Hello!
Thank you for calling Disco Diaries #11. The time is 5:36 p.m. The high today is spicy hot with a chance of soft serve ice cream in the evening and a socially distanced drive-in movie overnight.
On wanting to love a city
I live in a city just an hour and a half from where I grew up. It’s never been unfamiliar, but it’s never quite felt like home either. Both of my parents lived here when they were younger, so anytime we’d come into the city to visit the zoo or see one of their friends, they would reminisce about their time here. Often my mom would drive out of the way just to show us a house she used to live in, or one of her favorite bars that’s since changed its name and its ownership.
It’s like I was being set up to feel connected to the Queen City, and for a short while I did. When I moved here three years ago, it felt like a natural change with lots of rewards. I couldn’t get over the number of events — poetry readings, collaborative art projects, live music every night — and the group of friends I was transplanted into seemed creatively active and progressive and cool. Jake had been here for a decade already, and his jaded attitude towards the city got a temporary reboot from my enthusiasm towards immersing myself in my new home town.
Part of what shook my optimism were my unrealistic ideas about how easy it would be to build close bonds with some of the people I was meeting. I’ve always been an all-in sort of friend. Extremely enthusiastic about feeling kindred with other humans. Like, in sixth grade I got a dog and named it Brooke after my BFF at the time.
Yes, it’s odd (creepy?), but back then it seemed like a natural gesture, and I would have felt honored to have such a notion reciprocated. The closest I came to receiving that kind of symbol of devotion was in third grade when my friend cut off a lock of her hair and gave it to me secured in a sparkling hair clip.
Now my interpersonal vulnerability manifests not as an awkward, over-the-top gesture that only a child could get away with, but as a third text to a friend who hasn’t been responding, or as a few extra exclamation points after the word “hey.” I’m always ready to be available for a budding friendship, and generally let down when it doesn’t happen like I envisioned it. Maybe this makes me sound naive, or socially awkward. Maybe I am. I think a lot of times I just do a bad job of understanding that pretty much everyone in my generation is trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, and might just be ignoring their phone for an afternoon in order to self-medicate their anxiety with a joint and ten episodes of “Girls.”
A picture from one of my first Cincinnati hangs in 2017.
After a while, I addressed my insecurities and uncertainties about my place in the city by making a few important decisions that helped ground me. For one, I got a part time job at a wonderful coffee shop in a different neighborhood. This was key, because it helped me split off from my social dependence on Jake and establish fresh friendships of my own. Secondly, I became more openly involved in the music scene and started to connect and play with more people.
Progress comes in waves. Sometimes I feel totally rooted here, and other times I spend an afternoon trying to convince Jake we should move to cities we’d never even been to.
Traveling always gives me a fresh perspective, and when I was in New York in early March I mulled over what was then a disdain for my city. I felt jealous of New York, all of its history and fame and endless events and creative endeavors. But at the same time, I couldn’t tell you what was or wasn’t happening in Cincinnati that coming week. I was the one keeping myself from enjoying what the city had to offer or, hell, making a move to try and create whatever I thought it was that was missing. The most I’d do was look at a list of events late enough in the evening that I’d miss most things anyway. On the airplane from JFK to CVG, I wrote in my journal of my plans to make more of an effort.
Then things shut down. And since then, I’ve drifted further and further away from any notion that I belong here, which makes me wonder where I do. Cincinnati itself doesn’t have any strong hold on me, but the place where I grew up seems meaningless now, too, ever since my parents divorced and moved away.
I want to find the place on this globe that feels like home to me, but I think my efforts influence that maybe as much as the city I land in. I’m not giving up on my relationship with Cincinnati just yet, but it does feel like I missed the opportunity to make something real before we launched into this unexpected long-term pandemic thing. It’s like Cincinnati was a coworker that I thought seemed cool, but I never made the time or effort to get to know them before they suddenly quit.
I wonder if my feelings of detachment from any and all places are a common theme during pandemic in America. After all, people everywhere are fleeing their cities in favor of something more cozy with more outdoor space. Because what’s the point of summer in a sticky, smoggy city if there’s nowhere to go and no mingling to be done?
A song for you
I think my dad is going to hate this.
Fortune cookie
See the shape, not the shadow.
See ya next Friday,
Katya