Through Jell-O Mold, Darkly
The subway car I was in on my way home last night might have been filled with corpses it was next to impossible to detect any signs of life. I'm not saying people should be jumping up and down and shouting Hallelujah! That would be far worse in a way. But some days in this city I just can't get a pulse and, frankly, it scares me. I wonder how people can appear so lifeless so much of the time and, well, not be. Possums do it, though, so it can be done.
I've been struggling myself with a blue mood — actually more of a purpley mood, if I'm to be strictly accurate. Blue and bloody. I wouldn't say I'm sad. I feel a little like I'm trapped up to the neck in jell-o, if that makes any sense. I'm thrashing — on the inside. Maybe that's what we're all doing on the T when we look like we're barely breathing. Bostonians aren't known to make casual eye contact too often, so I can't tell for sure what's going on in there.
(By the way, I have noticed since I started taking the T into town again a couple of weeks ago that red line conductors now favor "police action ahead" over "schedule adjustment" when trains are at a stand-still. I have to admit, I find the phrase intriguing, even if it always calls to mind police in riot gear confronting legions of zombies in Central Square.)
It's sometimes hard to identify the source of a funk, isn't it? (Not that I'm in one — again, being up to the neck in jell-o is not the same thing.) Because you've got your short-term and your long-term trends to consider. And then, the fact is we all move through several worlds at once, each with its own distinct rhythms, emotional dialects with their own temperamental inflections. We compartmentalize them because we cannot integrate them. They don't understand each other. they don't get along.
But sometimes, if only for a moment, the rhythms of our separate worlds synchronize and we think we hear a tune taking shape. And then, as suddenly, static. It's like trying to listen to the whole spectrum at once. You have to choose a point on the dial and tune in to that, but it's not as if the other points on the spectrum have stopped broadcasting just because you're not tuned into their frequency.
When the rhythms of my separate selves converged recently I realized my frustration is with my city (speaking broadly of the area from Davis Square across the Charles to the south end of the South End). I'm fed up with the whole organism, its self-regarding narrowness, coy one-way streets, and clever little cul-de-sacs. It's true that a city gets the people it deserves, and vice-versa.
One of my lives is as a stranger amongst strangers, and nowhere have I found this life as bereft of the fleeting pleasures it should by rights impart as here in Boston. In other cities I have known and loved, I never knew when leaving the house in the morning who or what would catch my eye, lead me astray, and lay glorious waste to my day. In Boston, I always know what I'm in for. A world of studied indifference to others married with a passionate interest in things. In buying the right things, wearing the right things, thinking and saying the right things. In short: having and being the right thing.
Even very clever people, very liberal-minded people, can be fooled into thinking that this semblance or simulacrum of life is the thing itself. Our social lives are layered, of course, and there are layers upon layers of likenesses of life, but never have I seen the sham run so deep that were you to peel the layers away, like an onion, you would be left with nothing. Well, nothing but your senses annoyed and possibly a tear or two of irritation.
Never have my intimate life and my life as a stranger so perfectly converged in the worst possible way as here. Not that I blame anyone for it. But I have to admit I miss the frank discourse among open selves and souls that we engage in only with lovers and Others, and only when we stop talking.
But I also miss the sense of fate in my day-to-day relationships. The depth of intimacy comes with a heaviness, a gravitational pull toward the fiery center of things. Love and death are inseparable. But once you get past the fear of falling, you realize falling sort of feels like flying. Until you hit the ground. And then it's the same either way. Why has the certainty of dissolution struck us as a curse, and not a blessing? Why are we falling rather than flying? Why not enjoy the ride?
Hmm. Back on Earth, I feel like I want a change of scenery. A new emotional landscape.
I was watching an episode of Mad Men last night that ended with a shot of 1950s Manhattan from the terrace of one character's apartment...
... while Ella Fitzgerald sings:
We`ll have ManhattanI thought: yes, that's it. I want to look out at the world and see all those little twinkly lights. A world in which worlds not only intersect but occasionally converge. A world that opens into worlds that open out to other worlds. A world that never says "only" out of fear of losing its secret, which is that it has no secret to lose.
the Bronx and Staten
Island too...
