My dad and the fox

Death lives here

A while back, I saw someone post on Instagram that their dog of 10 years had died. Obviously devastating, I distinctly remember them saying it was their first time ever experiencing grief. I remember a small rage filling my body. 

I am familiar with death. When I was 21, I was a caretaker for my dad as he died of cancer, with him, as he took his final breaths. Since then, I’ve felt the familiar heaviness of grief many times, most not quite managing to compare to that singular life-shaping experience. Lately, as my grandma ages and my mom’s health declines, I feel death’s dark presence once again. We walk the same path, death, a few steps behind me but never out of sight. 

But my grief has never been accompanied by instantaneous guilt until recently. I’m sure I’ve caused harm along the way. Life can’t exist without it. Generally though, I try my best to keep my role in it to a minimum. I avoid meat. I rescue bugs in my apartment, overcoming my fear to bring them safely outside. I don’t fish even though it seems peaceful, unable to face the reality of causing pain for fun. 

Last week, as I drove into the Hudson Valley with Lindsey, a fox ran out under my tire. I was going 50 miles per hour. She gasped and then it was dead. Barely a millisecond passed between noticing it and seeing it in my rearview mirror, flattened under the weight of my car. Instantly, I sipped a bitter cocktail of guilt and grief like I had never tasted before. 

When you find out someone or something suddenly died, it’s shocking. But never have I felt the heaviness of having a hand in it. 

This was new. One second there was a fox, living a life in the tall grasses of Hudson. The next, it was crushed, another dead animal in the road, this time behind a car I navigated. 

I cried hysterically. Shaking, Lindsey holding the wheel, while I continued to push the gas. 

Surely, I couldn’t hit an animal twice. I had never hit an animal in my life. Two times in 24 hours would be insane, I found myself thinking all day as I drove through upstate New York with a fresh fear racing through my mind. I replayed the moment of impact over and over.

I felt sick, unsure I could overcome the deep pit in my stomach. I wanted to talk about it, I wanted someone to tell me it was ok. I couldn’t believe it happened. It happened so fast. Could I just pretend it didn’t?

I felt a similar feeling when I watched my dad die, shocked that someone could be here one second and gone the next. It felt impossible that my father, someone who had been with me since I was born, who I looked up to and needed, could be unreachable and forever inaccessible in the time it took for him to heave one final breath. 

I remember, once I went back to college, feeling like I could almost convince myself it hadn’t happened. In another life, he was at work. In a meeting. Maybe on a plane to Romania for business. 

Obviously, the grief I felt after killing the fox doesn’t, and didn’t, compare to the life-altering grief of losing my dad, but it was a reminder of how quickly things can happen. How quickly tragedy can strike. How quickly everything can change. 

Something must be in the air because yesterday, while driving from Bushwick to Bed Stuy, I almost hit a biker. I was driving back from my studio when he shot out across the intersection. I slammed on my breaks, as did he, sliding up on one wheel as we both did everything we could to avoid contact. A moment that brought us fully into the present. 

My first instinct was anger, my light was green! But as I looked at him, shouting apologies through my passenger side window that still refuses to open, I instantly started apologizing too. 

How quickly things can happen. How quickly tragedy can strike.

We drove off, both shaken, but alright.  

And how quickly things can be ok again. 

Damned if we do

Damned if we don’t

Yesterday, while I laid on the acupuncture table with needles pressed into my body, I overheard a woman talking from a few tables over. 

She was detailing the surgeries she has gotten over the past few years. The 360 Lipo. The BBL that stopped her from sitting for 3 full weeks. The tummy tuck. The chin lipo. The boob job. I couldn’t see her but I found myself curious about what she looked like. Would I be able to tell she had gotten all that work done? Was she this open with everyone or just a medical provider? What did her body used to look like? Did it once look like mine? Did she, now, after the countless adjustments, finally feel happy? 

If so, why did she sound so defeated? So exhausted?

I felt waves of curiosity and unfortunately, judgment. Sure, I haven’t had any work done. But hadn’t I, in the depths of despair (and in Incognito mode as not to disrupt the perfect story of self-acceptance I’ve written) researched liposuction and boob lifts, myself? I’ve definitely spent the majority of my life wishing my body was different, in small and big ways. 

I realized what I felt was a deep sadness for her. And me. And you. 

In ironic harmony, I had spent all of Monday fighting back against my own internalized fatphobia. For the first time in a while, I had spent all day thinking about my body. Maybe I should increase my cardio? Maybe this month of not drinking (healing an ulcer) would help me jump start my weight loss? Maybe I would finally find a crush if I just was a bit smaller? A bit more palatable. 

