The day I left New York, I didn’t think I was really leaving.
No one did. I had booked a last-minute flight to Idaho, to hide out from the pandemic in fresh air. (My bedroom windows in my shared apartment in FiDi did not open.) A change of quarantine environment felt smart. But a big life change? That was not on my bingo card for the spring.
I took a small suitcase. I did not say goodbye to all that. In fact, I said goodbye to no one and nothing—and unknowing walked out of an era of my life and into another. There is a whole genre of essay about choosing to leave the city, but I never made that choice, so this is not that essay.
That was four years ago, and since then I’ve said goodbye to a lot of things and hello to some, too. Quit my job, gained a degree, got some new jobs (plural), became someone quite new. I often wonder what would have happened if I had stayed. In an alternate universe, another Raisa is still going on mediocre Sunday night Hinge dates at organic wine bars on the Lower East Side. Another Raisa has become a committed Equinox girl, or started CitiBiking to cut down on Uber costs, or moved to Brooklyn to have a place of her own where the windows do, indeed, open. Maybe she changed careers; maybe she stuck it out and found a way to live the writerly dream. Certainly she is drinking negronis at Dante on early spring evenings.
But those are all ghosts I’ll never know. The ghost I am stuck with is the one who came to Idaho and started writing every day in a Google Doc journal. So, in honor of the four-year anniversary of my arrival here, please see Day Two of The Quarantine Project, below. (You can read Day One here.)
The Quarantine Project
Some context: I was on the last flight to arrive at the tiny Sun Valley airport that March. It was still snowy here, and sub-freezing. At the airport, my parents asked me to strip off my outer layers, then kept the windows down and N-95 masks on for the drive home. I shut myself in my room for 15 days. To go from living a big, busy New York life to one of solitude, quiet, and containment: the shift was shocking. It was a bleak time, but also the beginning of a groundswell of change—for many of us, I think. When I talk to people about the pandemic now, mixed in with the pain of loss or isolation is the gratitude for this change, a forced reset of priorities and norms.
I’ll be sharing snippets of The Quarantine Project one day at a time in the months to come. Maybe once a week? Let’s see.
But first, a new section for this nascent newsletter, reminiscent of the link roundup I used to send out for many years…
action list
Reading: The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman, the third (and final) book in the His Dark Materials trilogy, which is worth a revisit as an adult for its thoughtful evocations of love and the power of knowledge. And Eliza Brooke on teaching manners to the next gen.
Watching: American Fiction with Jeffrey Wright, which is both deeper and more subtle than the playful trailers would have you believe. And Suffering in Sun Valley, a (very short) comedy sketch made by and starring my new friend Jacq Frances.
Listening to: “On Your Side,” The Last Dinner Party. Haunting, heartbreaking operatic rock. Best consumed while on a long, moody walk where you can sing (and scream) along while cursing fate’s barbs.
Eating: Homemade blueberry muffins from Smitten Kitchen. They really are that easy to make.
Absorbing: Cindy Sherman’s newest exhibition of confronting collage self-portraits, which turn a woman’s aging process into stills from a bizarro-world slasher film (before it gets gruesome).
love reading these transporting memories! keep writing 💓