The End
Back when I was actively writing a memoir, I was always looking for a place to stop telling the story. You know, a good ending. The memoir started with my mid-life move to San Francisco. My new life was unfolding in many delicious ways and my story kept building. I wrote scene after scene and there was always another, no end in sight. Then I moved to NYC. An end, yes, but also another beginning. Then Tom died and as upsetting as that was, I knew that was my ending. Trouble is, it also ended my interest in writing the memoir. Instead, I started this blog.
The title "one foot out the door" is my way of saying I have difficulty with commitment. There are reasons that probably stem from childhood and I won't bore you (or me) with pondering them. But the way it shows up in my life is this: whenever things don't go as I'd like, my first response is to leave, to quit, to break up. I don't always act on that impulse. In fact, quite the opposite. I stay while inside I'm screaming, let me out of here!
Seven years ago I was working in a loft in Oakland, preparing to move to NYC. I've now been with the same company for 9 years. I lived in the same apartment in SF for 5 years, all the while scanning Craigslist for something cheaper, larger, more convenient. I lived in my West Village shoebox for 6 years. Tom and I were an item for 6 years; immediately prior, I was with David for 9. (What does it say that my longest relationship—14 years—is with a cat?) In January, I made an unbelievable commitment and purchased an apartment in Brooklyn. I have a 30-year mortgage. These are not the actions of someone who avoids commitment. Fearful? Yes. But I do it anyway.
And what I've realized is that commitment is a living breathing thing. As changes occur, we adjust and re-commitment is necessary. Sometimes daily. We've recently had changes at the office and we're moving back to the original location I came to on my first day of work in NYC. What a feeling of full circle I had yesterday when I walked through the door and introduced myself to the receptionist. But there has been progress. Instead of returning to the meager cubicle where I used to sit elbow to elbow with a co-worker, I now have a beautiful office. Indeed, as I write this from my dining room table looking out over the rooftops of Brooklyn, I'm thinking this is yet another beginning and I can't wait to see what will happen next.
Life in Brooklyn
Last night a craving for nachos led me to the neighborhood pub where tho lively and well-populated, there was plenty of room at the bar. The most connected guy in Brooklyn sat down next to me and I soon learned the nearest place to buy organic produce (I never would have found it on my own), where I can get a community garden plot, that the Ft. Greene food co-op is ready to go as soon as it finds a space (please let it be within one block of me), the bar across the street is rough, and the coffeehouse most like Farley's in SF used to be is Outpost on Fulton. The nachos were good too.
I'm still getting my feet on the ground here in my new neighborhood, which is packed with small businesses where everyone is friendly and the person behind the counter is likely the owner herself. The cashier at the above-referenced grocery store tried to talk me out of the organic produce I had walked 8 blocks to purchase. "Why you buy that at $5.99? You get the same thing for $1.99 on special today. As far as I'm concerned that is just over-priced!"
It was a lovely walk down the brownstone-lined St. James Place. Breakfast today on Myrtle was a delicious waffle with real maple syrup and scrambled eggs for $9 (it compares to french toast at the French Roast in the West Village, where for $17 you get a big helping of indifference). Next door is a tiny yoga studio where I can do Pilates on Saturday and Iyengar yoga on Sunday. It's as if I woke up and found myself transported to Bernal Heights in SF (except without the fragrant air). And next week it will feel doubly so when my Bernal Heights friends are here to visit! Can't wait.
The Discomfort of Success
Last week a very welcome letter came in the mail: “I am pleased to announce that you have been nominated by a member or members of our Board of Contributing Editors for
Pushcart Prize XXXV: Best of the Small Presses, to be published in November 2010.
Wow! Achievement of the next milestone, I thought. I let that sink in—for about five minutes. Then came the questions, the doubts, the take-aways. (If you’re a writer, you know what I mean.) Then I picked up Pushcart XXXIV and read Kim Addonizio’s personal essay, “How to Succeed at Po Biz,” recounting the glamorous (tongue in cheek) steps to fame in my chosen field. (Her book,
Tell Me, was a finalist for the National Book Award.) It was gratifying to read this particular “step:”
“Feel anxious because you are basically a private person and can’t live up to the persona that is floating out there in the world acting tougher and braver than you. You are a writer, after all, and prefer to be alone in your own house with your cat.”
That’s what a persona does—it stands in for the writer and allows her to become a character in her first person story. My persona may seem a lot like me, but not completely. Every successful first person writer creates a persona, from Charles Bukowski to Frank O’Hara to Anne Carson to Mary Karr.
A few months ago, an acquaintance read my blog and reported back that I am different here than on email or in person. Ah hah! Success, I thought. I’m doing it! Building a small space between the personal me and the “me” for public consumption.
