object of memory

we must return to where it was lost / if we want to find it again

Category: feeeelings

  • center off center

    center off center

    I’ve always been fascinated by printmaking. It speaks to something deep inside me—a part that feels tears well up when moved by artwork, a part that is unsettled and then understood. I love watching an artist’s process, but I’ve also found incredible peace in making my own prints, even if no one ever sees them.

    Recently, I realized that creating quiets the noise in my head—and my head is very, very noisy most of the time. But I haven’t worked on anything in almost a year. At some point, I packed everything up in an act of quiet self-punishment.

    Last night, walking up 7th Avenue, my head throbbed, overwhelmed. I looked down and focused on the details of the sidewalk—gum, manholes, grime, stencils, millions of footprints, some visible, some long lost to weather and time. I stopped mid-stride, knelt as if to tie my shoe, and pressed my mittened hand against the cement.

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  • the time it takes

    the time it takes

    Clearly, I never followed up on the post I threw up here in July. Life has been a whirlwind, but for the first time in half a decade, I can honestly say things are okay—more than okay. I might be tempting fate by admitting it, but it’s true. Sid has settled into a new school in a small city nearby and commutes by train each day. Emmett started middle school and is thriving. And I began teaching at a new school that already feels like a tight-knit community. It’s been a learning curve, but one I expected—and welcomed.

    This summer, I spent a lot of time working on personal things, the threads of which I’m still untangling, slowly. I’m realizing that ghosts, no matter how old, never truly vanish. They fade into the background but still tap you on the shoulder—or, sometimes, knock you down—despite their wispy, amorphous state. Memories are like time itself: fluid yet concrete, always there, moving with you—or through you.

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  • the climb

    the climb

    Some people traveled to warm tropical destinations this spring break, while others may have opted for skiing or international trips. We didn’t. I wouldn’t even call it a staycation, as we didn’t do much unless you count my reluctantly taking Emmett to the 9/11 Museum upon his request, which was as far removed from typical vacation material as a New Yorker who experienced it firsthand can get, but whatever.

    I tried hard to balance my feelings this week as we look towards a horizon filled with light, something that hasn’t been possible for years – Sid is coming home in May. He will return almost eleven months to the day since he left. That’s wild when you think about it. Essentially, it’s been an entire year. I’ve been clinging to this aspect of the future, this reality that doesn’t quite feel real yet, but it’s getting there, and the realness is infused with fierce maternal joy, excitement, and a lot of anxiety that comes with years of heartache. All of it is natural, and the core of it is that my baby is coming home.

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  • i run to keep things whole

    i run to keep things whole


    Once upon a time, I stood at the full-wall kitchen window in my West Village office building and watched two planes crash into towers a mile downtown. I watched debris fall and gradually realized that it was not all pieces of plane and glass. I watched those towers pancake to the ground, the vision painfully surreal to process.

    I walked the eighty blocks back to my apartment, tuned the radio to NPR, and slumped down onto the kitchen floor. An hour later, unable to sit with my grief, I threw on my sneakers and ran. Uptown and downtown, I would have looped the bridges had they not been closed. I couldn’t stop running; I needed to feel my heart beat. And with every beat, I wondered how many other hearts had stopped.

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  • what to do with a busy brain

    what to do with a busy brain

    Raise your hand if you have a brain that is busier than your body. Hello, friend!

    I recently had a psychiatrist appointment during which I expressed distress over my level of anxiety. I know I am anxious when I stop sleeping at night—a frustrating no-win situation where I don’t want to go to bed because I know sleep won’t come. However, I’m also nearly paralyzed by the idea that I won’t sleep and will be too tired in the morning.

    Cue the tiny violins, but honestly, when you work with four and five-year-olds all day, you need to be awake. They know when you are bluffing. Plus, you are used as a human tissue for eight hours a day, five days a week, and if that immune system is depressed, well, you wind up with RSV like an adult four-year-old. Hello. That’s been me for the last three weeks.

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