So many things are changing, moving, ending, rearranging right now. Several of my favorite places, my personal institutions and havens, closed down this month. The bookshop, the donut shop, the karaoke bar. My haunts, exorcised from a city, anointed by rising rent. What do you lose when you lose a place? The infinite layers of memory, or at least a major source of their recurrence. How many friends, books, and worries I had breakfast with at Ike & Jane. The true site of my adult reblooming into someone capable of fun, singing and dancing at Go Bar. The incalculable variety of experiences both shopping and working at Avid Bookshop. Gone with the new year.
These are just the physical things. The ones I’m comfortable talking about. An extraordinary, excruciating number of things have changed in the last 6 months, and continue to cascade into new waves of disruption.
I’m trying to face them with determination, willingness, and resilience. I want to find excitement, where I’ve only been able to find dread. I’ll keep going. But for now, I’m maxed out and reeling. One step at a time. Just not in the same old places.