All day I ran through the perfectly-memorized script. Quietly pushing aside the things I know to be true. I treat my body with respect. I eat nourishing foods. I work out because I love to move. I prioritize my mental health. 

And even though my closest friends have been there for me truly hundreds of times, I felt embarrassed to bring this inner dialogue to the group chat. It felt like such a relapse. Typing it out and sending it to them would mean acknowledging I hadn’t made it to the other side. Sending the first text would be to admit I was still trapped in the river of self-hate, so instead I spent all day drowning. 

Finally, I sent out an SOS. And of course they immediately rushed to my rescue. They reminded me of all the things I already know, all the things I’ve spent years learning and wrote me texts that made me cry. 

Leaving acupuncture yesterday, I felt gratitude that my slip back into madness only lasted a day. I felt better, Monday’s low already feeling muted with time. There is still work to be done but for the most part, I know that seeing myself as unlovable because of a body I label as bad based on aesthetic alone is to crush me. To turn me into Flat Stanley. I am caring, I am funny, I am honest and tough and kind and resilient and hardworking and creative. My body is one small part of me. I am not a one-dimensional paper doll.

When I stood up from the table, I glanced over to the woman on the far end of the room. She looked perfectly normal.

I see the effects of this culture all around me. I watch women order a side salad when their boyfriends order a sandwich. I see my friends tug and pull at body parts I’ve never noticed. I hear my grandma complain about her loose skin, as if her body hasn’t kept her safe for 85 years through sorrow and joy. 

I know nothing I’m writing here is revolutionary. We all know this story. We all feel these feelings. If everybody can relate, how could every body be so wrong?

When I feel like I did on Monday, I do my best to remind myself, the enemy isn’t my shape, it’s the years of conditioning that tells me it is. 

And when I hear a woman talk about plastic surgery or body enhancements, I try to catch myself before I cast judgment. If we’re both in the throws of the same relentless battle, who am I to judge how she fights?

I’m so full!

Jesus it was hard getting here

In this year of grief, I’ve been shocked (although not entirely, because with pain comes joy blah blah blah) by how euphoric I feel. 

Twice now, I have caught myself singing “I think I like this little life” in earnest while going about my day. 

I keep feeling pangs of “holy shit, this is my reality now”. I’m obsessed with Catskill. I love the community, the insane amount of artists that live here, the interesting older people that have been here since forever. I love watching the seasons change on a micro level – noticing new flowers and migratory birds on my walks through the nature preserve five minutes from my apartment. I love the bald eagles and the Red-tailed Hawks and even the deer that dart out across the road in front of my car. I love the fact that I’m taking the train to DC right now instead of flying, gliding along the Hudson at dawn. I love my morning yoga practice. I like that I live in a small town where people know my name and I like waving to them as I walk to the library and then the post office. I love that I buy my eggs from my friend down the street. I love that when I look out my bedroom window, I see water and seagulls and ducks, something I had never even considered for myself before. I love watching the fishermen, leaving early on their boats, catching striped bass this time of year, which “you can actually eat because they migrate from the ocean”. I love that I have space to make art almost every day and that my part-time copywriting gig pays my bills. I love that I get to make small differences in my town, shopping for the community fridge that sits at the bottom of my building and attending weekly meetings about affordable housing. I love that while doing everyday things like running errands, I often cry at how beautiful the mountains look. I love that I am getting to know the backroads and the scenic routes. I love that my friends say Jack seems more relaxed up here and I love that I feel more relaxed too. I love that I’m reconnecting with parts of myself that went dormant when I lived in the city, the part of me that thinks best in the woods and craves that connection to trees almost daily. 

But before I moved, the back-and-forth of my eventual decision kept me up at night. I’ve written a bit about this but two summers ago I posted on Craigslist about wanting to do a house swap with someone in Upstate New York. Three people reached out, Drew was one of them. I lived in his house in Catskill (a town I had never heard of) for four months from 2022-2023, while he lived in my very pink New York apartment. I knew I loved the Hudson Valley, I had been visiting for years but I hadn’t really found my spot yet. But within days of being up here, a seed had been planted and a few weeks before the four months were done, I pulled my car onto the side of the road and burst into tears. I wanted to move here. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Sometimes, you learn something about yourself that absolutely sucks because now, you have a duty to your being to listen to it. Sometimes, you tune into something so deep that you know you can’t just ignore it. This was one of those moments for me. 

I felt sick. 

I came back to the city at the end of January and fell back into my NYC-loving ways. I had long dinners with friends at fabulous restaurants and went to shows and museums. My art studio was exciting and fun after four months away and I was thrilled to be surrounded by the people I love so much. But slowly, slowly, slowly the seed that was planted in Catskill grew and by summer I was seriously looking for apartments. Then it became my obsession, getting upstate couldn’t come quick enough but Catskill is small and housing is scarce, I had to learn how to sit in uncomfortable transition. 

