It was where the garden was, the one my dad started when he was convinced we’d need to learn how to grow our own food in the wake of an apocalyptic destruction of the food chain. He built a semi-elevated enclosure where he could control the soil, and he gated it off with flat bricks that he arranged like roof shingles but didn’t fasten down. He laid down weed barrier in layers and used RoundUp liberally. He had separate boxes for the tomatoes because tomatoes were notoriously picky and it was easier to keep them alive that way.

The backyard was where the “grandma” lie, the ’66 Chevelle, a faded forest green. She sat in the two-car garage without any organs and with decaying skin. She was my dad’s first car; he tells me he snagged her for $400 and now all he has to do is supply the engine, the transmission, the seats, the seatbelts, the paint, the belts, the battery, the alternator, and the tires. But the body was all there, which he says is all that really matters.

It was where the tires with hubcaps sat in stacks of fours, their chrome cracked off but still shiny in some parts.

It was where the treehouse’s foundation stood, just foundation and nothing else—only constructed walls and roof. You could see through the whole thing, back to where the deciduous woods met the property line.

It was where we buried the rabbit, the beta fish, and the two hermit crabs, the site marked with a cross made out of metal rods that we zip tied together. This cross rusted as it weathered the elements until it blew off in a hurricane, either Irene or Sandy, I can’t remember which.

It was where the fire pit sat in the grass, its bottom rusted out because of the salt air. I remember when we bought the new one at Lowe’s I promised to take care of it, like it was a pet I’d be responsible for. But the bottom hollowed out again after a summer’s use and it stayed that way. We just placed the logs in the places where the metal still held strong and prayed that none of the embers would slip out and ignite the weeds below.

It was where John’s boat sank into the earth, a giant white thing with blue fabric protecting the steering wheel and gaudy blue paint on its sides. I tried to look back in my phone’s camera roll to see if I ever took a picture of the boat—chances were slim, because I hated the thing because it was an absolute eyesore, but I did spend a summer using it as the other half of my hammock support, so there was still a chance—but I didn’t. My camera roll reminded me that there was a tree sprouting from the boat’s inside—so there was enough soil coating its gizzards to support the roots of a young pine—it had been sitting there untouched for so long. The area where the boat sat was always the first to flood.

It was where I pet a rat because I thought it was cute, then was scared straight by my parents yelling about diseases. I scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed my hands and beneath my fingernails and didn’t dare touch a wild animal again.

It was where I stored my lime-green bike, the one with the pegs that jutted out from its wheels so that in theory you could do cool tricks with it, like flips. It had wicked graphics on its body, which interrupted the lime green with little black-and-white explosions. My dad told me it was a special kind of bike called a BMX bike. The seat on it sat low, so it made sense for me since I wasn’t growing past my 4’11” and it suited me just fine. I stood on its pegs once or twice, but more than that I liked to let go of the handlebars and fly down the street with my wings spread, fingertips catching air.

It was where I ran barefoot, picked dandelions, practiced swinging my metal bat from Walmart, stored the kayak and canoe, changed my oil, replaced my smashed-through car window, got ticks, peeled off ticks, drank water straight from the hose, learned about termites, used a drill, listened to Metallica and Rush Limbaugh with dad, killed time.

The backyard never changed; it only accumulated more. There was a swingset and a hutch that lived and died back there, but those were the only remarkable changes. The steadiness of the weeds—we never planted grass, which was something I used to be embarrassed by because who just manicures their weeds and calls that a lawn—the way the sun pressed down on the earth, the way the trees swayed along the horizon, and how the sky accommodated the seasons—I could predict it all, can practically feel it on my skin now.

I fell; I learned; I got dirty; I forged my own beliefs in fire.

The boat got hauled off by a guy on Facebook Marketplace who paid a thousand bucks for it, despite its abysmal state. The tires got hauled off in a dolly for another guy on Facebook Marketplace. The treehouse still stands. The bike was left next to the trashcans on collection day a few years ago.

The grandma is alive. My dad tried to teach me stick-shift in the Big Lots parking lot in the her, and I throttled the thing and didn’t catch the clutch in time. He was so nervous I’d run us into a pole that he made me get out and abandoned the whole ordeal. When he drove us home in the car, which still didn’t have functional seatbelts, he got us up to 80 mph on a tiny stretch of quasi-highway, and he smiled at me, like a I-told-you-I’d-get-her-running-and-you-didn’t-believe-me-but-here-we-are-and-you-could-learn-from-her smile. My life was in his hands; I was nervous.

