i remember being more isolated than this, 10 years ago. 2010 was my first east coast transition from winter to spring, the time i understood how the emergence of sun from snow and gray could feel like gridlock in the sky. in a pre-uber era, in a pre-gentrified brooklyn neighborhood, in my pre-lovely lifetime, there wasn’t really anywhere to go in the world – aside from a key foods that i’d slip into once every two weeks to get some spotted bananas and shriveled yams. walk any further and i risked falling flat on my face on the unsalted streets. this was a time before “foot traffic” was a notion on lincoln and classon, before the non-gmo pet bakeries, before high maintenance knew to romanticize living in the rinds of the big apple.
i remember being more isolated than this, 7 years ago. in 2013, lovely and i moved to beijing amidst the smoggiest winter on record. in a skyrise in the middle of the cbd, it was like living in a house in the sky, if we just imagined the haze outside a bit whiter and less filled with particles that could coat your lungs. it was here that my nostrils became accustomed to masks, where i learned to smile with my eyes.
i remember being more isolated than this, 5 years ago. it was two years into life in d.c., just enough time to feel like a cog in the bureaucracy, before i had cultivated a community, and happy hours as a surrogate were running dry. if not for the artists, i don’t think i would love the district like i now do, i don’t think i would’ve untangled myself from all the red tape.
so in 2020 it appears that i have a habit of moving to places just to stay in. here in LA, i crash-landed into the unbelievably lucky circumstance of living a three-minute walk from the beach. for the first time in a decade, i’ve gone through winter without feeling the biting cold, and for the past couple of weeks my notion of isolation at least came with sun and sand and salt. but as of friday, construction tape stretches from pole to pole, as if to designate the entire horizon as a crime scene. those who dare step out for a stroll mean-mug one another, as if each of us are the only ones with a legit reason to stretch our legs.
this is not the last time any of us will feel alone. it need not take virus, climate, or politics to feel alienated within a vast world. but over time, loneliness has become a familiar, welcome companion. i can’t bear imagining a life where i’m never greeted by it again.