The Places That Save Us

On finding our way.

I am at my desk, typing, when a ding sounds from somewhere beneath the floorboards. My downstairs neighbor has a new email.

I hear this sound dozens, maybe hundreds, of times a day, barely registering among the bleats of car horns, the din of construction, the laughter of children from the schoolyard next door.

This same neighbor takes issue with our footsteps, the fact that we cannot levitate from room to room. All the stacked carpets and soft slippers in the world cannot solve the issue of our proximity.

This is the life I have chosen, both the neighbor and the noise. I have elected to live with the startling bugs that dart in the night, the windows full of humans who are always on display, the people on the subway, seated close enough to spy the tiny photos in their lockets, the text inside their books.

I love it here, where we are all alone, together. A point that seems lost on my neighbor. I sometimes wonder why he stays. I’m sure he has his reasons.

Last night, I met a friend for dinner near Penn Station. She used to live in the city, and like most everyone I know, she has since moved.

“There was one day that did it,” she said, holding both palms up like a crossing guard. “It was mid-pandemic, I hadn’t left my apartment in days, and when I finally went outside, there was a pile of what could only be human feces on the sidewalk. And I said, ‘Enough!’”

My loved ones are everywhere now. The suburbs, the desert, the mountains. Other counties, other countries. Anywhere but here.

As I walked her back to the train that would carry her home, the Empire State Building put on a show in the evening mist, and my brain began a familiar dance.

Am I next?

It is the practical decision, the reasonable move. It is everything that living here is not. But when I look around me, I cannot reconcile this scene framed in the rearview mirror.

We spend our lives moving through spaces. Cars, kitchens, grocery stores. Schools, hospitals, hallways. There are places we choose and others we loathe and many more that we barely register.

On resumés and book jackets and across social media, our bios say things like, “Proud Texan” or “Former Brooklynite now living in Portland” or “Seattle by way of SF.” We post flags of the nations we hail from, crests and logos that mean more than their symbolism belies. There are places that define us, their landscapes inextricable with the fibers of our identity.

Occasionally, there are also places that save us. Whether a skyline or a stretch of field or a church basement, they are less about latitude and longitude, and more about feeling known.

Such places don’t always involve four walls. They are moments. Words. Safe havens. Your reflection as contained by someone’s irises. The extension of a kindness.

There are the rooms we occupy and the ones we forge inside ourselves, layered like nesting dolls. They hold the blueprints to our own secret universe — the maps of where we’ve been, the keys to the places we have yet to go.

Someone once told me that New York is a city that doesn’t care about you. I vehemently disagreed. In fact, I took it personally. Surely, I thought, they didn’t “get” this city. Surely, it hadn’t moved them the way it had me.

Now, I see that they were right. New York doesn’t particularly care about anyone, but to me, that is the highest form of care: the space to let one be exactly who they are. Where else would welcome every iteration of me — a veritable parade of lovable doofuses who knew nothing about life?

Here you are seen by everyone, noticed by none. You’ll never be the strangest, the loveliest, the best. How freeing to know you needn’t worry about superlatives. You can simply be yourself.

If “living in New York” is a literary genre, “leaving New York” is a generous subset, anchored by Didion’s 1967 essay “Goodbye to All That.”

While I won’t speak ill of Saint Joan, I will admit this essay has always bothered me — starting with the suggestion that one could stay too long at the fair, when said fair is the only place I’ve ever felt I belong.

“All I mean is that I was very young in New York, and that at some point the golden rhythm was broken, and I am not that young anymore.”

Only recently did I absorb the fact that when Didion left New York — when she was “not that young” — she was but twenty-nine.

And that in 1988, at the age of fifty-four, she returned.

From another view, “Goodbye to All That” isn’t merely a study in prose, but also our capacity to change.

I once thought love stories followed the same formula. First came loneliness, yearning, the vague sense that something was missing. Next came excitement, seasoned with a touch of uncertainty, anxiety, delusion, euphoria — something to raise the stakes. Finally, one settled into comfortable togetherness. (If anything came after this, I couldn’t tell you what, because the narrative always dropped there.)