He tells me he is going to drive it down to Florida, down to their brand new house that they sold our house for.

I think hard about the shapes of the sky

Between the canopies of leaves

The sky that’s cleaved and liquid, blue and brown interrupted.

I have memorized the shapes of the sky

Between the trees;

But not here, no.

Trees when I was six and seven and eight

And nine and ten.

When learning was carved out from the earth’s soil

And cradled in my hands.

The shapes of the sky don’t change immediately.

It’s difficult to move around

Big things.

I watched a snake devour a frog

And thought about intervening.

I sat in the grass and itched my mosquito bites

And thought, no, let nature do its thing.

I was eleven

And I rationalized that nature knew

Best

Better than me.

They can see you try, totter along, eat shit, perhaps succeed. Along with the ex–middle schoolers keeping track of your tries, your past hookups, friends that drifted to new coasts, people you met drunk and took shots with, that person you met while waiting in line for a concert, your old coworker that you tried to coordinate a hangout with but the thing fizzled out—they can all see you try, and they’re all keeping track.

They can see the likes on a post. They can see you, desperate, attempting to humbly-but-not-so-humbly-that-you-are-self-deprecating promote your own work in a story or a reel. They might click on a link. They might make a couple of adjustments about the imitation you who lives in their brain-space—who they thought you were, who they think you might eventually become. These conceptions—although you’re not responsible for them, and you shouldn’t even be thinking about them, because realistically they’re hazy at best and too meta to be relevant to real life—are impacted by the things you volunteer into digi-space. You are monitored all at once: the panopticon.

To be seen trying is enough!

TRY: from the Middle English trien, from Anglo-French trier to select, sort, examine, determine, probably from Late Latin tritare to grind, frequentative of Latin terere to rub.

To try without friction is to flounder about in a world with no physics.

See me try!

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I didn’t know who Edward Hopper was until a few weeks ago, when I started reading an essay about loneliness that obviously had to include a nod toward Hopper. Nighthawks and Gas and Chop Suey—I looked them all up on Google, had my laptop propped open while reading. I zoomed in on the myriad characters: analyzing facial expressions, languid body language, specks of space, borders, the colors of textiles and colors not chosen.

But that’s my recollection of the art. If I saw Hopper’s works with fresh eyes and in person, I’d probably say, Oh, there’s a guy getting gas. Or, Oh, it’s a 24/7 diner with funky lights and eclectic, late-night oddballs. The meaning gets unloaded in my distance from the painting, in my positionality from the piece. Weirdly. Words and music feel the opposite. But my memory—the way it warps shadows, or increases saturation—seems to electrify visual art, like a defibrillator or a substation. The meaning is in the transcription of my grappling with it, because if I was scribbling down notes in the MoMA, I’d probably write down: “Sad, a little masochistic. Loners. A lot of white people.” Something sardonic, sticky with exasperation that these paintings are supposed to be “The Greats.” My notes would likely jump to judgment, leave no space for context or admiration of the work’s physical situation. I’d probably be a little prick. Not about the quality of the art—not at all—but more so about the feelings of it, or the way I’d probably believe I could conjure up a much more sophisticated measure of loneliness. My proximity to it would hamper its depth because I’d be too indulgent in everything else.

A few weeks ago, prior to reading about Hopper, I saw someone on the 3 wearing bizarre-to-me makeup: a mish-mosh of haphazard stripes—red, silver, black, and white—adorning the concavity of her eye areas, like a domino mask. And she sat on the train, scrolled on her phone. Perhaps jotted down a few thoughts in her notes app, or refreshed her Instagram feed. I couldn’t stop staring at her, felt this bizarre clash with her quixotic meanderings and my voyeuristic eye. I was watching and she didn’t know, or she probably didn’t think about it then.

And maybe, I’m thinking about the woman on the train now because I’ve been forced to contend with the looks of art—its aesthetics, its appeal, the way it is and isn’t accessible. Perhaps she wanted to get scouted by an agent. Maybe she just wanted to paint on her face: to feel like a child or a witch. Or, maybe, she was headed into the office—some real-life rendering of Thoughts in Motion, but here and grounded in capital. In front of me. Like Schenectady Avenue, like Chop Suey, like all of the unacquainted moments captured by Hopper and his predecessors. It was just living, for both me and her.

