It’s the end of the summer.
It feels like the end of everything, in this country. These have been impossible days.
I took my break, as I said I would. I lost myself in my paints and organizing my house. It’s been a complicated month, but also a necessary one. Thank you all for staying with me!
Getting my health in order was at the top of my priority list, and I feel a lot better, at least physically. Emotionally….well, it’s complicated. I feel strong, maybe the strongest I’ve ever felt. But I feel a deep sadness. The grief I feel for my country — and I would never call myself patriotic — is deep and real.
The grief I feel for the changes in my life — as necessary as they have been — is also painful. I’ve had to stand up for myself in ways I wasn’t capable of before. Sharon Stone said that boundaries mean that people may like you less, and boy, she was right.
I am grateful that I don’t need everyone to like me anymore. The relationship I have with myself is one that I let die on the vine, and I’ll never let that happen again.
“The more that I understood what boundaries really meant… the less people started to like me and the more I understood how fantastic and healthy that was.” -Sharon Stone
There is no doubt that I have changed over the past few years. I feel like I have slowly been shedding a skin.1 I have finally accepted that I am different than I used to be, but I am more authentically me than I have ever been. So much of who I used to be was with the goal of proving that I was worthy of love, and that I owed people something if they let me in. That to deal with me — simply putting up with me — meant I had to pay a debt.
I am done with that part of my life.
It very much tracks that I finally arrived at this place just as everything has gone to shit. Cue “Send in the Clowns”. Don’t bother, they’re here.
So, what now? It is hard to envision a future when fascism has fully arrived. It is hard to make plans when everything is constantly changing.
But I am halfway through my life. All I have is the here and now, and I vow to stay present. It’s going to be beautiful all weekend. I have some time off, and will continue my break. I plan to keep painting. I plan to surround myself with people who have seen me through this god awful time. I plan to go outside. I plan to snuggle with my cats and my husband.
I will soak up every moment, as much as I can, while I can, and appreciate the long road that got me here. I have finally — at 44 years old — learned what standing up for yourself actually means.
As someone dear to me said today— it’s about god damn time.
A little story before I go:
I went to The Met today. I don’t go to the Met as often as I’d like, mostly because I find it overwhelming. No matter how many times I go, I get lost2. The numbers and the layout confound me. It is so, so vast. You could spend every day there and still not see everything. I have to psych myself up to deal with the confusion, the crowds, and its a bit of a schlep. 5th Avenue is never as close to Lex as you think.
The weather was absolutely stunning today. I had planned to CitiBike to the museum to really enjoy it, but once I was on my way, but there were two separate incidents keeping me from the paths I needed to take to get to the bridge. I had to go way the hell out of my way, and I was hungry, so I parked the bike and stopped for lunch at Cafe Henri, one of my favorite places to eat in Long Island City. I’ve gone there on and off for twenty years. I had an absolutely perfect crepe with goat cheese, leeks and egg. I also got a macchiato. I usually do not touch caffeine after noon, but their espresso is so good that I made an exception.
I debated just spending my day in Queens, already tired from all the detours, and really enjoying the thought of sketching on the waterfront. But a little voice inside my head was like “no, we HAVE to go to the Met”. I didn’t know why. But it was so compelling that I got on the train and did the schlep.
I went to the Met primarily to see the Emily Sargent exhibit. She was the sister of John Singer Sargent, a very famous portrait artist and watercolorist. As it turns out, Emily was an avid watercolorist herself. In fact, she and her brother often painted side by side in the same location.
After the 30 minutes of walking around in circles trying to figure out where the eff it was (pro tip: it’s in the mezzanine section of the American Wing), I found the exhibit. It was fascinating to see her paintings and her brother’s paintings, right next to each other. They were painting the same exact place, but the pieces are clearly by two different and skilled artists. Of course, because she was a woman, her art has seldom been seen or talked about.
As I was leaving the exhibit, I came to the last painting, titled Sea with Boat & Figure, Pride's Crossing.
I gasped, but not because the painting was so amazing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely lovely piece and it is hard as hell to get movement in the water like that. But I gasped because there is a play by my late, great mentor and legendary playwright Tina Howe that is called Pride’s Crossing. It may be the play she is most known for. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 1997, and won the Critic’s Circle Award for Best American Play that same year.
It was a lovely little coincidence. Tina grew up mere blocks from the Met. When her mother wanted Tina and her brother to go outside and play, that’s where they went. It was their playground, and she had a deep well of knowledge about art. She talked about it all the time.
I thought about Tina, and then I realized it was late August. Tina passed away in August, two years ago. I looked at my phone, and then I googled the date of her death, because I am shit at remembering dates.
It was August 28th.
Today.
I LOST MY SHIT AT THE MET. Full on snot crying.
Her death was one of the hardest losses of my life. It’s a rare person who sees you — really sees you. It’s an even rarer thing when that person is one of your personal heroes. I wrote about her On Here, when this was still a Baby Substack.
When my brain put all the pieces together, she sprung into my mind, as if she were standing in front of me.
Tina did this thing — people who knew her know what I am talking about — The Thing She Did When Something Was Exciting, or When She Knew She Was Right. Her mouth would fall open, she would point directly at you, and exclaim. If she couldn’t do this in person, she would do it in an email, using all kinds of font sizes and colors.
I didn’t hallucinate her, or see a ghost, but regardless, there she was at the ass end of the American Wing, pointing at me, eyes all wide, and exclaiming:
“HA!!! YOU SEE!!! I TOLD YOU THIS PLACE WAS HEAVEN!!!!!!!!”
And then I started laughing through the tears. I was one of the only people there, probably because no one could find it, so I looked like a crazy woman crying and then laughing at herself. The security guard clearly thought I was a looney tune, because he (very kindly) asked me if I was okay.
I am not a person who believes in ghosts and heaven and all of that. I don’t know where people go. But wherever people go, there was no doubt that my friend Tina was with me at the Met today, and I was meant to be there for it.
And it was really, really good to see her.
As you all know, I have a song for every occasion. This one is by the amazing Dar Williams, who has been back in heavy rotation lately. I am finding it particularly appropriate for this moment in time. I hope you enjoy it, should you choose to listen. And I truly hope you can enjoy yourself this weekend.
And the colors are much brighter now
It's like they really want to tell the truth
We give our testimony to the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer,
You can spin the light to gold
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I shall make no analogies here about the cocoon and the fucking butterfly, and if I ever say something that cheesy, please take me out back and shoot me.
I keep meaning to write about when I got lost at the Met on a class trip when I was ten, which was one of THE greatest days of my life, and an incredible story of Shit That Would Not Fly Now.
Tina looked at me that way the last time I saw her. I have a rock she gave me near where I (occasionally) write, and I like to imagine it's looking at me like that too.
That to deal with me — simply putting up with me — meant I had to pay a debt.
- this.