Tag: writing

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?