Hagar Writes

Author: hagaroosh

  • In the Cracks

    It’s been a little over a month since we arrived in North Adams. I keep meaning to write another post, but it’s been difficult to know what to say. If I attempted to capture all the feelings I cycle through each day — not to mention over the past month — this blog would be hella long and boring. (I suspect it would also read a little crazy.) Suffice it to say that I’ve been down, sad and lonely, and I’ve also been excited about the potential of the life I can imagine here. In the first couple of weeks, stress and doubts and regrets kept me up at night, but since then I have also felt enveloped in calm, as if the frequent snow flurries that are a feature of life here have affected my nervous system, enveloping my spirit in a soft blanket of papery flakes, muting my worries.

    When I first moved to the Bay Area and missed New York something fierce, I would call to mind something Alexandra told me when I first called her to rent her house on Tyler Street as our landing pad. “They’re apples and oranges,” she told me over the phone after I dumped my stress about our impending move on a (then) total stranger. “If you try and line them up and compare them, you’ll be disappointed. The key is to appreciate each one for its special qualities.” I think about Alex’s words of wisdom a lot these days. Comparing Berkeley and North Adams is more like comparing a rutabaga and a mango, but nonetheless each of those foods has its own merits.

    Construction has begun on our upstairs bathroom and we are deep into the planning process for our kitchen and entryway, which hopefully will be completed by fall. For the time being, Owen and I reside in the in-law unit, and it feels a little like we’ve gone back in a Time Machine and living like college students.

    Speaking of college, one of the things that offsets the loneliness I feel is the intellectual stimulation I’ve experienced since we landed here. North Adams is small and, especially this time of year, sleepy, but between this town and the next town over, Williamstown, home of Williams College, there is some interesting cultural event almost every day.

    We’ve seen an astonishing dance piece by choreographer Shamel Pitts called Marks of RED (we loved the open dress rehearsal we attended so much that we already bought tickets to the performance in Boston in May);

    Watched the Oscar Shorts at a small movie theater where everyone talked to each other before the lights dimmed and saw a weird-ass Japanese anime called Paprika at a free screening at Williams that was introduced by a comparative literature professor and a neuroscience professor;

    Accompanied our friendly neighbors to the local First Friday event where we visited two wonderful galleries, one of which was presenting a glow-in-the-dark seascape and the other which is curated by an incredible artist, Alison Pebworth, whose show at MASS MoCA is a balm for the soul

    Attended a day-long symposium at MASS MoCA called “Tending the Garden,” with a keynote by Báyò Akómoláfé, a lawyer turned “public philosopher” who is one of the most mesmerizing and dynamic public speakers I have seen in recent memory. We were invited to attend the dinner for the presenters in the evening, a Vietnamese feast cooked by a chef who’s a fellow California transplant, and which was served under the twinkling lights of artist Spencer Finch’s uplifting “Cosmic Latte” installation.

    I am pretty sure everyone who reads this can imagine what has pulled me down. Apart from missing my people something terrible, the cold and bare trees and isolation and loss of my biweekly farmer market visits and, of course, the state of the world and stress about my family and friends are painful. But in the spirit of Alex’s counsel, I will enumerate ten things that make the rutabaga of North Adams special. In no particular order:

    1. My local friend Vanessa took me to Cricket Creek Farm, where there’s a gorgeous farm store run on the honor system. It’s going to become a staple of mine.
    2. There are AMAZING thrift stores and antique stores EVERYWHERE. I have been collecting little treasures for our home.
    3. Speaking of thrift stores, Sanford and Kid deserves its own bullet point. It’s a local institution where new wares go on sale every Friday at nine and people line up to be first to rummage through the $2 table
    4. The woods behind the Clark Art Institute, where you walk on trails through a whimsical fence and between beautiful tree-inspired sculptures
    5. Walking to the library, the post office, the amazing bagel shop, the museum
    6. Yoga classes with Angie Rocca, who is a talented and grounding instructor and teaches in a heated room that feels like heaven in winter
    7. Watching the snow dance outside my window
    8. Talking more frequently with Diego now that the time difference between us has shrunk
    9. Daydreaming about the potential of our house. I think it’s going to be a magical space
    10. Having a full house and hosting friends and family and anyone who wants a change of pace or to come for weeks and create

    At the talk he gave at the museum, Báyò Akómoláfé spoke about what he thinks is needed in this moment when the world seems to be falling apart. He said two things that really struck me, and I aim to put them into practice the best that I can.

