Since when does Angela care about cleaning? The other day, at dinner with a friend, she found herself extolling the virtues of a certain type of mop. She recently learned several methods for removing stains from supposedly stainless steel. She has even wished, on occasion, that she owned an iron.
An iron! More symbol than tool at this point, and Angela doesn’t like what the symbol stands for. She’s not a housewife. For one thing, she rents. True, she’s married, but there wasn’t really a wedding, because she’s opposed to weddings. She’s employed. In theory, empowered.
The thing about the mop is that it’s satisfying. Under the supervision of a therapist, Angela and Will have been talking a lot about satisfaction. How to define it, where to find it, whether they can feel it—have it—at the same time. Each swipe of the mop proves its usefulness, a glistening arc on a floor that a second ago looked O.K. but now is revealed to have been dusty and dull all along. The water in the bucket turns gray.
Angela doesn’t like the therapist. Why are they talking about satisfaction when they could be talking about happiness?
When I was your age— Angela has heard this sentence completed so many times, in so many ways, that by now she can line up her mother’s entire life beside her own entire life (thus far) and compare them year by year. She can try on the other life as you might try on a dress forgotten at the back of the closet: with no hope of it fitting, and yet with some perverse desire to see exactly where the seams stretch or the zipper catches, where two pieces of fabric refuse to meet.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 13, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 13, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.