HelloGiggles: How To Be Human

When it comes to my exes, there’s just one who remains absent from all forms of social media. As for the others, I’ve seen photos of this one’s trip to India and that one’s charming hilltop wedding. The guy from French class is a PhD candidate in some science of the mind. The college dorm neighbor stands before a Christmas tree flanked not by the two kid sisters I remember, but by two sophisticated-looking women I barely recognize. This access to their presents creates in me amnesia for the pasts we shared. Where there once might have been nostalgic longing or imaginative extrapolation, there is now the cozy but sterile fellowship that cloaks all things available to all people at all times.

The ex with no digital footprint is immune to this. I remember him as he was years ago and occasionally wonder what his life is like now. In the rare empty space surrounding my understanding of him, I can assume fictive futures. I imagine that if I bumped into him on the street, the concreteness of the situation would be too much. I’d fumble my words and revert to my 23-year-old self. After all, if not, “Congratulations on your new baby! She’s beautiful!” or “I saw your Italy pictures – how was the trip?”, what would I possibly have to say to this person? But I digress. The point is that he’s become a wildcard. A ghost. A marbly white, mystery-flavored fruit snack that refuses to broadcast its red cherriness or purple grapeness.

It’s unclear whether his virtual unavailability is magnetic or alienating – which, in turn, begs the question: when it comes to your virtual persona, to what degree are you drawing in, and to what degree are you pushing away? Though your involvement itself suggests a baseline transparency, are you stripping down to your rawness or putting on a well-curated show? And if you answered the latter, are you not somehow the same as the invisible ex? Hiding behind a re-tweeting, quote-happy avatar (guilty as charged) may be as distancing as avoiding the enterprise altogether.

I’m drawn to those who reveal – probably because their freewheeling revelations give any viewer ample fodder for connection (please note: it has to be artful; literalists need not apply). My favorites fall into two subcategories: the snarks and the glossy lifestylists. The snarks discuss everything from pop culture to politics, therapy, razor burn and what happens to their urine after eating asparagus. They’re alternately bombastic and self-deprecating, untouchably cool and professionally uncool. Just when you think they’ve devolved into an obliquely amusing vortex of navel-gazing millennial speak, they’ll whip out a striking syntax, insightful sense of humor or cultural critique that reminds you of their unique brilliance. And on the most solemn of occasions, they’ll employ the holy grail hashtag #serioustweet. If you’re the recipient of that, congratulations; you’ve slain the dragon.

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HelloGiggles: Pen & Ink

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His penmanship was the yang to my yin: inky, all caps characters poured onto the grainy, college-ruled page with obvious force. Whereas I was inclined to hide behind the controlled, back-slanted neutrality of extra-fine ballpoint black, he was liable to leave his mark in the smudgy, imperfect perfection of aggressively forward-leaning, medium-point rolling ball blue. I carried at least two bottles of Wite-Out with me at all times but secretly admired the boldness of the boy who could cross out a word, insert a mini carrot-arrow and squeeze a replacement into the surrounding blankness. His writing was an exhibition of process rather than a presentation of product. Product can be distancing. Process is as inclusive as it is messy. And so, with his trademark scrawl, he let me in.

Remember the era of mystery? Before the dawn of locating technologies, the 8th period bell was our North Star. It sent me scurrying to my locker, which was two below his. (He didn’t scurry. He ambled. He was so cool). A glance. A touch. A note. An exhilarated walk to 9th period Algebra. I never read his missives in class. Like any delicacy, they were best consumed slowly, deliberately, with full attention and all five senses. And until I had the time and space to read them as such, they lay tucked in the front zipper pocket of my L.L. Bean backpack, burning holes of passion into the modest, forest green nylon.

Years later, the content has all but disappeared from memory. The look, feel, scent and touch of my high school sweetheart’s notes, however, remain vivid. This is to say that the hand-written letter has only a little to do with its constituent words. My mother’s elegant cursive on a Post-It note in my lunchbox said nothing of great consequence but flooded my tiny heart with joy. The wobbly print on a 2004 Hallmark Easter card from my grandmother, meanwhile, has taken on different meaning since she’s passed. Though barely mobile by then, she somehow managed to get to the store, pick out the card, put pen to paper and sign her name, along with a funny, self-deprecating P.S. stick figure drawing of herself. In a way an email could never be, it’s a deeply personal snapshot of life, of action and of humor. And the countless notes my high school best friend and I exchanged as we navigated our angsty teen years boast not one but two strains of meaning: the words and the presentation. Nothing says, “I’m struggling with demons” like melancholy musings in bubbly purple penmanship, or Staples loose leaf with burnt edges designed to evoke some bygone era and/or notions of decay.

