice equipment at the end.
I don’t know why I’m astonished that every day is different, even here. On some level, I imagine real life as constant: an arrival to a satisfying set of routines, hobbies, people, and third-places. I know what my therapist would say about that. Still, I feel I’m closer to it here, in Florida, among the spiders and lizards, near family, with time (too much) to think, no makeup, no car, cooking every night. From a place of stability, I can handle the new stuff. Last night, a caretaker’s grandson came over and I taught him some piano and we danced and then he punched me. Stuff like that.
You might be getting the wrong impression. I’ll write in the evening next, so you can see what that’s like.
***
I am beginning to think New York City is the real world. Florida certainly isn’t. Every day it rains here for 9 minutes and then the sky acts like it didn’t happen. Here is the land of death. We dug a grave for the dog. I took comfort in seeing a large root in there, in the hole, and made sure the spades left it intact.
***
Routine is the thing. And done right, it’s a pleasure when broken. Yesterday was the midway point of my trip. Oma slept through the entire day, and I took the opportunity to go into Gainesville. Get a haircut, tour the university. Live in the land of the future. There were college kids everywhere and I called August and we joyfully did not pass the Bechdel test. It was so nice to laugh and walk among the gator statues. I took pictures of the Spanish moss, but my phone couldn’t capture its romantic beauty. I thought: it’s important to see a place in real life because I wouldn’t have known a thing like that. Also to be reminded that however enchanting a college green is, a dingy classroom is a dingy classroom.
On the way home on the radio, on what would be my commute if I got into U of F and decided to live at the lake house, they played 365 twice and I remembered that I’m young and fun.
I broke through the numbness yesterday. I went to my cousin’s house and we talked loudly and laughed. I’m paying attention to my laughter lately, trying not to fake it as much as usual. Real laughter is a signal of happiness, and I’m tired of throwing off my gauge with false grins just to please people. Each morning, when I catch a turtle head sliding down sneakily into the water, my laugh—soft and short, but real—surprises me.
I still feel the scream building up inside of me, but it’s different now. Lower, wilder. Wider, if that makes sense. I didn’t realize I was suppressing the sound in New York, even in my mind. I’ve been playing John Denver for the dog, to remind her of Papa.
***
Writing to you from night again. We put the dog down today. She died in my arms, just before sunset. The vet came out to us and was a kind, clever soul. Oma and the caregivers told some stories about the dog. Myah. Belgian Malinois. Chasing the FedEx driver, accompanying all the runners on their runs. I see the glint of her fur everywhere now, at sunsets, in deer, in autumn bushes. All week, I’ve been running my finger up the bridge of her snout, and it’s this memory that breaks me now.
I feel like I want to brag for a moment. I have been so fucking strong this week. I have cooked all of my meals and carried the emotional weight of this thing for my family, of Oma and the dog. My week is coming to an end now. We must take turns carrying.
I am overwhelmed by the idea of losing my Oma. She raised me. She is the second-closest person I have to a mother. Her papery skin is amazing, her thin gold bracelets and her ways of cooing. Her obsession with the weird. The macabre, the freaks. She’s always urging me to write about about something “really interesting,” she says, like a feral girl from the woods. Everyone has an Oma impression. She is a strong Scorpio presence, observing everything and speaking with intentionality. Her concise reflections on the people around us are delightful and surprising. For example, my dad: “an actor.” Papa: “so much fun.” She captures an essence in simple words, where I would take paragraphs.
I have sat on couches beside her my whole life.
Some things I will keep to myself. I believe in vulnerability as a tool for healing, and I’m happy to offer it. I also like the praise, the eyes on my writing. Why not both? But some thoughts, particularly the grey unfinished ones and the bruisy purple tender ones that come from dreams and nightmares and full-bodied feeling... well, those thoughts are best saved for songs.
The spot where the dog has always sat with me, at night, is empty now. The caretaker who can see ghosts says she heard Myah’s nails clicking on the floorboards. For my part, I saw a very doglike lizard, and the following cloud. And I do feel her presence here. She’ll stick around for a while. This was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, which is strange to say now that it’s done. Like, was it really that hard if I did it? But yes, I remember. It was and it still is.
***
It should come as no surprise, if you’re still reading, that I’ve been planning to scream all along. The funny thing is, two nights ago that strong desire suddenly evaporated. I know why.
I went to see the stars with my cousin. I’d been too spooked to go out on my own (though I’ve done it before). It’s also just more pleasurable to coo at the universe with company. As I’ve already noted, I’m still learning how to appreciate nature alone. Anyway, every time I go to the dock there’s a thicc ass spiderweb I’ve been ducking under out of fear and respect. Well, we ducked it on the way down, but plum forgot on our way back up. Bishop took the brunt of it and at 6’1” he probably walked smack into the spider. I hardly even got webbed, but we both freaked out anyway. Hysterical laugh-screaming while we shook out our hair and smacked our necks at the feeling of phantom legs. I had one of those real, ab-crunching laughs which only then did I clock as long-lost. The surge of panic made our laughter all the more delicious.
Don’t worry. I did scream. Just now, in fact. At sunrise at the dock. I nearly talked myself out of it, bent to my nerves about waking the neighbors, about having to answer for my crazy ass. But I know that the scream inside of my head will return, possibly even tonight when I land in the city after thriving in the wilderness. I needed to scream for that future self. Also, it occurred to me: it’s good to check in with one’s scream every now and then for safety reasons, so I know how to pace my breath support in the case of real danger.
Much like a lot of things, accountability was a great support. I’d already told my cousins my plans, and they were rooting for me. Would hate to disappoint.
So I did scream, twice. The first one short and surprising with its high pitch and tight tunnel of sound. My favorite part—the impressive echo to my left. As soon as it was over, I wanted to do it again. To do it better. I allowed myself a few sips of tea to build up the courage, and waited for the wave of desire pass through and pull me upright. I set my fingers as a timer for five decent seconds, breathed, and tried to slow my heartbeat (which never works; once the heart is beating fast, the mind is lost to the body). I screamed. This scream was warbly, more movie-like, longer, more authentic. The novelty remained, but I screamed long enough to attach some real feeling to it.
I have better screams in me yet. I’m tempted to go again, rule of thirds and whatnot, but there are new neighbors and I did hear a screen door slam after my second scream. I’d prepared my line: “I’m from New York, and it’s been a hard week,” but didn’t get to use it.
New York. I’m going back tonight and I can already hear everyone laughing at my saying I’m a changed woman. My classic refrain after any trip or great experience, but it has to be true on some level, right? At some point, we must achieve the ability to truly integrate life’s fleeting lessons for the long-term haul. I.e., have your tea outside sans phone; do not fake laugh; act quickly once decided; be prepared to say “no” twice; don’t let the night swallow you; call your loved ones; and perhaps the hardest of all to hold onto in a huge busy stressed-out expensive place like New York City: focus on what truly matters. The other stuff should barely nip you, like a toothless fish.
Love this one! Florida- what a place! Side note- you really gotta come try out West Texas next time you have a scream building. Perfect place to scream 10/10 recommend.
This was gorgeous and moving and made me miss Floridas dumb weather.