Turn Off the Tele
When I moved to NYC six years ago, I dumped my tv. It was a time-waster, the shows I enjoyed could all be viewed later on video, and whenever there was a tv in the room, my then-lover insisted on falling asleep with the screen buzzing all night long, which made me cranky.
I’ve missed the big leaps in tv technology—HDTV, surround sound, those sleek wall-mounted units—but I have yet to miss the content. Though I do have to say I’ve become clueless in the company of the 20-somethings I work with who watch "Glee" and “Gossip Girl.”
What do I do in place of television, asked a bewildered co-worker last week. Read, write, vacuum cat hair… but one of the best things is radio. In SF, it was
KPFA: late night story-telling with Joe Frank, alternative rock/folk music with Bonnie Simmons on Thursdays, and of course, the always entertaining lefty political conversations.
Here, I listen to
WNYC on Saturdays: Kurt Andersen’s "Studio 360," "CarTalk," "This American Life," and the newest discovery, "Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me."
WWDTM is smart, political, and hilarious. In one regular segment, they give three wacky scenarios on a particular topic and the guest contestants must decide which one is true. My favorite example from yesterday is a dating website for not-so-good-looking people called eSettle.com. The founder says they’re looking for people who’ve been on eHarmony or Match.com for a year and are getting run-over by reality. (I was only on Match for six months. I swear!)
On Thinking Big
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UPS just delivered my new refurbished Cuisinart toaster with four slots. Earlier this month, I bought a king-sized bed. In my kitchen is a Viking commercial refrigerator that dwarfs the 17.6 oz container of Greek yogurt inside. The massive burners of the Viking gas stove look as if they could melt my charming little tea kettle with the harmonica whistle. Judging by the scale of things in my new apartment, you might think I was expecting company.
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Ever since I left Colorado for San Francisco, then NYC, I’ve been committed to shrinkage. Well, maybe it started even earlier, when I first started writing for a living and wanted to see how little I could spend each month. And despite the fact that I had a 400 sq foot studio and shared an 1800 sq foot house with my ex, surrounded by fresh air and pines outside of Boulder, there was always too much stuff. And I just spent the last six years living in two rooms that couldn’t have totaled more than 300 square feet. I became a regular at the Housing Works donation desk.
At 800 square feet, my new apartment isn't large by Colorado standards, but it seems to have ignited the "big thinking" lobe of my brain. Or maybe the reverse is true. But I do know that if I plan to use more than one slot of the new toaster, I’ll need a little furniture to offer to my guest(s). I hear the Brooklyn Flea Market is the place to shop.
There are other novel things about my newly expanded perspective. For one, I didn't know what seems to be common knowledge that the top floors of steam-heated buildings in NYC are overheated. If I don’t keep my windows open all day, the temperature is too warm to sleep at night. And with all the light from five unobstructed windows, I can see exactly how much NYC dirt comes in through open windows. If that’s what’s landing on my floor, how much goes into my lungs? Some realities of NYC life might better be kept in the dark.
A Note on Contributors Notes
I'm posting this link from poet Diane Lockward's blog mostly to remind
myself about
contributor notes. But you may find it useful too. (And thank you to
Practicing Writing for calling it out.) If you're committed to your art, you'll want to promote it in the best possible manner.
I would love to write more about this but I still don't have broadband internet connection at my new apartment. (No it's not as easy as calling Time Warner.) I pick up a tiny bit of WiFi occasionally that I could lose at any minute. I've been putting my problem solving abilities to good use lately. No huge problems, thank you very much. But a constant barrage, nonetheless.
Why Forever is a Scary Idea
I want to expand on the post I started yesterday—specifically why the idea of moving into a place where I could be for the rest of my life scares me.
It hasn't always. When my ex, D, and I bought our house on Pineview Lane in Boulder, I had that very thought: this will be my last move. Silly me. I was only forty. I was with the wrong guy. That particular forever lasted five years. And that experience got me to San Francisco.
I certainly wasn't so naive as to claim SF as mine forever. It was expensive and troubled (kind of like me). I definitely had the feeling I'd better live it up while I could, and I did. (If you ever feel you live too much in the past or future, I highly recommend a stint in the glowing city by the Bay for a dose of NOW.) Maybe I acquired more than a temporary taste for the temporary.
I was ambivalent from the beginning about moving to NYC. But how many people in the arts are offered a salary and moving allowance to come to the arts capital of the world? I gave it two years. But unlike SF, NYC engenders deep roots. From day one, everything about NYC has grabbed hold and held tight.
Yet life in NYC is imperfect. (Read: big understatement here.) People told me it takes at least a year to adjust, but then you're hooked. You can't leave. For me, it took four. To go from dreaming every day of the day I could return to an idyllic life with my bohemian friends in SF, to investing in real estate in a down market that could take years to appreciate with a huge monthly payment that ties me to a stressful job...well, one way of looking at that is as a prison sentence. So when my realtor suggested this could be my last move if I so chose it... well, can you see why I might consider that a mixed blessing?
