A rose is a rose is my tradition, but then feelings lead us outside tradition, they lure us beyond it, and I feel nature deeply. I feel its lack of interest in me, its lack of humanity jibing with my inner emptiness; I like how its trees come together to make a forest that shows me how to breathe, and how its boulders show me how to concentrate. I'm content with having these immature, idealizing poetic-romantic emotions about the great outdoors and don't want to know anything more, chiefly because I've always regarded the outdoors as a refuge from knowledge a haven of ignorance to flee to whenever the city news runs me down.
In the summer of 2023, this was certainly the case. Though in retrospect that season now seems a golden age, at least a silver age-the last sane season-in the literal heat and humidity of the moment I was depressed. All my friends were out of the city and I had no invitations. It seemed that every one of my acquaintances lucky enough to have a house upstate or in the Hamptons had just given birth and childless singles like me were no longer welcome: Happy summer, we'll catch up in the fall...
I was going stir-crazy in the tarry swelter, and though I couldn't quite get it together to purchase a new, non-leaking air-conditioner or book a hotel or motel or really come up with anywhere climatized to retreat to even for a weekend's vacation, I found myself beginning to contemplate homeownership. That should be proof I was losing my grip: that I didn't dismiss the idea immediately, that I let it grow on me like a prickly rash as the sweat slicked down my back. A place of my own was the fantasy. A little place out in the hinters. As I pigged around my hotbox, crosstown traffic fuming and blaring outside, I kept imagining a wattle fence, a thatched roof, a clutch of loosely mortared walls out in some leafy glade where I could sit cool and quiet and get back to writing.
Denne historien er fra October 21, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra October 21, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
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.