    First, he said, what’s needed of us is that we all get stranger. Not angrier, or more active, or more reactive, or more trenchant in our beliefs about right and wrong. Stranger. Which I took to mean, stop letting algorithms or parties or journalists dictate what you are feeling and doing. Tap into that which is unusual or quirky or queer or wacky or silly or absurd. Resist the pressure to fit into a box or carry a label. Resist the pressure to trap you in outrage and despair. Feel what is wild and weird.

    And second, which is where I am with this whole Big Move business: Attend to the cracks. See where things seem to be falling apart, where your heart is unraveling at the seams, where the ground underneath you has opened up, and get curious. Báyò suggested lying down on the ground and peering into those cracks, which I think he meant both metaphorically and literally. And so, I lay in svasana, sensing where my body meets the planet and how unknowable I and it feel. I sit with the cracks that have appeared between what I thought my life was and what it is, or might be, becoming.

    Tell me, dear ones, how are you tending to the cracks?

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  • DAY 13 MEMPHIS > NASHVILLE

    Near the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis

    I’m feeling very lucky at the moment, sitting in a deep bath after a night out seeing three incredibly talented singer-songwriters share the stage at the Listening Room in Nashville: Twinnie, Tenille Townes, and Bonner Black. Stream their music—I certainly will be doing so. They sang songs about love and heartbreak and birds and goldfish and Nashville’s neon lights obscuring the stars. Hailing from the UK, Alberta, Canada, and Hot Rock, TN respectively, these three smart, charming, and velvet-voiced women fulfilled my Nashville dream.

    Meanwhile, the walk to the venue down Broadway was all cowboy hats and Bon Jovi covers and testosterone and excess. Loud music poured out of every building and food truck. It was A LOT.

    Speaking of testosterone, we hung out in a Memphis dive bar last night listening to five local musicians perform soul and blues covers and banter with each other and the audience. The singer, A.B., had an astounding voice and an ease with people. Other young musicians in jeans and baseball caps clustered by the bar, one of them jumping up on stage to cover from the bass player when he lumbered off to pee at the beginning of a number. The original bass player, an older guy who wore his baseball cap tilted to the side, much to the amusement of the young crew by the bar, worked the room carrying a silver tip bucket. The show was unpolished and soulful and very entertaining. We left smiling ear to ear.

    It’s a joy to watch people being really good at their craft. Humans are wonderful. And awful.

    I was reminded of that fact wandering around the Civil Rights Museum, which is located in the Lorraine Motel where MLK Jr. was murdered. Owen and I spent over three hours inside, reading about all these brave souls who fought for justice, paying a steep price but also embodying goodness and righteousness and love and hope in the face of hate and violence and evil. The museum really drives home the fact that everyday people have the capacity to change society,and that we all have a moral obligation to do so. It’s a powerful place that I hope Diego and Pele can experience someday.

    Today, we had our first mapping snafu. Instead of the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, I somehow managed to route us to a neighborhood called Hermitage which, incidentally is not far from where that asshole Andrew Jackson lived. We drove almost twenty miles out of the way in rush hour traffic, ending up in an unpaved parking lot amidst various strip malls. It was frustrating, especially since it lengthened our drive by about an hour and a half, but we also laughed. Humans (me) are sometimes dumbasses. Machines are dumbasses too.

    In Memphis, we saw piles of dirty snow on the ground, remnants of last week’s ferocious storm, and on our drive to Nashville, we saw tons of broken trees, their branches snapped by the icy cold and strong winds. Nature is not to be trifled with. I wish we were better at heeding that message and giving our natural environment the respect it deserves.

    A friend in North Adam called to inform us that the Massachusetts weather has turned the sidewalk in front of our house into a treacherous block of ice covered in snow. She suggested we hire her neighbor to help us out. He sounded very friendly on the phone (and his little baby was very chatty), and when he gets back to town in a couple of days, he’s going to help us out.

    Humans are cool and kind. I hope we can figure out how to be better to each other and the world. As Tenille Townes, my new Alberta crush, sang tonight: we could all use a little more of the kind of love that envelops everyone inside of it. (I’m paraphrasing.)

    Take a warm bath and listen to some beautiful music and know that there are many people across the country caring about and looking out for each other, even if that’s not what we’re told and shown.

