The Uncanny Valley of Memory
Memory is an unreliable narrator. Details of events you’d swear to in a court of law sometimes didn’t happen quite the way you thought. Other details you think you’ve forgotten can suddenly feel as fresh and vivid as the day they first occurred.
This is doubly true for me. I’ve always been a creature of now, only fully alive in this precise moment and perpetually seduced by the infinite possibilities of the unknowable future. There are people who have flawless recall, who love to reminisce and bask in the warm, soothing comfort of nostalgia. I’m not one of them.
That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy an occasional childhood treat or stroll down memory lane. I just don’t put a lot of emotional weight on past events. My memory has always been a little sketchy and, with the hormonal chaos currently rampaging through my menopausal brain, it’s been worse than ever. I forget words, forget what I mean to get out of that drawer, forget the name of that guy who was in that movie. I like to believe that these internal thunderstorms will pass and I’ll be able to move on to the Wise Old Person portion of our show. But for now, things are trickier. More complicated.
So it’s an interesting time for me to be revisiting my hometown.
I grew up in New York City. In Manhattan, mostly, though my pop moved to the Bronx when I was around 13. My mom and her partner lived in the same tiny apartment on 45th Street and 9th Avenue for the first five decades of my life. When I was a kid, I used to sleep on a rectangle of foam that had been cut to fit on top of a dresser, surrounded by bookshelves.
When people ask about my childhood city, I tell them to watch Taxi Driver.
When they ask about my life as a young adult, I tell them to read Peepland, by me and Gary Phillips.
I haven’t been back since my pop died in 2014, but New York City is in my DNA. It was as much of a parent to me as the people who genetically engineered me. I spent my formative years walking the streets and prowling the subways. Restless, directionless, and almost always alone.
That might seem shocking to anyone under 30, but I was a free-range latch-key kid. We all were back then, all of us Gen X New Yorkers. It was a crucial part of my development as a baby writer. All that time spent alone in a crowd, observing, making up stories about everyone. Picking up the rhythms of everybody’s speech and slang. Stealing little moments, magpie-like, and saving them in my notebooks.
Side note: I’ll bet I wouldn’t have done any of that if I had a smart phone.
So, when I was planning my trip to the old stomping grounds, I made sure to block out plenty of time to walk around alone with my phone in airplane mode.
While I walked, I thought about the kid I used to be and the person I’m becoming. I ate things I liked when I was growing up. Visited places I remembered and places I didn’t remember until I got there. Places that had changed so much that I barely recognized them.
Over and over, I experienced this strange, uncanny valley feeling of seeing something that looks almost familiar, but not quite. A certain subway platform. A faded sign. Fire escapes. Swings.
But here’s the thing about New York City. It changes. That’s its nature. It’s a dynamic system, never static. I wouldn’t blame an old girlfriend for changing after we broke up, so I can’t blame my hometown for moving on without me. But it did give this latest visit a not-entirely-unpleasant bass note of melancholy.
Anyway, here’s some photos I took. Fragments, mostly.
And, since I do feel obligated to include a few things that are kinda sorta news-adjacent in my newsletter, here are some snaps of the book events I did while I was in town.
I’m not sure when I’ll be back to NYC. I think this weird new project I’m working on might lean more thriller than noir, so hitting ThrillerFest might be in my future. But for now, I’m taking a break from traveling. Meaning I’m going back into homebody writer mode.
Which is fine, because even though I never intended to end up here, I actually love my new home in the Pacific Northwest. It’s peaceful. There’s eagles and shit. Cold, stony, Nordic Noir beaches. Damn fine coffee. I can be a different person here, and I’m leaning the fuck into that.
I still don’t look like I belong here. Not sure I ever will. But, you know what? I’m ok with that.