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Move LifeStyle: Girl Friday

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You are a published writer. How do you find time to fit that into your everyday schedule?
E.B. White said, “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.” In creative pursuits, especially the self-generated variety, it’s altogether too easy to tell yourself you’re distracted today, not feeling inspired today, or need to pay the bills and do the laundry today. I find it helpful to set aside a two-hour block during which I leave the house, turn off the phone and sit quietly in a coffee shop or library with my laptop. Sometimes it’s excruciating, and what comes out will never see the light of day. Sometimes it’s easy, and I end up staying for six hours instead of two. We like to think that the arts are about muses and magic. They often are. They’re also a lot about showing up. Showing up to the theater, the studio, the field or the blank page, and making your practice as important as the bills and the laundry (which, by the way, will get done).

You have a love for fall. Where do you think that comes from?
It could be because I’m from New England, which lends itself to autumnal splendor, or because I was born into fall. I’ve always preferred the shadowy mystery of grey weather to the bright obviousness of the sun. Seasons are cycles, and fall marks a period of turning inward, of hibernation. It’s this heightened moment of golds and crimsons and bronzes, of harvest and abundance. Yet it is, as heightened moments tend to be, ephemeral. Waiting in the wings are the frost that will soon cover the ground and the leafless trees that will stand stark against the winter sky. That contrast makes me giddy. So does pumpkin pie.

What are some challenges you’ve had to overcome in your life path?
My earlier life was linear. Study hard, work hard, and get results. Reap what you sow, and so on. Now I exist in a world where there aren’t any hard and fast rules. Success is not necessarily about hard work or desire (though I find merit in both); it’s about taking the ride and accepting that the results are largely out of your hands. The professional challenge, then, is to remain positive and authentic when things don’t work out the way you’d hoped they would, to have faith in intangibles like luck and timing and to know that there is always something new on the horizon. The personal challenge, meanwhile, is to go ahead and live your life. Waiting for everything to fall into place is a dangerous game.

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HelloGiggles: Dreaming of a Flight Christmas

Ah, Christmas. Thanks to a misplaced curling iron, abnormally heavy traffic on I-95 and a three-car pile-up on the Van Wyck Expressway, you’re late for your flight. Your heart pounds as your ride careens toward the JFK departures curb, which your feet hit in a Hail Mary sprint to get to the gate on time. You’ve considered buying winter boots but have never been able to justify doing so, because you only visit winter once a year have a deep-seated issue with deserving (which you’re working on in therapy). So you’re wearing the only boots you own, carrying bags that weigh more than you do, and sweating profusely under your multiple layers of clothing, even though your fingers and toes have somehow managed to remain numb. You’d dreamt of a White Christmas but instead got bitter cold rain – rain that now coats the soles of your weather-inappropriate boots. Hallelujah! An airport employee! No? Wrong line? Oh, right line. But need a boarding pass first. Thanks for your help. Grinch. Way to spread the holiday cheer. You spot a kiosk in the distance. The clock ticks forward, and the loudspeaker blasts It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, which is as ironic as your encroaching pangs of agoraphobia are alarming. Just focus on the kiosk. Get to the kiosk and get back to the line.

You run.
You slip.
You fall.

It’s a slapstick fall. The kind where you fly up into the air and hang there for an awkward moment before crashing down onto your tailbone in the manner of a cartoon coyote. (The heavy bags fall on top of you.) It is so egregious that even the apathetic onlookers rise out of their travel weary slumps and stand to help you. “Thanks, I’m fine!” you muster with a smile (you also have an issue receiving help; you’re also working on it in therapy). You’re not fine. Your body throbs with pain and your face burns red with shame. Pull it together. Don’t cry. You start to cry a little.

What seems like lifetimes later, the interminably long check-in line deposits you in front of a desk attendant, to whom you profess, breathlessly, “I think I may be too late.” Failing to notice your frayed nerves or the tears welling up in your eyes, she says, robotically, “Nope. As of six minutes ago, the flight’s been delayed three hours due to snow.” You look outside. It’s snowing. And just like that a White Christmas has slipped through your fingers.

