But perhaps I do miss the journey, the destinations unknown on a Sunday morning that bleeds into a Sunday evening. The wandering that is guiltless, not muddled with that late-twenties, New York City complex of needing to be the best and most achieved.
I spent so many Sundays off in a daydream about a boy, or wondering if period blood had stained the back of my white cloak. I cringe now to think about what was going through my mind all those years — so many amens mumbled while thinking about what oral sex might feel like.
Many people say that Williamsburg is ending (if it isn’t over already), and that the Whole Foods and High Rises will turn it into the Brooklyn Heights of the North, but I am wondering if we have failed to recognize that many of us have changed along with it.
Momentary relief comes when people are proud of you, when you get something you want, when an Important person asks you out for coffee. It’s a minor rush that makes you feel like something is happening, like you’re getting there.
When we see ourselves in Zooey Deschanel or Lena Dunham, it’s an affirmation that the world at large is picking up on the fact that girls like us exist at all — and that our existence is meaningful, even if it doesn’t always make sense or come with clear instructions…
In South Beach we turned our noses up at the restaurants by the water, where the waitresses bark at you that it’s happy hour and there is a special. Instead we ate tapas at a little Spanish place that felt hidden. By this point we were both so sunburned and tired, we needed to go home.
And what should we be afraid of in a rapid river? Snapping turtles? Unpredictable currents? Bashing our heads on rocks? Drifting off to a town that hangs Confederate Flags on the buildings? Swallowing tadpoles? Vaginal infections from the dirty water? Oh my!