New York, I Love You
a very important couple of anniversaries and what back to school looks like these days when you have been in school for a long, long time.
So, Today is officially my 15 year anniversary of living in New York. I count moving here for college (despite the fact that I was born here, there is those pesky intervening years of living in California), because I would really only go home for holidays and a week at the start and the end of summers, because I was usually interning or working. I think back on my state of mind then, as a college student in my late teens and early twenties, and just how hungry I was. I wanted to make something of myself. After all if you can make it here you can make it anywhere, like Mr. Sinatra says.
It is also worth noting that the year I moved was the year the absolute Gem, Empire State of Mind was on the airwaves. Is that still even a word? With streaming these days? Anyways I digress:
Well fifteen years later, and it’s certainly not where I thought I would be. At all. But that’s life pretty much. And also the perspective when you come out on the other side of… a lot. I’ve made no secret of having a rough go of it the past few years. But, despite the jobs I chased and the friends whose old presence in my life is that of a memory tucked into my camera roll - I know now I had to experience all those things in order to be where I am now. I think back on the life I had imagined for myself, and god, not only is it do boring, but I think I can very confidently say I would have been living in a sort of tolerable form of misery. Not strong enough to make a change, but enough so that I would know I wasn’t satisfied.
As much as it hurts. I know every step I took to get here to this very moment, a cool thursday morning at the end of august, writing this piece, was crucial to what comes next. On the one hand the bone deep exhaustion of having been forged in fire melds and fuses with the burning desire to push forward to solicit everything that is yet to unfold.
It’s perfectly apt energy for these days between August and September when Summer turns to Fall (at least on the calendar and in spirit if not in weather). It’s a true fresh start, more so than any start on January 1 could possibly be. There’s lists to be made, people to reconnect with, back to school shopping to complete.
September these days is no longer back to school but more like back to Society. My New York Fashion Week Schedule is set, US Open tickets secured, Art Fair passes registered. All confirmations tucked away in my email. My writing schedule is blocked off on the calendar, phone set to do not disturb during those hours. September and beyond, travel is booked, deadlines are set. A new and slightly different method of existing in the day to day. But things are different compared to last year.
It’s like when you have to start a new chapter, but it’s bittersweet because it breaks your heart to do so. We recently had to sell what was left of my childhood - our summer house in Maine - and god damn did it break my heart. It was not only the end of an era, but it felt like a more poignant loss than simply singing on a dotted line. It was the loss of a community, and maybe the loss of a place I had once been happy, even if it hadn’t been in years. But more so it was the loss of yet another life I thought I would have. GUYS EVERYTHING IS MULTILAYERED AND METAPHORICAL!!!!!
This whole thing is a phantom limb but worse because it’s a phantom life. A whisper of what could have been. And you mourn realizing you won’t have those momemnts, those interactions anymore. So many of those peope from that community basically cut us off after. They way it compounds the greif. It’s why I get mad when people talk about posessions as superficial. They can be absolutely. But it’s more like the death of a dream right? Because I imagined taking my kids up to see their grandparents. Well that dream is gone.Not just because the setting is gone, but the plot point. Remember I’m a story teller.
I’ve been drowning in this grief, but I learned at a very early age to hide those big feelings away, so people leave you alone because they think everything is fine. And my heart is broken. And I’m so Angry. And hurts to be that angry. I feel like I’m mourning the could have been more so than ever. But what’s the point of imagining brining your kids to a house to see their grandparents… when they aren’t together anymore, and one of them is dead anyway. And boy oh boy did Lana have it right with Summertime Sadness. Wait what’s that rhyme about Divorced, Died? Sorry - should not be comparing my family life to the little nursery rhyme to remember what Henry VIII did to his wives (although the tudors probably invented the book on *ahem* tricky family dynamics).
 Somehow, I’m a thirty three year old adult woman, but somehow, simultaneously I’m still just a kid who really shouldn’t have had to make these decisions. I just want to belt out angsty emo lyrics. My friend joked to me on the phone the other day that she’s noticed how Wake me Up when September ends has been heavy on my instagram stories this month. She’s not wrong. I loved going to that concert earlier in August, but I had to leave before they played that song because the last time I’d heard it live my mom had taken me to that concert for my fourteenth birthday. Also that song is about Billie Joe’s dad. So.
I’ve realized I basically am just using this substack as diary now. But maybe that’s because it’s what is needed now. What I need. The ethos of this publication is meant to be flexible and fluid - a nod to my Gemini nature, where many different things catch my eye. It’s meant to be a place where I can muse about things that interest me, no matter how disparate they might be. I have few loves in my life, but Books and Fashion and culture and how they weave together are things that always, always will light my fire.
Looking a past pictures of myself, as an eighteen year old who moved to the city with stars in my eyes, I wish I could get back to that feeling. The feeling where everything was possible and hopeful. There have been echoes of it. I felt it a bit in 2020, where despite my family falling apart, I had finally gone all in on starting my novel and things felt right for the first time in a long time. Echoes of it when Kamala Harris announced her candidacy last month. Maybe a fresh start is what I needed.
But past is prologue no? flipping through pictures of my first month at NYU showed some really great parallels. I forgot I went and stood outside Radio City Music Hall to see the VMAS crowd. Including Taylor Swift performing on top of a Taxi (when I just saw her in London in June). But then I realized this is more than that AKA THE INFAMOUS VMAS WHICH STARTED THE TAYLOR-KANYE FEUD. I honestly forgot that I was there haha. To be honest, this is not the sort of thing I like to do. even know I hate crowds like this. I probably went with dorm mates or something because that is Gemini nature to say, “Sure, Why not?“
Another couple pictures later is some picture at the Met - the theme was apparently 1920s based on my outfit. Didn’t I just go to the biggest party the Met has early this May? If you don’t believe in manifesting get the hell out of here right now. I’m evening wearing similar color schemes, Jesus.
and somehow, I’ve been able to trick myself into a more hopeful outlook reminding myself what I can accomplish by setting my mind to it. I meant to do book recs in this post, but it’s already feeling too long, so that will be another one. So here’s my back to school plans: Back to work, producing and creating to bring Joy and Livelihood (which like, duh, everyone likes making money). To getting an agent and getting a book deal. To flourishing the relationships I already have, and matching energy for the ones that aren’t giving anything in return. To more fabulous outfits I’ve put together and to cozy nights out and restful nights in. Lol, I do feel in this analogy Homecoming Week is definitely Fashion Week, which again, loving the symmetry we’ve got here.
Till next time,
XOXO,
Casey