The day I drove up to see my current home, I left early in the morning, getting to Catskill by 10am. I loved the apartment. There was so much light, I was right on the water. I could walk to my favorite bar. I could see the ceramics studio from my bathroom window. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

Packing up my stuff was haaaard. I packed for almost a full month. I had to paint my NYC apartment back to white and I had to do it well, because my landlord was threatening to charge me 6 months rent for breaking my lease. And my studio. My studio almost killed me. I had acquired so many vintage goods from years of selling and so, so, so many art supplies. Lots of the vintage goods were things I had bought at the very beginning of Paradise Suites, before I knew what sold and what didn’t so it felt like piles and piles of just STUFF. I love things. I have so many things but I don’t particularly like STUFF. There’s a difference. I ended up donating most of it and I didn’t even care that I was losing money in the process. Get that shit out of my possession. 

I spent so many hours packing. It was honestly absurd. And then it was time to go. I said goodbye to my friends and my apartment and my neighbors and my bodega and my favorite sandwiches and favorite bars and on October 16, I moved upstate. 

I gave myself grace when unpacking. I had done a really hard thing getting up here, it was ok to take my time. Then on November 19th, barely a month into living in my new town, my mom died and when I came back to my apartment after spending two weeks in Florida, I was horrified by the state of unrest. There were boxes to be unpacked. I had barely hung art. I felt so tired and yet, I knew that a clean, cozy house is integral to my mental health so I kept fucking unpacking. It felt like I had been moving for years. It had been 3 months.  I couldn’t believe how little energy I had. Everything was hard. I needed constant breaks. Like always, I held myself to an impossible standard, not understanding why I couldn’t just get it done. I just wanted to watch a movie in peace, without feeling the stack of boxes staring at me from the corner. 

Eventually, it was finished. And now, what’s crazy, is 6 months later, I barely remember the act of actually unpacking. Grief is like that, it makes everything fuzzy. 

I couldn’t believe how hard that move was. Holy shit, I thought it would never end. But it did.

And to be honest, I have anxiety about moving out of my current apartment. I’m scared my landlord is going to increase my rent and I will need to leave after only a year. I’m scared of wrapping up countless pieces of art. I’m scared of the hundreds of holes in my walls, covered up by frames, canvases and shelves but still there because I refuse to measure things before hammering in nails. I’m scared of carrying boxes of books down my two flights of stairs. I’m scared that even thinking of leaving will manifest it into truth but for now, none of that is happening and I’m at temporary peace. 

I. Love. My. Life. 

I remember feeling this way when I first moved to NYC and I’m sure one day, I’ll feel this way about a new place or adventure but I’m definitely not taking it for granted in the now. I did this. I worked fucking hard to get here. I packed and unpacked every box by myself. I hung every single thing in my current apartment (except the TV, I hired someone for that), painted and repainted the walls in my old one, bought a drill, learned how to use anchors and install floating shelves. I put together bed frames and found a free couch and hired movers in my new town to carry it up the stairs for me. I talked about part-time gigs to every single recruiter I spoke with over the last two years and asked if anyone knew anyone who knew anyone looking for someone like that. I’ve been thinking about the idea of a slow, gentle life for years and I can’t believe how hard it was to get here, but I finally feel like I’m living it. 

It was way more difficult than I thought it would be. 

But what I’m saying is I think you should do that hard thing you are scared of doing. You are probably going to cry. You are definitely going to lay awake and make never-ending to-do lists in your head. It will feel like it’s not actually ever going to happen, like the small steps you are taking won’t add up. But that’s ok. Try to remind yourself to trust that they will.

I’m so fucking happy I listened to my gut and followed this little flutter that lived deep inside me. Realizing you have a new dream or desire is overwhelming and frankly a burden but it’s our burden to bear. It’s our most important job, to do the hard things it takes to live a life we want. 

I’ve always dreamt of living a spectacular life. I’ve never wanted a regular one. And over the years, that has meant lots of different things to me. In third grade, I went as “first lady president” to my career day. I wore a red pantsuit from Goodwill. When I moved to New York, I thought I wanted to be a big time advertising girl, then later, a museum-worthy artist. But actually, these days, my version of a spectacular life is having time to notice the blooming daffodils and learn the Red-winged Blackbird “okaleeeeee” call, to talk to the lady harvesting dandelions outside my apartment, to read every morning and every night. I feel more present than I’ve ever felt. My memory feels sharper (besides the grief) and my nervous system feels more regulated. I know where my food comes from and I can make a mean pot of soup. 

The hard things I have done over the past few years were unbelievably worth it.

I feel so happy and sometimes, so sad but always so lucky.