The great big city's a wonderous toy
just made for a girl and boy.
We'll turn Manhattan
into an isle of joy!
But first I have to find a way out of this jell-o mold.
Mike,
Don't move to new york city.
The fate of the world depends on it.
xoxo,
Mike from the Future.
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As someone who had an eight-year love affair living and working in NYC, I completely understand your romantic longing. However, it's taken me 10 years and two return trips to Manhattan to realize how much I love Boston and New England. I'm over it now--the string of twinky model boyfriends, the constant quest to find an affordable apartment and the revolving door at work. It was great in my 20s but was enough to knock me on my ass in my 30s. I say give it a shot. But Boston has those little twinkly lights too. You just have to squint your eyes a bit to see them.
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As always, I appreciate your thoughts, Sam. You are right to call it a "romantic longing" -- that's exactly what it is. I mean, consider that what launched me into this reverie was a highly romanticized version of Manhattan circa 1960. It's hard to get there from here.
I'm pushing forty, and New York would kick my ass, no question. It would have half a lifetime ago. Which is why, aside from visiting occasionally to be dazzled by its twinkly lights, I never seriously considered living there. But I would sure love to feel some of that energy around here sometimes. Being in Boston these last four years, my inner Blanche DuBois, who used to depend on the kindness of strangers, has shriveled into a sort of inner Terry Schiavo. Still on the feeding tube. Debating pulling the plug.
Of course, as with all my observations, there is always the possibility that I am confusing my own decline with the decline of civilization itself. It's a common mistake. It just seems I spent the best years of my youth in cities where shameless, profligate flirtation among strangers was the rule, but it's entirely possible this had less to do with the city and more to do with youth.
And I swear the other day I was on the T and looked around and it was comical how lifeless everyone in the car was. Like we were all on our way to a funeral -- or a mass grave. I mean, it gets to be a little self-indulgent, don't you think? Maybe we need to do those ride the T in your underwear days once a week or so. Something. Christ people, look alive!
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Hmm...well, I'll play devil's advocate: I was just in Brooklyn Friday & yesterday...and, damn, that's a great place! Screw Manhattan and all it's overkill - besides, the view of it is best from Brooklyn... Real urban grit, cool buildings, great junkshops, etc., and REAL city feel...of course, I could never afford it, meself, so just a pipe dream, but great to visit. As a Boston native who has become thoroughly disenchanted with Mayor Menino's Disneyland full of overprivileged snotty white folk who REALLY should be living in suburbs, not what used to be a city (rent "The Thomas Crown Affair" - the good one, with Steve McQueen [grrr!] and Faye Dunaway...THAT'S Boston as a real city!) until they came along, I'm a huge booster of Providence: still has lotsa fun sleaze [thanks to still being far more mobbed-up] and decay around the edges, and the original fabric is great, people are friendlier, houses and rent, food & drink are all cheaper for the quality, and great beaches AND NYC are a lot closer...of course it's tiny and also kinda The Land That Chins Forgot, but, hey, can't have everything, now can ye?!
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Thanks for the tip, Fred.
I do agree that if gays were serious about their rights they would be fighting to get their bathhouses back. Dorchester would be the perfect spot for one or two, don't you think?
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Well...if there were two, you'd have to combine one with a home & garden center, and maybe the other with daycare...no, that one could be in JP...
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Just look into your heart and you can find out where you belong in life.
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All I see is twinkly lights.
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As I was reading this, I could totally relate to what you were saying about Boston vs. NYC. I moved here from a small CT city 15 years ago that is literally half way between NYC and Boston. But at the time NYC seemed way too scary (and the NY bar exam way too hard) and I knew a couple people here, so I came here. For years I had a blast - Ptown in the summer, tea dance on Sundays at the old Chaps, a thriving gay neighborhood, museums, writing classes, the French Library, running along the Charles, it was all so grand!
And then, I dunno, it all just sort of deflated. I blamed the government, the people moving into the South End and demanding that it become just like Wellesley, the digitalization of social interaction. And friends starting moving away (in some cases to NYC).