I only returned to Train Woman in the context of Hopper; only here and now. This connection percolated in the relative lack of straightforward meaning and congruency between the two encounters, which is art. It’s in the distance. Maybe my necessity for distance from visual art doesn’t “electrify” the works per se, but rather contextualizes them. l could rationalize her in the array of characters and feelings I’ve assigned to New York—Hopper, her, the library guy with cool grills, Dexter—all the same. Maybe I need to feel visual works off the screen and outside the museum for them to breathe, for them to flutter, for them to resonate in ways that are sticky and elegiac.

She and Hopper live together, although they don’t know it and nobody else knows it but me. That’s when the art becomes mine. And when it’s mine, it’s like the unwrapping of new silverware: the excitement of anticipated use, repetition, time accumulated, dust in the cabinet, polishing, forgetting, returning to. Using Hopper to cut slivers out of life.

Unsurprisingly, meritocracy leads to discriminatory behaviors in the workplace. (No, really. This is bizarre.) It fuels people’s legitimizing of inequality. It makes capitalism seem rational. Meritocracy equates output with morality. It makes decisions to promote/demote/fire/hire seem like they’re rooted in some greater good, like they’re based on metrics that aren’t accessible to the normal meritocracy-subscriber. Like meritocracy is only accessible—only visible—to people that already have “earned” (alternatively, stumbled into or received) higher-up positions.

People have written books writing off the legitimacy of meritocracy. There have been scientific articles, ethnographies, think pieces all writing off the legitimacy of meritocracy. And yet, I’m still here.

I do not want to believe in meritocracy, but I think I’ve internalized it too deeply, and regrettably, have somewhat felt its resonance. By accident and luck, I’ve stumbled into reinforcements of meritocracy. When I’ve waited and worked for things, things happen. I waited for an internship. A job. A lovely partner. An education. Senses of stability and contentedness. In some ways, I feel set back in pursuits of demystifying meritocracy because happenstance has reinforced my internalized frameworks about how the world works. This is embarrassing for me to admit because I know meritocracy isn’t real.

Meritocracy feels synonymous with the “American Dream,” so I guess I’ve subscribed to that, too. Imagining I’ll hit it big, that I’ll be able to live off of a book written and an enterprise surmounted. Even though the chance is small—minuscule, even—I’m holding onto it like my life depends on it. Which, in some ways, my life does depend on it. I’ve got to make money. I need to pay rent and buy groceries. It’s almost too uncomfortable to unlearn; it almost feels easier to keep on believing that I’ll be rewarded for my efforts.

Perhaps I have to adjust the word itself—maybe I don’t have to unlearn this feeling which I’ve named “meritocracy.” Maybe a better substitution for the word is “drive,” or “motivation,” or “effort.” But the real meat of the dilemma is divorcing this “drive” from expecting success. That just because I try doesn’t guarantee a precipitation of good things. I can try for dreams—and I need to try, for my own sake—but I shouldn’t expect absolute success. But how does one do this? Feel the weight of life’s singularity—that I’ve only got one shot, so I need to try—but concurrently feel the weight of likely failure. Should a sign of success be changed metrics for said success? Does failure even exist if we keep refashioning our goalposts for “success”? I don’t know. I’m expecting the answers to these questions, if there are answers, will feel like nirvana. Maybe they’ll come with time, with successes adjusted.

I’ve been initiated to city living in all the right ways: cockroaches coming up the pipes; waking up with spider bites and an array of other miscellaneous bug bites; contending with violent sickness; having a stranger on the 4 identify me by my watch (You were on my train earlier! I recognize by your watch. That’s how I keep track of people. Mind you, a Casio I bought on eBay for $20. Okay, sir.); getting my ass handed to me by a part-time editorial job. It’s all very popular-media studded. Like you’ve seen a rendition of this before on a big screen—and you might feel crazy, because things are crashing down, around, haphazardly—but it’s okay, because you’ve seen this before and you semi-know what to expect: fecundity, a sense of humor that reconciles the absurdity of the everyday, an acculturation that makes other places feel small. It’s terrifying, and yet, remarkably un-profound.

