Tag Archives: Moving

New Guitar

I’ll try to keep this short.

I bought a guitar. On impulse. I don’t know how to play the guitar. As a classical snob, I’ve always looked down on guitarists. But my broken cello remains broken for the time being, and ever since I’ve been itching to play music. Then my husband surprised me by taking me to Guitar Center.

He was actually there to pick up some electrical equipment, but my eyes filled with the guitars. Lines and grids and matrices of guitars, of all sorts and shapes and colors. Naturally I drifted to the acoustic section.

“Maybe I’ll get a cheap ukulele?” I tell my husband.

I find one cute ukulele, with a beautiful pattern.

“But what do you want this for?” my husband asked.

I thought. What was missing? Was this hope? “I want to make music, any music I want. I want us to start our band again,” I said.

“You want a guitar,” he said.

So I got a guitar. Because I’m a cellist, I picked one with an especially warm tone, almost all mahogany.

Moving to Seattle meant changing jobs, it meant changing careers, friends, food, standard of living, weather, everything. Might as well go with the tide. They say to avoid drowning, you follow the flow of the water.

“I want this one,” I said.

Missing New York

I tell myself it’s a waste of time to miss New York.

“Except for maybe bagels,” I say over a non-bagel breakfast to my husband.

Plus we got married in a Brooklyn book store. They always have the greatest authors visit there. Or the Manhattan book store where we had our second date. Of course that one is closing. What am I missing?

I don’t miss the subways. They have public transit in Seattle, too, but I have chosen to only go to places I can walk to (a privilege that was not feasible in New York). Those dirty, sweaty, creepy New York subways.

But what about that feeling of climbing the third flight of subway stairs out into the brisk cold of the city, on the way to Lincoln Center?

Or everything being a little old, a little broken? The dirty concrete. Surely I can live without those. And the air is certainly cleaner in Seattle.

I didn’t get to see Lion King on Broadway (no money). I didn’t get to go to Union Square for the Christmas Market (I’d moved). But what does that matter? Lion King will probably be open forever! And I live right by a better market that is open year round!

Is it me, or are the buildings not as tall? I used to wish I could see more sky. Now I see the sky… but it’s usually gray.

“This is a small town,” my husband says.

“It’s not a small town,” I say.

New York to Seattle

New York is not neccesarily known as a sunny place, so I didn’t think the transition to Seattle weather would be too tough. Although in Seattle it is not nearly as cold in these winter months, it is dreadfully overcast. As a person with a mental illness, the lack of light – and we have more windows in this apartment than the last – is getting to me. There are now six lamps in the living room not counting the lights over the kitchen that came with the apartment, but those damn clouds just seem to suck the life out of those photons, synthetic or no. As a fan of Jane Eyre, I’m trying to turn this dreary weather into my new aesthetic where the dark colors and shadows and dampness highlight my stubborness to survive, but it’s no easy task.

One thing I will say: walking in the rain in a heavy coat with no umbrella is the thing here, instead of walking in the rain with a heavy umbrella and a light coat, as in New York. The rain here in Seattle is lighter, if constant, anyway. I hated having to carry around umbrellas before and I like now that it’s acceptable to be partially drenched and have frizzy hair, to embrace the inconvenience as a part of life, and when you come home, hang up your coat like in the old days to dry.

When will I stop missing New York? I don’t know. Maybe I just need to get caught in the rain a few more times.