There is a block a few minutes walk from my house, on Bleecker and Jones St, that I walk down frequently. It has a famous cheese shop; Murray's, and an amazing Italian deli with the best eggplant parm sandwiches called Faicco's. There used to be a great bookstore next door, but that closed a few years ago. It happens to be a famous block, but the reason it's meaningful to me is that I have a vivid memory from years ago, when I already lived in New York but not in this neighborhood, when I met with an editor and her business partner to talk about reading for their literary journal at the cheese shop. I remember navigating that same street, a frigid Sunday afternoon in late February, and in my memory it was uphill, the street skinny and tight, it was overwhelmingly busy. I had a hard time finding the place, kept getting turned around, and left with the image of the West Village being stressful, foreign, even hostile. Today I walk the same block at least twice a day and it is none of those things, and certainly not hilly, or narrow. It leaves me considering the concept of familiarity, how quickly something foreign can become familiar, how fast we are able to adapt from fear or curiosity of the unknown to comfort or even the humdrum of the regular.
It's impossible of course to pinpoint the moment that something becomes familiar, and the example of a physical place is an easier one to watch the progress of, like a street or city that is completely unknown to us becoming more and more comfortable. Those jeans you could barely get on that have molded to your body over time. More difficult, however, is to consider when or how we got so used to living a certain way, doing something we once feared, or treating someone/being treated one way, or another. It is both curious and shocking to me that we can gobble up an achievement that we have yearned for, desired, worked tirelessly for so very quickly that it is barely able to quell our ferocious thirst before the hunger strikes again. I say us but really, I mean me. Obviously.
I had an ex-boyfriend who was so strict about so much. I was always on edge about getting things wrong, about loading the dishwasher incorrectly or not making the bed in the right way, or fast enough. Even long after he is no longer a part of my life I still feel a small, dull fear when I feed my dog too early or my bikini slips. We just weren't well matched, but it's incredible to me how quickly walking on eggshells to not upset someone became routine, even if you resented it, even after it was no longer needed or necessary. Another ex was mean, casually cruel in the name of being honest (as Taylor Swift so beautifully put). I picked it up as a defense mechanism and it has, very unfortunately, stayed with me and become familiar practice. I catch myself snapping at partners in ways I know will most affect them, a tactic once unthinkable, now comfortable. That ex was also messy, something that horrified me at first, but a trait I somehow managed to put up with by adoption, the proof currently living in my drawers bursting with unfolded clothes. It's easier to pinpoint the bad habits or resentments we pick up from those who travel through our lives, but I am trying to create a practice of recognizing how many gifts I received, of good traits that first felt so stiff which I now wear comfortably. One who helped me become more considerate, so much kinder, the other who lit an adventurous fire within me and taught me to be unapologetically myself.
Any form of success can become quickly familiar, you forget the powerful desire you once had to posses things that you now have in spades. It feels unjust at times, that things you wish for or work for through so much of your life can feel like it was always there with very short period of joyous new-ness. That goes too, of course, for love. Those golden days, at least to me, have always felt so short. That is most certainly due to my rash, intense, mental-illness-led and sometimes irresponsible diving into serious relationships, but I also wonder about the lines between familiarity and gratitude. It is always easier to be grateful for things that are shiny, new and surprising, to be in fear of things we have not seen before, that are unfamiliar.
To practice gratitude for the familiar, as well as more awareness and vigilance for negative things that have become routine, is difficult.
I guess the lesson overall is to try and achieve an elusive slowdown, and to be wary of selective memory. To be appreciative of the apprehension of newness, whether it be a street or a person, to remember its brevity. To comb through your bad habits with a more critical eye can be shocking - to see how many things today make up who you are, maybe are not things you want to be a part of your character.
Most of all, though, I've recently discovered what it's like to be treated with consistent patience, deliciously simple kindness, and commitment. Not just in the traditional sense, but commitment in the sense of these wonderful things I get served not being dependent on my performance. I can have a bad day and turns out I still deserve love, I can not be my best self and I still get treated the same as when I am, I can slip and still be helped up, I get to count on these wonderful things no matter the stakes, no matter how hard I push back to find the line when they will inevitably falter. To me, that is the best type of commitment.
Learning to accept love without contingency is terribly difficult, it turns out, especially when it has been long desired but very unfamiliar. You get accustomed with what you have, for better or worse, to survive. Of course you still employ ambition and work to change all circumstances, professional, romantic, whichever, for the better, but it's amazing what we are able to get used to, what becomes routine. No matter how ugly.
For now then, the practice is to get familiar with things that feel good, with being treated right, with light, joyous, healthy connections. Cultivating them, giving them, asking for them. Even, perhaps, reaching a point where you can’t remember that street being anything but home.
Till next time,
Mona