Now, of course, I understand that love isn’t linear. It moves in complicated circles, often skipping or retracing steps. Our affairs with people and places aren’t all that different, each of them characters shaping the arcs of our lives. Near or far. Present or gone. They linger with us, and us with them.

If you stay anywhere long enough, you are bound to collect stories. There comes a time when visiting places has less to do with touring space and everything to do with touring selves. When driving through a stretch of town or walking down a forgotten street becomes a pilgrimage to who we used to be.

I spy ghosts all over this town. All of them are me.

Sometimes, I am tempted by the idea of a fresh start. Of forging new routes, new routines, new identities. Of never having to worry that I’ll encounter a former flame or boss or memory.

But really, every day is a fresh start. Geography is scenery. The real story takes place within us.

If there’s an oft quoted, over-referenced television equivalent of the “Living in New York” canon, surely it is Sex and the City. One memorable scene (Season Three, Episode One, if we’re being technical) takes place on the Staten Island Ferry. As Manhattan recedes in the distance, Miranda quips, “Who would’ve thought an island that tiny would be big enough to hold all our old boyfriends?”

I share this feeling, not about boyfriends but about former selves. From some other vantage point — the bridges, an airplane, the New Jersey Turnpike — I can almost see them all, going about their days. Bumbling and erring and hoping, start after start, unconcerned with this story’s inevitable end.

In that way, I suppose I will never leave. In that way, I will always remain.

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Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

Featuring the UV Tarot Deck, by Modest Mouse with art by Violet Aveline

The Two of Swords wants to help you move forward. Even if you’re not quite sure which way that is.

This card shines a light on any hesitation, indecision, doubt, procrastination. What are you afraid of? it asks. Perhaps you are making this more difficult than it needs to be.

Humans tend to overcomplicate situations. In our attempt to make the “right move,” we can sometimes make no move at all. Thinking things through is wise. Weighing pros and cons is reasonable. But ruminating or obsessing in order to avoid a mistake is not a good use of time or energy.

You know when you flip a coin, and no matter which side it lands on, you have a visceral reaction? That flash of relief or disappointment you feel is your intuition — the part of you that already knows the answer. Oftentimes, we know which step to take, but we let our rational minds talk us out of it.

Featuring the iconic Smith-Waite deck, with art by Pamela Colman Smith

This card often shows a character holding two swords while wearing a blindfold. If they’d just let go of one or both swords, they could remove the blindfold and see reality — including any wonderful new opportunities on the horizon. But as long as they maintain their grip, they’ll remain in the same place, afraid of what they cannot see, protecting themselves from what they do not know.

In the tarot, swords represent the realm of thought and intellect — in this case, our fears, our wants, our competing impulses. The more we hold onto our old ways, repeating patterns and expecting different outcomes, the less we are able to innovate.

The Two of Swords will say it plain: You cannot have everything you desire. Things won’t always go according to plan. Accepting that gives us the freedom to move forward unencumbered, knowing that as long as we do our best, and take it step by step, things will work out one way or another.

The secret to “having it all” is that it rarely means having it all at once. Making a choice often means giving something up. Change can be difficult. Letting go is hard. But the alternative is to stay stuck in the same place forever.

Or, as Anne Lamott writes in Help Thanks Wow,

“If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we become like mushrooms, living in the dark, with poop up to our chins. If you want to know only what you already know, you're dying. You're saying: Leave me alone; I don't mind this little rathole. It's warm and dry. Really, it's fine… New is life.”

The Two of Swords wishes to remind us that decisions are rarely final. There is often a chance to course correct, to choose again with the wisdom of experience.

As much as possible, this card encourages us to relax whatever we may be clenching, to loosen our proverbial grip. Put down what is heavy, especially anything that isn’t yours to carry in the first place. Remove the blindfold and take a look around.  

It’s time to see the big picture — beyond our own story — unfolding around us. The road. The sky. The scenery. The glistening possibility of what is yet to be.

In the days ahead, move confidently onward, trusting there is no such thing as a wrong choice, a wrong turn, a wrong direction. There is only what comes next.

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As always, if you’d like to hear me read this week’s issue aloud, the audio version is available here. (My neighbor especially loves this. 😬)