Hi! Hello!
I’m writing to you from home in Massachusetts, my landing spot for the moment before I return to New York, then jet off to Rome from there. I moved out of my Brooklyn apartment on Saturday, which felt strange and freeing all at once. It was my first post-college apartment—a fourth floor walk-up perched atop a Mexican restaurant with enormous burritos (my order: carnitas with salsa verde). The apartment served me and my roommate Amelia well, giving us a soft place to land in a city that can feel so severe. I often returned home late after work, bone-tired, scuffed up, sometimes weepy, and I was always glad to shower in my own shower and dissolve into my own bed in my own room. It didn’t matter that it was a rental; I felt grounded knowing that my home was mine and Amelia’s for the year, paid for with our own hard-earned money.
Despite having lived in the city for about five years, I’d never had my own place until my Brooklyn apartment this past year. Two dorms, a brief sublet, a stint in an AirBnB, and many short stays thanks to the goodwill of family friends and Eliza and Teo’s extended family before landing in BK. If my calculations are correct, I’ve lived in seven different NYC homes since I first moved there in 2017 for my first year at Barnard.
I’m not new to hopping houses. There tends to be a lot of moving among faculty families on boarding school campuses to accommodate new families and their needs. And my parents like to move, so move we did. Since I was born in Vermont, we’ve lived in seven different houses. That means I’ve inhabited fourteen homes over the course of my life. It’s no wonder I dream of committing to a place and nesting there. My fantasies include a butter-yellow kitchen, a bathtub, a photo-covered fridge, and a big bed. Someday. Despite the constancy of transitions in my life, I’ve never thrived amidst them, and the same is true today. Looming unknowns make me feel imbalanced and spacey, and I just have to trust that once I’m settled in my next phase, all will be well.
For now, I’m enjoying spending time with the people I love, like my cousin Matt, his wife Hadley, and their joyful, chatty two-year-old Owen, whom Teo and I visited recently in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Owen is verifiably obsessed with vegetables, which works out well for me, his vegetable-obsessed cousin. To be clear, he loves looking at, playing with, and talking about vegetables—not actually eating them, although his passion bodes well for his future palate. The adults ate shakshuka for lunch, while Owen contemplated his own portion while eating his yogurt.
Teo and I also paid a visit to my brother Trevor and his girlfriend Laura’s apartment in Belmont, Mass., where they served us larb in lettuce cups and roasted eggplant with yogurt sauce and all of the herbs.
Back in New York I had a special evening at my friend Serin’s apartment, where she surprised me with a cardamom coffee cake because she knows my affinity for all things coffee cake. I ate the leftovers for breakfast all week and thought of her. I also met up with a college friend at Té, the Taiwanese tea shop that I can’t stay away from, where we caught up on our lives over lemon verbena tea and pineapple linzers. The most connective and memorable moments of the month have been over food, as they so often are. It’s good to remember the basics when life feels big big big. As M.F.K. Fisher wrote, “First we eat, then we do everything else.”
I picked up my visa from the consulate today, which means that I’ll soon be writing to you from the land of pasta, pizza, gelato, and (my favorite) artichokes. I can’t wait for all the tastes that await me, and to describe them here with as much clarity as I can manage. Prepare to be hungry.
Lots of love,
Phoebe
I love the photos, and more than understand the difficulty of transitions. I remember your parents telling me how much they enjoy moving….another unforgettable Gretchen-Peter characteristic!
I love all the photos!