So I am pleased as plum to find that this move is a BIG improvement on my life in the West Village. Clinton Hill is remarkably close to what Potrero Hill was like when I first moved there. Sometimes what you resist most turns out to be exactly what you've yearned for.
Making a Commitment Will Make You Happy
Now that I've announced that I am committed to the new focus of the blog, how is it possible that an entire ten days has gone by with no post? It turns out that commitment, rather than the scary must-be-avoided monster I have long considered it, results in pure happiness.
One day after I'd signed the offer paperwork to purchase my apartment, my realtor and I were riding the elevator in the building. I mentioned that I'd never lived in an elevator building. She looked at me and said, just think Karen, you could live here the rest of your life. What she meant is that when you get old enough to have difficulty with stairs, an elevator is a blessing. She might as well have started a five-alarm blaze in my commitment-phobe heart. I couldn't wait to get back to my fourth floor walk-up in the West Village.
Right up until the closing, I was second guessing myself, secretly hoping that the deal would fall apart at each of the many steps along the way. It didn't because it was absolutely the right move for me to make. After two weeks, I am deliriously in love.
The Secret to Happiness
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The secret to happiness is sunshine and a great bed. To this I can personally attest, having done without either for far too long.
Yesterday I had a luscious king-sized mattress delivered. To all of you who live out in the real America, this may sound uneventfully quotidian. Please understand that for two years I've been sleeping on an upholstered board. I had traded my bed for a
convertible sofa to have more liveable space in my postage-stamp West Village apartment. I attributed my sleep issues to hormone imbalance and stress. Why is it that only in retrospect do I see that, between the cat bugging me and the ventilation system next door cycling on and off erratically, anyone but the dead would have sleep issues.
Not to give you the wrong idea: Brooklyn isn't exactly pastoral. There is plenty of noise that rises to the 15th floor to challenge my newly acquired serenity. But it's white noise. And I have yet to hear a single
orgasm through the wall.
Maybe it's like my friend Ron says: You have to live like a rat for awhile as part of paying your NYC dues. It's like a hazing. But in my determined manner, I adopted it as a lifestyle and not only lived like a rat, I
became a rat.
That's all changed. I've barely opened my moving boxes, haven't yet located the best places to shop in the neighborhood, and the internet won't be connected for another two weeks. But after the first night on the new bed, today I woke refreshed and happy with where I am for the first time since I left San Francisco.
I Have the Keys!
It's not easy for me to make a commitment. I've decided this is because once I do, it will be forever—whether I like it or not—because it's hard to undo things. Whether this is factually true or not isn't the point. (To this day my mother insists she did not force me to continue the piano lessons.) What's true is that on an animal level, this is what I believe.
Also, buying real estate in NYC during this economy when the banks are in trouble is not easy. So add "commitment phobia" to "mind-numbing process" and it is amazing that today, after four months, I signed papers for a 30-year mortgage.
We had a couple of minor glitches at the closing, but everyone is happy. The architect-owner who designed the renovation is a lovely guy--the kind of person you'd like to have as a neighbor. But alas, he's off to France to meet up with his wife and children.
The apartment itself needs a little spiffing up: some paint, some spackling, a little elbow grease. I guess there's no rush. I plan to live there for awhile.
The West Village Has Relocated
I didn't get the memo that the West Village is now located in Brooklyn. But I am pleasantly surprised to discover that it is now Clinton Hill, my new neighborhood.
When I saw the claim on a real estate brochure—Clinton Hill is the West Village of Brooklyn—I chalked it up to marketing hype. But last night I attended my first social function in a beautifully restored brownstone a block from my new home. Literally, every second person I spoke with said they'd moved to the neighborhood 20 years ago (give or take), when they got pushed out of the West Village. Lovely people, very friendly and welcoming. I've spent the last six years looking for them on the wrong side of the river.
It may take Google Earth and GPS awhile to adjust their systems, and really, we'll probably want to keep this on the downlow to avoid a mass influx of investment bankers, NYU students, and tour busloads looking for Carrie Bradshaw.
Still Packing
I have to make this short because I'm wrapping art work in bubblewrap for the movers on Saturday. I just wanted to report on the walk-through of my new apartment tonight as a preliminary for the closing on Friday.
It occurs to me that I haven't described the place yet here in my blog: on the top floor of a mid-rise building, it has eastern exposure. I look out to light and sky. Just wonderful. Not a palace by any means—2 bedrooms, one bath, gut renovated by the previous/current (until Fri when the owner will be me!) architect owner. White walls, aqua flooring. Tonight it felt like walking into a cloud!
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