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The Conversation: Phoneless Flight

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The plane that ferries travelers from the island of Nantucket to Boston, Massachusetts and back carries nine passengers and one pilot. It’s the type of plane that requires you to state your body weight before boarding and hovers at an altitude from which you can see the ground (or, more accurately, the water) the entire way. Just before seven on a sunny July morning, you hand your carry-on to the attendant, who places it in a cavernous leftwing compartment (no bags on board) and lie about your weight by two pounds (to lie by five might prove hazardous to your safety and to the safety of your fellow passengers). The engine is so loud it drowns out all other sounds, save the pilot’s confident voice (he does this several times a day) shouting cheerfully at you to “fasten your seatbelt.” You think of JFK Jr., probably because you’re reading a memoir by a woman who loved him and whom he loved. Or because you’re crossing waters a stone’s throw from where he passed. You think of Katharine Hepburn and Howard Hughes. How they treated planes like sports cars and managed to live relatively long lives. The speed is breathtaking, and before you know it, you’re airborne.

Hovering above the island, you get an extraordinary bird’s eye view. From this vantage point you see why maps look the way they do. The sun glistens on the water and illuminates the grey shingles and white trim of the houses dappling the land. Yachts and sailboats rest in the harbors, and waves kiss the rocky shores. Everywhere are green trees and bramble merged with stretches of sandy brown and swaths and inlets of brilliant blue. You’re the opposite of a sun worshipper; you much prefer the subtlety of grey to the glaring obviousness of the light. But this morning, the sun shines on the island in the most magnificent way and somehow charms you into liking it.

You mull over the concept of distance. Things appear glossy from a distance. When you’re immersed in them, places are flawed, real: you trip over a crevice between cobblestones, swat a mosquito from the mustard that’s fallen out of your sandwich and onto the table, and walk the dock where you first locked eyes with a stranger who became an intimate and then a stranger again. The place is more textured than smooth. But from a distance, you perceive none of this. What you see now is Nantucket’s avatar. Its profile picture. “I should Instagram this,” you think, instinctively. You already know which hashtags you’ll use (#ACK #nofilter). But then you remember your phone is in your carry-on, which is in the wing (#fail). And so instead of morphing into your avatar and sharing the island’s avatar with a community of avatars, you must remain human and sit in the radical solitude of your own perception. You have neither an electronic facsimile of this moment nor the validation of an audience “liking” it. You have only its fleetingness. That and the nervous tapping of your left foot (#private #kinetic #NotIdealForPhotoSharing).

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The Conversation: Love & Coffee

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“Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane – in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath – she has probably put herself in unnecessary danger” (128). -Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

Coffee. Lee always called it a nice cup of coffee. For her, the drink didn’t really exist without the qualifiers. Coffee is clinical. A nice cup of coffee sets a scene. Born in 1919 to Neapolitan immigrants, Lee was a self-professed “sweater girl” who spent much of her life waiting tables at a place called the Snack Shop in small town New England. (For those who don’t know, a sweater girl boasts a figure that looks great in a sweater. I always imagined said sweater to be, specifically, a cardigan worn, even more specifically, in the style of the 1940s or ‘50s.)

You may remember the episode of Aaron Spelling’s original 90210 in which Brenda had to cover her brother Brandon’s shift at the Peach Pit. At first, she did so begrudgingly. I mean, who wants to be waiting tables when they could be following Dylan McKay on a surfing excursion to Baja, am I right? Eventually, though, when Brenda realized that her self-generated frustration at the situation was doing nothing but making her miserable, she had an inspired change of heart and transformed before our eyes into a sassy, gum-smacking, hairnet-wearing queen of greasy spoon culture. Brenda’s metamorphosis was enough to make any young girl dream of wearing knee-length industrial polyester and scrawling burger orders on the pages of a mini notebook tucked expertly into an adorable apron. (Years later, I’d end up doing this exact thing for work. Though I served burgers and wore an apron, there were no vintage roller-skates or cute, old timey nicknames involved, and I had to type orders into a computer rather than shouting them out to an avuncular cook named Nat. Bo-ring.) But in Lee’s case – as in Brenda’s – there were cigar-smoking regulars with names like Jimmy Dogs, coffee breaks out back with the girls, and a rich diner culture in which the spirited waitress – caf in one hand, decaf in the other – reigned supreme.

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