newsletter #21: ambiguous
feeling out of life practice
Hello reader. How are you this week? I’ve been good, all things considered. I allowed myself to take Friday off from work so that I could get out of the house a bit and do some exploring. I ended up going to the Whitney by myself, sitting in a coffee shop, etc. This newsletter is about thoughts that came up while I was there, in addition to what else I’ve been considering this week. Hope you enjoy reading and happy Sunday.
nerves
Before the pandemic, I walked freely about New York. I carried myself with an awareness of my surroundings, obviously, but for the most part I flitted up and down the city streets without thinking all that much; a transfer at 14th Street was second nature, I regularly traversed crowded streets of people, I tiptoed around puddles of melted snow, I peeked into new stores when passing them, I crossed streets despite the blinking orange hand telling me to be cautious and stop. In short, I navigated New York with a confidence that comes from familiarity, with knowing a city (or wherever else one lives) well after living there for years.
All that said, the pandemic has put me on edge. Now, when I leave my apartment, I operate with acute vigilance. When someone enters the subway car, I glance up to scan for signs of danger. If someone sits next to me, I inch to the side and position myself away from them. I speak to the baristas at my local coffee shop with a shaky voice. I check Google Maps several different times before making a train transfer. Loud noises make me turn my head. Riding to Central Park or even the West Village feels like a huge commitment, a somewhat frightening journey that will take me “far” from the safety of my home, my refuge. I’m out of practice. I hate it.
twenties
I’m trying to get into my rhythm again, though. At times, I get frustrated, because I want to be “back” to how things “were.” I’m having trouble mourning the fact that things will never be like that again, or at least, not exactly that way. This is not to say that I’m not grateful for the manner in which certain aspects of life have changed since the pandemic, though. (Like working from home.) In a way, I’m also struggling with the tumultuous nature of being in my twenties, too, how so much of life changes during this time. (Friends, work, living situations, personal development, spirituality, and more.) Any attempt to gain some sense of concreteness or certainty about anything is ultimately futile—my opinions and outlooks can be changed in a matter of days, hours, minutes. The overall malleable nature of my life right now can be particularly anxiety-inducing. I’m trying to get comfortable with this ambiguity, though. To sit in it.
I feel this way about my art lately too, about my creative practice and body of work. I want so badly “to be” where I want “to be” in my life already. I’m impatient. I expect a certain standard of output without giving myself the space to get better and grow. I need to create and go about my life with less judgement, without such intense self-scrutiny or lofty expectations to be perfect. To be perfect now.
whitney museum
This sentiment was increasingly clear to me as I walked around the Whitney on Friday. (Though, to his credit, it’s something Ale has been telling me for weeks now.) I spent the most time at an exhibit featuring the work of Jasper Johns. (called Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror.) It was the “most comprehensive retrospective ever devoted to Johns’ art,” the curators wrote, and they showed his work spanning from the 1950s to present day. While I won’t claim to have an extensive knowledge of modern art, I like exhibits of any kind that are dedicated to a single artists’ work. You see how much sheer *volume* it takes for them to make it as an artist, how many iterations of the same piece they might create to get the final product, how their work changes over time as they grow or experience different parts of life.
Furthermore, the art, the creating, doesn’t stop once they reach some definition of “success,” but rather, they continue to create, to make art in response to the times, in response to what’s going through their minds based on the current environment. The joy is in the act of making art itself, regardless of how it is or is not received by the world.
And so, reader, I will continue to write, and figure my life out, and go about New York with little to no expectation of becoming a finished product of myself, of reaching a final destination. (Until I die of course, hah.) Thanks for sticking around for all of my innumerable iterations.
Also of note this week:
I finished A Prayer For Owen Meany. So good—perhaps added to the list of all-time favorites.
Ale and I saw Licorice Pizza at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which plays movies in film. I thought it was a really beautiful movie and that Alana Haim was amazing, though the age difference between the main characters admittedly gave me pause…? Would love to know your thoughts, if you have any.
I watched the And Just Like That finale, obviously. It was fine, but I’m not really sure I expected much from it.
Are we celebrating Valentine’s Day? Let me know. Perhaps next week I will write about love.