    Good night, y’all.

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  • DAY 11 AUSTIN > MEMPHIS

    Yesterday, we drove 628 miles, which I don’t really recommend. We traversed a large swath of Texas, all of Arkansas, crossing the Mississippi into Tennessee just before 9 p.m.

    When you travel by car, you are not really “in” the places you pass through. You’re a detached observer, an astronaut hurtling through space, adrift. We only stopped twice the entire drive (if you don’t count our hour-plus detour to turn around and retrieve the laundry we left in Nick and Alison’s dryer!) We had our first-ever Buc-ee’s experience and, y’all, it was CRAZY. For those who don’t know, Buc-ee’s is a chain of gas station/convenience stops that originated near Lake Jackson in Texas and has since spread throughout the South. Buc-ee’s prides itself on its clean bathrooms, which were impressive for a busy way station, to be sure. But what floored me was the sheer scale of the place. The size of several football fields smooshed together, the Buc-ee’s we stopped at, East of Dallas, offered a dizzying smorgasbord: BBQ brisket and pulled pork sandwiches prepared in an open kitchen in the middle of the room; hot chicken nuggets and fries in a box; cut fruit and key lime pie in cups; freshly roasted pecans and cashews; oodles of old-fashioned fudge in every flavor; slushies; and tons and tons of merch bearing the company mascot, a wide-eyed beaver wearing a goofy red cap. Anyways, I was totally overwhelmed but somehow all in, sort of like how I’m now a Costco person. I don’t know what to tell you: I contain multitudes.

    Anyway, I digress. I’ve been thinking about spaces—public and private—and how they shape our reality. In Austin, we went for an afternoon swim at Barton Springs, an outdoor spring-fed pool that is free during the winter months and early in the morning and late at night in the summer. It was refreshing, warmer than the Pacific but still cool, perfect for an 84-degree February day! Public bathing spaces are common all over the world, in all kinds of cultures, but they’re not really an American thing. That’s a shame, because there is something beautiful about providing a space for people to plunge and sauna and unwind together. It breeds an almost familial connection between perfect strangers: look, my body is similar to yours—we’re all human animals.

    In Marfa, our docent for the “Studio Tour” of Donald Judd’s workspaces was a gentle, bearded young man named Aedan with an art history degree from Dartmouth. He and Owen bonded over their love of Mass MOCA and exchanged numbers so they can get coffee when Aedan is next in town. Aedan had been living in Marfa for a few months and was loving his job, but he lamented that even though he was in the middle of all this open space, surrounded by the jagged peaks and scrub of the Chihuahuan Desert, there was nowhere to wander and hike: everything around, as far as the eye could see, was private ranch land.

    It’s a particular kind of hubris: to claim vast expanses of land that were forcibly taken from Indigenous peoples who called the landscape home for centuries as private property. It’s also emblematic of U.S. history and culture. We’re obsessed with ownership and expansion (paging Buc-ee’s).

    Public spaces are precious—parks and libraries and public schools. They represent human’s hunger and capacity for connection and shared experience. In Austin, Alison took us to see the gorgeous troll sculpture that resides in a local park, one of a series of built by Danish artist Thomas Dambo for his work Trail of 1,000 Trolls, and I can’t wait to go searching for more of these gentle giants in the future. I’m also looking forward to exploring all the accessible nature around North Adams, to using the free snowshoes that are provided at the trailheads that originate at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown and working at the library that’s just down the street from our new (pink) house.

    Appreciating public spaces is a good reminder to not take the business of “making a home” too, too seriously. Yes, my home environment is very important to me and I am, of course, excited about refurbishing and decorating 194 East Main in the faded-elegance style she deserves. I look forward to welcoming people into our home for dinner parties and overnight visits.

    But it’s the shared spaces that truly create a sense of belonging to a place, and I hope to participate and get involved in, for example, supporting the local library. As we discovered in the Bay Area, making a home is in large part about getting familiar with the surrounding environment, with the hidden corners and magical offerings and soul-expanding pockets of nature and wildness.

    Today, we will go and experience the Civil Rights Museum here in Memphis, maybe thrift, and then go looking for live music. I’m enjoying passing through all these new places and drinking up the newness. But I find I am also looking forward to arriving in Massachusetts. I am excited about discovering and creating a new home.