Joyce said it best. Warm but not hot. Content but not complacent. Well fed but not a glutton. What’s the illusion she’s speaking of, though? Is she toying with me, trying to calcify the imago of her I’ve crafted—one that’s wise, witty, justifiably disillusioned? In control of the distance she chooses? At the whim of circumstance, but steadfast in self? (Does she know about the imago? Would she care if she did? Probably not, which is likely why I’ve constructed the quasi-caricature in the first place.) Maybe the illusion is the epigram, the tidy middle-ground she’s preaching about. I think she knows this. I also think she knows the middle ground—at least, the search for it—keeps us moving, will keep her and I moving. Separately, towards different moments and dead-ends, but moving.

*September 19, 2023

led lights and grotesque orange flood lights

a jazz-funk-gaye beat

the gayborhood

threats of terrorism and signs to encourage “Alertness” and “Security”

ads for online masters programs and parent testimonials about hunger plastered next to each other

*September 17, 2023

“life’s simple pleasures, like a pancake.” -overheard from a man riding a bike in cape may

*September 12, 2020

this is not love or contempt or something neutral because neutrality does not exist to me. it can be something observable, lovable, moving, or enigmatic.

the texture, the sounds, the fringe. i am left out.

this poetry phase had fizzled out, become lackluster at its edges but it does leak out in silences like these. i usually prefer prose in the afternoon, but years have passed.

*September 7, 2023

the enormity of azalea bushes. they seem larger when they’re yellowing and dead

*August 25, 2023

I always get upset when reading about the ends of people’s lives, how they’re filled with regret and a rocky cadence and a desire to re-do. This should be my biggest fear, not looking like an idiot.

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“How’s that arm? Nice and strong for scooping ice cream?”

I was raised Catholic, attended mass weekly, and became a lector at fourteen. (Meaning I read the New and Old Testaments at the altar in front of the entire congregation. I got certified by the Bishop, became good friends with the elder lectors, and received presents that were supposed to help me channel my “Spirit-given gifts.” I did this until I was a senior in high school.) I do still attend mass occasionally. The physicality of the building and its rituals, getting wrapped up in the harmony of voices, the taste of the communion, it feels like childhood. Regardless, this upbringing primed me for introspection: the pseudo-double consciousness incited by the human vs. spiritual which are supposedly both extant in the body; the “right” and “wrong” ways of interpretation; the figuring of self and her place within church and society. I had been prepared to think about myself in relation to god and her creation.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:13

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand.

Psalms 37:23-34

It makes sense that instead of teaching me how to interview, guiding me towards possible connections, or empathizing with me, my family reverts to prayer. We have been taught to trust in some kind of plan, specifically catered to our individual needs and goals, adherent to the context of the 21st-century job market and rent prices, and foolproof so long as we have faith. I have faith in a way that implicates my physical body, my thoughts, what I have done and what I intend to do. The fact that I believe in the physical: I believe that I won’t be scooping ice cream forever, or I believe that people are inherently good, or I believe in my potential to write full-time—means that these aren’t in faith, good or bad. Faith implicates a lack of evidence. I have evidence for everything I believe in. This isn’t to shit on faith; actually, I find myself wildly envious of devout religious folk. I desperately want to believe that there’s a being out there who cares about me so much that they’ve curated a plan just for me that will lead to ultimate life satisfaction, the most rewarding relationships, and a fruitful experience with the consciousness they’ve created. But when my mother has rheumatoid arthritis to the point of double knee replacements and a cane most days at 53, when my father listens to Alex Jones daily with his morning coffee, and my friends experience loss, failure, and shit circumstance, I struggle with faith. I struggle with faith on 9/11. I struggle with faith hearing John Lennon’s “Imagine” on the radio, knowing that he neglected his kid, abused women, and had a shitty personality. I struggle with faith while taking the train to 13th Street and having to walk through an underground encampment of dozens of unsheltered people, who are rolling around in sleeping bags in 100+ degree weather. I struggle with faith when I can’t bring myself to look at them, although I see them looking at me. I see their legs and grocery bags and their humanity and I’ve been told to look straight ahead, to not engage, to keep myself “safe.” I struggle with faith when life seems anything but planned, let alone planned perfectly for me.

