I ran into my ex. He was walking towards the checkout with a stack of books as I was walking in. After I saw him I left as fast as possible. Walked straight to Fiction in the very back and realized I was looking for Knausgard in the wrong section. He was in Nordic, not American. I lingered. I found the book I came for but I lingered. Stood in a daze in Science for long enough that if he’d done a lap around the store he’d had found me but it didn’t happen. He’d left, I hoped, and was far down the block. I browsed the rest of the store but I wasn’t fully present. I was only letting myself buy one book and it was already in my hands but I busied myself just in case he was still there. He wasn’t. Or at least I made sure not to look too hard. I checked out with my book, and left. Put my full pound of Karl Ove in my beat up New Yorker bag and walked down the ugly part of Broadway and practically ran to the train. I didn’t realize until I took my phone out to text a friend that my hands were shaking. I was sweating and shaking. At least I’d worn makeup and looked decent, today. It could have been so much worse.
While I waited for the train a man across the platform was playing love songs on his trombone—the way you look tonight. I filmed him because I love the sound of trombones and I love subway music, unironically. I think anyone trying to make music in those dark platforms is a sort of hero. People always try not to smile at them, to play it cool because it’s New York and you shouldn’t be too emotive in public, but I see when it’s a classic song, or an oldie, the sides of peoples mouths will lift, a smile just trying to break through. On the train I took out the book I was reading, “Lost and Found” but I couldn’t focus. My heart was still pounding. I’d seen him. A year of being casually paranoid and it finally happened. And of all the places, my favorite bookstore. On the train I just kept seeing that double-take over and over in my head and recalling the fraction of a second of panic I could read in his eyes. I could have stopped and talked to him, but I was worried I wouldn’t have anything nice to say or would start to cry or would feel angry, I had no idea and it was best in that moment not to find out. On the train three older men got on and said they were going to sing. I always loved these performances because usually the older the person, the better the music (though that wasn’t always true). They’d chosen The Drifters, “I’m alone!” they started to sing, and in that moment I laughed out loud and felt tears starting to well up. Not because I was sad, but because that series of events was so New York. It was so like the city to crush you in one moment but gift you little beautiful things in the next. New York was a poet in that way.
Yes there might be 9 million people milling around but you better know one Saturday morning you’re going to run into the man who broke your heart. So, I did. And now it’s done.
But anyway, I have a new book. Two actually. I’d gone to Housing Works before and found a Sigrid Nunez book I’ve been wanting and the 3rd book in Knausgards My Struggle trilogy.
While I was sitting on the A train going uptown, listening to these guys sing “I’m alone I gotta find someone who loves me” I was moved because what just happened meant a lot to me. I realize that we assign meaning to things that might not have much but that’s the truth behind any meaning in our lives, it’s personal. I was in a city of millions of people, and even more if you consider that it’s fashion week and the models are so tall they might count as two of me. But in a period of 20 minutes I’d gone from seeing a ghost of someone I loved, someone who hurt me, to music. It was like the city was saying to me, things can be so bad, you can be hurting here so much, but there’s also this, right here. This trombone in the dark subway and these men making people smile on the train. And a reminder that I’m a very different person than I was when I was with him. A lot has changed in a year. Last year I think I just reshared the Valentine’s Day/Pale blue dot post I wrote a couple of years ago because I was too busy. But this year I thought I’d add to it. Only this year it feels like there’s less to pull on, less positivity to dig up and show you because the world is pretty hellish right now, though when is that not true. That’s the thing about that photo, it’s impossible to look at it and not feel called out. Yes we are all here together, together all 9 million of us in this tiny city and nearly 8 billion of us on this tiny planet but we’re a hot mess. Literally. We’re fucking over our species on a daily basis, creating a planet that will be fine without us, but one that will grow to be inhospitable to humans, save for the most wealthy. There’s multiple genocide’s taking place and I will say nothing about the elections happening in the states and in Europe because I don’t want to make us both cry.
The world is bad, there’s no way to get around it. But that’s why Carl Sagan insisted on taking this photo. If we saw ourselves as a collective, sharing this minuscule little mote of dust together then how could we not do better? Treat each other better? Vote better? Love better? How could we know the truth of what we were and not change our behavior? I think the answer comes down to a lot of things, but the biggest one I think is, meaning.
What does your life mean to you? Where do we find meaning, or how do we make meaning? I think about these questions way too much because they have a lot to do with the book (proposal) I’m working on but I’m also entering that fun mid life crisis era and man, does the topic come up a lot. We all value different things, naturally. Also moments, things, events, beliefs, all contain their own meaning to us and that changes all the time. What gives my life meaning right now is very different than what I imagined it would be, or what did even a year ago. The tricky thing about humans though is I think a lot comes down to simply deciding on what matters to us. I think a great place to start is just by doing an experiment. Open the photo—stare at it for a minute somewhere quiet, alone. Meditate on what you see, notice how you feel, what you’re thinking, what you imagine, what comes up for you?
What meaning do you feel the dot has now and has it changed? Maybe the most important thing for you to see is that you’re there, you were probably there when the photo was taken. Does it change it?
I don’t know the answers. I’m just as confused as the next person about what any of this means or what my life means, but it is a question worth thinking about because without meaning then we should all just go off into the woods and call it a day. Which I’ll be honest, often sounds like a lovely plan. But, I’m turning 40 this year and the truth is, I really want my life to mean something. And maybe all it means is that I’m a part of something, a part of the dot. A part of 8 billion people, a part of a city with all of our exes waiting to pop up and give us small heart attacks. But maybe that’s ok? Maybe it’s beautiful in a way. All of our stories, old and new loves, old and new versions of ourselves all woven in a bizarre tapestry that breathes and morphs. Maybe it’s really ok to have the ghosts appear, because after all they once meant something very different. I don’t know, maybe it’s kind of nice that we’re all here figuring this out together, don’t you think?
p.s. The Pale Blue dot is a photo taken by Voyager 1 on Feb 14, 1990 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles from the sun. We celebrate every year, the gift of this perspective.
IMO
The world isn't bad; there are bad people
The world will remain until the sun explode; people...not.
The blue dot is duality. We're both insignificant and significant. We're miniscule in the universe, yet we're all we have.
Life is short, live it. To quote Thich Nhat Hahn - "Many people are alive but don't touch the miracle of being alive."