Empty Apartments

Hi friends.

I decided a few weeks ago it was too hot in New Orleans and I had to get out of town. I had a trip planned later this summer but I had this feeling of: immediately. I mean it was so hot I couldn’t even think and when I could think I felt a little angry. It’s always like that—like always that hot I mean—but you have to have the right approach to it when the weather rolls in, or you’ll never make it through the summer. I was off for some reason.

Maybe I had worked too hard for too long. Maybe I had had the wrong kind of travel all spring. I had been on and off the road since January but I never stayed anywhere long enough to have a proper perspective shift. I saw new things, I met new people, I engaged with the world, but it was too rushed. Maybe I just needed a vacation.

On social media, I learned I had a few friends heading out of town in Brooklyn and leaving behind empty apartments. I looked at the airline miles I had earned this year and realized I had enough to get me to there. I knew I would spend a small fortune in cabs alone but on the other hand there were empty pretty apartments there, waiting for me. A quiet place to write, I thought.

In the early mornings this past week it’s been in the sixties. I stayed in Bay Ridge for the first few days and walked along the river and looked at the Verrazzano Bridge and my temperature felt normal, and I didn’t sweat and I didn’t feel sick at the end of the walk. I just felt clear-headed. I was able to make decisions I had been needing to make for a while. I could see that now. All the traveling I had done this winter and spring was for work or family and I had lost the me in all of this.

All along, I had known I was putting so much off until this summer. This summer I’ll write just for me, I kept saying to friends. This summer I’ll relax. This summer I’ll figure it out. And then I got the gift of these empty apartments.

But they’re not empty of course. They’re full of art and books and life. Children live in these apartments, and dogs, too. It is nice to be in places that hold that kind of energy.

Anyway, I could stay in a hole in the wall but as long as I had someone else’s bookshelves to look at I would be completely inspired and happy. I love trying to imagine what decades of their lives certain books are from. I love the big art books. I love the surprise marginalia.

“My brain has always been my best friend,” I said to a writer I had a coffee with the other day. “From when I was a child.” The writer and I had admired each other from afar for a while. Even swapped drafts and given each other feedback. She said her best friends had been her faith and her books. It was all the same in a way. A life of the mind. I had that feeling I always get when I meet another writer who works and thinks like I do: that I am not alone in the world. Did I come all this way just to have that conversation? Maybe.

On the Fourth of July I walked through Prospect Park past all the people grilling and smiling, and then further on into the deep wooded parts and I thought: my skin feels perfect. I can’t tell you how much it has meant to me to be somewhere greener and cooler than where I was. I will be happy when I go home, but I needed this perspective shift. That’s all I can tell you.

Look out for each other. See what you can offer each other. The gift of space is tremendous. My fingers have been flying here. Every day I get somewhere new with my work. Every day I wake up and I daydream new solutions. In these empty houses with these beautiful bookshelves and these big windows and these flights of stairs to climb and these incredibly great bagel shops within spitting distance. I know most artists residencies are hidden away in the woods but mine are in the empty apartments of Brooklyn.

Stay cool,

Jami

You are reading Craft Talk, the home of #1000wordsofsummer and also a weekly newsletter about writing from Jami Attenberg. I’m also on twitter and instagram.