Oftentimes, when you ask a religious person how they’re able to remain faithful when the world seems to be collapsing, they purport these as human issues, not god issues.

“God didn’t start these problems. People did.” etc. etc.

Obviously, deconstructing this answer is offensive to at least some camp residing on the religious spectrum. Although it’s interesting to think about the ramifications of these kinds of statements, the issue of intentionality still holds weight. If god created humans, isn’t this inherently a god problem, too? If god has a plan for me, for you, for us, why do people die in unexpected ways, like a cancer diagnosis or falling off a ladder? Why am I working at an ice cream shop after having earned a college degree, complete with over $20,000 in debt? Why do we feel lonely, estranged? Why do genocides happen? If it’s all planned, why aren’t we at least safe?

I believe in the power of people. I believe in the power of art. I believe in the inspiration of nature. I do not have faith in any of these.

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I’m thinking of a really specific creator on TikTok, HelloHayes, when discussing the “categorization of besties.” As a creator, she addresses concerns posed by her followers: how to gracefully maneuver awkward situations, how to establish and maintain boundaries, etc. I respect her content; she is slow, thoughtful, rational, and isn’t afraid to stake a well-reasoned claim, even at the expense of the question-asker. She purports six kinds of “besties”: the good time bestie, the OG bestie, the dead body bestie, the north star bestie, the work bestie, and the seasonal bestie. Most of these titles are self-explanatory, but exact definitions aren’t necessary here. The real point of interest is the categorization itself.

I’ve been reading a lot of books about grief recently, whether incidental or completely intentionally. (Perhaps my Freudian subconscious is seeking stories about grief and friendship—hmm.) With my own experiences of serious grief somewhat limited—having only lost an estranged family member or an ex-lover—I am learning about grief through proximity to narrative, through fictitious stories about friends and families. And I have come to realize that although I respect Hayes, I think the categorization of friends equates to a certain kind of a grief. When you gauge a friendship based on its context, its output, or its consistency, I think you’re losing the wholeness of a person, the fecundity of connection. I have incorrectly “categorized” people as acquaintances that have become emotionally fulfilling lifelong friendships, or didn’t take friendships created at the workplace serious until years later, when surprisingly, they blossomed into meaningful connections.

I’m thinking of Joan Didion, and her book The Year of Magical Thinking specifically, probably because it is my most recent read. How she had agents, friends, old bosses and co-workers, just this mass of connections situated across the globe, available for her. Not necessarily for her use, per se, which implies a kind of power dynamic. She didn’t use people; they were just available to her. We might call this a “network,” and not in the sense of “networking,” like the LinkedIn recruiters always tout. No, an availability network. When things go to shit—when your husband of four decades has a sudden cardiac emergency—you have someone to cook you food. An apartment to stay in next to the hospital. A person to call when you’re washing the dishes. You get the picture.

Another important stipulation about Didion’s “availability network” is that we don’t get access to her upkeep with said network members. Does she send them an annual Christmas card? Perhaps she’s offered them a similar “service”—a home-cooked meal, a place to crash? Does she send them NYTimes articles because it reminded her of some quirk or interest they had? Was is just proximity, ease? We don’t know. We don’t get to see the minutiae of the internal lives of successful people with a lot of friends, like Didion or Hayes. We don’t know the maintenance of the “work bestie” versus the “OG bestie,” or the phone calls and work projects shared between Didion and her expansive network. So we make things up as we go.

Drawing on life experience, I know that friendships wax and wane, yanked on by the crashing tides of everyday life. But some of my most emotionally rewarding and challenging friendships came about by accident, whether reignited by proximity, a sudden change in one’s life, a birthday text, or a drunken conversation. So if I really espoused Hayes’s categorization, there would be no room to accommodate the friend that recently went to graduate school or got dumped by their boyfriend. There would be little space for the dynamic and somewhat capricious speed of living, for the crests and troughs of accomplishment, context, failures, and chores. My “OG bestie” has blocked me on social media, my “work bestie” knows me—the me right now—better than my “north star bestie,” and my “dead body bestie” texts me every week, with a picture of their cat or an update of the film they’re working on. Friendship is enigmatic, clairvoyant, piecemeal. It suffuses life with purpose, especially when that friendship shatters your expectations in a productive way. Categories, with their rigidity, maintain grief. I would rather be pleasantly surprised.

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