Good afternoon!
It’s hard to grasp how the four weeks that once dwelt in the shadow of excitement, anxiety, and anticipation are now behind me, and I am back in the Midwest just in time for chilly autumn days. I covered 5,542 miles, went through 12 states, and saw enough different landscapes to make me appreciate Southern Ohio as its own type of enchantment.
It’s only been two days since my return, and I’ve been self-medicating with coffee, CBD gummies, episodes of Sister, Sister, and ice cream in order to balance my anxious energy and need for rest. I’ve rearranged the furniture in two rooms, applied to a handful of jobs, and set up multiple rendezvous. I imagine that roughly three nights of nine-hour sleep, and two more credit card-charged meals of take-out from now, I’ll have the energy to sort through the notes, voice memos, and memories that will inform me of this journey’s full impact.
A moment of clarity on a roof in Oakland.
Great, bright shapes floating like balloons
The entire way back to Cincinnati from Berkeley, Halcyon Court, and all its characters, I avoided driving in the dark. This was no coincidence, but rather a meticulous plan built around my own anxieties. Having never puttered across the continent all by my lonesome, I didn’t know what to expect of myself behind the wheel.
Initially, I didn’t prioritize planning. I am free spirited, I thought, I go where the wind blows me. I ride the waves of fate. I fan the fires of chance. But this changed after a therapy session a week or two ahead of my initial departure for California. My therapist was helping me break down a mass of ambiguous anxiety into bite-size specifics. Somewhere in there was my need for more control over my life. I was resisting strategic planning, which I needed, in favor of what I perceived to be a more chill, laid back version of myself, one that could just go with the flow. Learning and accepting that I’m not, in many cases, a flow-goer was a valuable lesson.
I’ve been trying to resist my anxieties by not factoring them into my decisions. But growth might not mean forcing them out all together. Certain things will always be with me — like my immense fear of everyone I love suddenly dying. It follows me like a helium balloon tied to my wrist with a string, only sometimes the string is shorter and sometimes it’s longer. I don’t have to inhale that helium and talk in a weird voice that will freak me out, I just have to notice the balloon and make an adjustment from time to time in order to fit it through a doorway.
It doesn’t work well to plan my life around who I think I should be. It’s much better if I respect myself, know myself, and plan it around who I am now. Recognizing limitations imposed by anxiety isn’t admitting self-defeat, it’s honoring your own needs.
The ice-capade (soooo sorry)
I’ve always been ever so slightly disquieted when packing for the Bay Area. My ears hear “California” and my hands reach for tiny tank tops and broken-in denim shorts. But I know from experience that this land is all about layering. My friends there tell me that temps remain relatively mild throughout the year, and that sweaters, light jackets, jeans, and Birkenstocks — with or without socks — are in rotation on a daily basis. Most people in the area, I learned, don’t have air conditioning because they don’t need it. Many people, it seems, go without fans as well.
So, when Berkeley and the surrounding neighborhoods had a little two-day foray into 90-plus degree temperatures, I was caught off guard. This was around the time when Sonja and I learned about the lack of fans, and decided to remedy our sublet’s absence of a breeze on our own. I thanked myself for having a stubborn and naïve need to associate shorts and tank tops with anywhere in California, and donned something heat-friendly. Together, Sonja and I walked through the hot morning to a nearby CVS in search of a fan. But alas, the shelves were empty. We called the closest Walgreens and found that they, too, had none left. Berkeley had sold out of fans.
As a consolation prize, I bought us a pack of my favorite coconut popsicles and we sluggishly made our way back to the apartment. At one point we glimpsed a promising silhouette on a curb — an oscillating fan! But cruelly, the chord had been clipped, leaving just a lifeless shell of potential relief.
Back in the apartment, the air was still and scorching. “Let’s have a popsicle, and then we can make a fan plan,” I said. But our little coconut friends had not made it through the trek home. What remained were sacks of liquified treats with wooden sticks floating in the middle. (Note: these ‘sicles were fine after hours of recovery in the freezer, and went on to be enjoyed on cooler, less urgent days.)
Both of us had work to do, but neither of us could imagine being productive in this weather. The apartment was close to 95 degrees, and we would delay our assignments to find relief by any means possible.
It was still early in the day, so as a consolation prize for our lost consolation prize, we decided to relax for the rest of the morning and watch a rom com. Sonja sat on one side of the bed, I on the other, and in between us we placed a tray with a bowl of ice water and two clean wash clothes. The icy cloths provided excellent relief, and were later wetted and placed in the freezer until they became stiff sheets of ice that we could stick under our shirts like frozen corsets while we worked in the afternoon. This form of relief was on rotation with ice packs meant for lunch boxes for the rest of the day, until the night finally brought in some cool air.
I have a tendency to get nostalgic for things that aren’t even that pleasant, like the time I was happy to notice that downtown Cincinnati smelled like New Orleans, before I realized it was the scent of pee and trash on hot cement, so I will not be surprised if next summer I ditch the AC on a hot day in Cincinnati in favor of cold wash cloths, just to remember one of my favorite days in Berkeley.
A song for you
After I said goodbye last week, I hit the road and queued up some Portishead, which ended up being the perfect soundtrack for Nevada desert, hence my haiku for the day:
Portishead is dry
And otherworldly, just like
Nevada deserts.
Take care of each other and yourselves this weekend!
Katya
How real you are! How unafraid to be you! You are one of my heroes.