Then I realized, as you hint at, that it wasn't really any of those things that sort of bogged it all down for me (although those things were in fact happening). It was just that I was getting older. It's no fun to go to tea dance and feel like the old troll. Once you go through the MFA a few times the glow sort of wears off. And I simply do not get a thrill anymore staying up until 2AM to stand outside Spiritus Pizza on Commercial Street and watch a bunch of drunk queens from Kansas "gay it up" for a week before they go back home for another year.
I've thought about moving to NYC too. But my friends who have moved there go through the same process. It's exciting for a while, then you make a few friends, meet a boyfriend, and go visit your friends at the shore on weekends in the summer. Look at the girls on Sex and the City. Even they got bored (and old - whew, they canceled THAT show just in the nick of time!).
You can make a change and ride the wave of newness for a while, like move to a new city, start a new career, go back to school, start a new relationship, but I just think that after a certain point it becomes harder to keep things moving at the pace you did when you were younger. The inertia starts to overcome the momentum.
On the other hand, I find that in recent years my needs are pretty simple, things are more focused. I don't want 20 "close" friends, I only want 5. I don't need to go out disco dancing 3 nights a week, one night out for a nice dinner with my BF is enough. I don't need to go to the gala reception at the MFA, I'll wait until they're all gone and I can enjoy the show in peace. Midnight fireworks on New Year's Eve. Zzzzzzzz.
I'm embracing middle age now, and going to NYC a couple of times a year for excitement. And I know what you're thinking - I already tried anti-depressants.
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Hey Mike. First time commenter, here, but long time reader.
You stole my thunder with this:
"Of course, as with all my observations, there is always the possibility that I am confusing my own decline with the decline of civilization itself. It's a common mistake. It just seems I spent the best years of my youth in cities where shameless, profligate flirtation among strangers was the rule, but it's entirely possible this had less to do with the city and more to do with youth. "
Not because I pretend to know you, but I was thinking the same thing while reading the post. And, y'know, Boston WAS kinda like those other cities when I was younger - shameless flirting and even pickups on the street, eyes darting wverywhere to see who was in your orbit. I'm talking the 1989-1994 or so, when I arrived here. And now that I'm pushing 42, I feel a lot of that energy gone from my life. And I wonder if it's still out there for others - especially those younger than me. I hope so, though I miss it for myself. Once in a while, though, it still happens, and it's lovely and welcome when it does.
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Well, I'm not American, I just landed here... in Boston (actually 5 months ago). So I find it very interesting what you're writing and your comments.
Let me give you my grain of sand (???)... I've known several cities in the US, but always as a foreigner and tourist; sometimes for work...
NYC has always been my American city: spontaneous as many Southern European cities, renewed and re-invented as no other city (maybe London and Paris?) that I've known... And to be sincere, it's the place I wanted to go and live; I knew it 2 days after my first visit there (same happened with SF or Montreal). But this globalism-capitalism that surrounds us and my employer decided for me (ha!) to go to Boston... surprise surprise!
Don't get me wrong, (first) summer in Boston was great... And first times are not always that good!
And then, winter came. As a Spaniard (I'm from Barcelona) that I am, you will (or can) understand. I guess my skin and heart will have to get used to the cold of the city and I want to believe that there's still heat in town... too innocent? maybe, and I am also the stubborn type... until I hit my head against a wall, then I quit. But I find it hard... I mean, winter and cold people in Boston.
What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that for now I'm here, swallowing and maturing each experience that this town has to offer to me. It's not the perfect city... but is there a perfect one? (Barcelona doesn't count!)
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We're lucky to have you. (And by the way, Toti, you ain't seen nothin' yet.)
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I have to say, I appreciate all the feedback on this. Sunday I had dinner with a friend, who cheered me up a good deal by stuffing me full of sushi and showing me the view from the terrace of his apartment on the 23rd floor of a tower near the harbor, with a sweeping panoramic view of Back Bay. Lots of twinkly lights, I have to say. And something so quaintly comforting about that old Citgo sign, I'll admit.
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whenever I find myself longing for NYC, I just tune this in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K97uFO8LJs and I feel a little warmer. I still miss NYC, but at least this gives me a smile.
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