May Day
In 2001, I moved to New York to go to college and have lived here ever since. Living in the city that was also my college campus has its own weirdness. It’s rare that I find myself loping through Washington Square Park, or under the purple flagged buildings on Broadway, but when I do, I always take note of where I started. The Leon deli, where a professor once grabbed the bagels out of my and Margeaux’s hands so she could buy us breakfast, it’s now a juice bar. The hardwood floor cafe where we saw Bitch & Animal perform is now a Starbucks. The hole in a wall Middle Eastern place that served the best lentil soup, where Margeaux and I would meet between classes to eat and wonder about our lives, is gone in a way that I can’t even remember where it was. And the construction scaffolding structure that we climbed, toting a guitar and backpacks of beer and chips and hummus so we could sit on the roof - well, that scaffolding built the student center, so that the high platform we feasted on top is now foundation and floor.
I met fantastic people all during my college years, but keeping in touch with them has proved evasive in the way that time loops on. But two friends remain: Margeaux and Camille. Margeaux is an artist, and Camille is a writer. Two weeks ago, Margeaux texted me: “Your cat is in the New York Times!” It was accompanied by a link to a profile of her artwork, which indeed features a photo of my cat Rufus. I guffawed when the article opened. “Margeaux!” I texted back. “YOU are in the New York Times! YOU ARE!”
Somewhere in the East Village is a dark bar where Margeaux took photos, so long ago. Saturated C prints of us all with baby faces, Carhartt pants, ringer tees. We had our share of debauchery, so the photos include lap dances, wide open mouths of laughter, heads close in a kiss with various girls, girls now women, queers more queer. I once let Margeaux write on my face in permanent marker for a photo project, and when it was time to wash it off, the words smeared and remained on my skin. We went to a concert at the Warsaw that night and I told everyone that it was artistic leprosy. But as we waded through our twenties, Margeaux’s artwork grew and grew and grew. More often than not, when I ask her what she’s up to, she says she’s in her studio. What is the best lesson we could’ve learned except that dedicated work is the only way to make art.
After college, Camille and I were two young people with day jobs and half-written novels. Writing can be so preposterous: you work 40 hours a week, and then on your precious weekends, you fill pages upon pages. You follow the story, you scratch out the false starts, and then - then! - you send those stories out into the world. It’s like a hobby of delusion and rejection. So I can color in the last ten years or more, meeting Camille for coffee, talking about our false starts, measuring the risks, egging each other on. We worried, we encouraged, we talked one another off ledges, we celebrated, we persevered. Often, when my own procrastination begins to capsize into self-sabotage, I will think about Camille working as hard as she works. Writing on weekends, writing at her kitchen table, writing at her beloved Blue Stove Cafe. If the purpose of New York was to create a forever orbit with Margeaux and Camille, cycling planets of creative endeavors, then it will always be worth it.
Which is why it brings me incredible joy to tell you that this Tuesday, Camille’s first novel is coming out. I have a penchant for being loud, and so I have often whooped and clapped at all the news that came along on the journey: the agent, the editor, the cover, the release date. In February, as we finished having dinner, Camille fished around in her tote bag and passed the galley of her novel across the table to me. It was a marvel. On the subway home, I just stared at it, grinning. The novel is about an assistant who accidentally gets a check from her company for enough money to pay off her student loans, and this mistake snowballs into a scheme to pay off other assistants’ debts. I read it in two days, not only because the author (author!) is my dear friend, but because it’s a true page turner: spirited and fun and wonderfully plotted. Plus, the fantasy of it is so good: who hasn’t imagined finding a secret or magical way to pay off their student loan debt in one fell swoop?
Before I graduated college, my program arranged for those of us who wanted to be writers to meet with a novelist who was an alum. “What about the student loans?” I asked him. “How do you write and pay those off and work and also maybe get an MFA?”
“Defer,” he said, his face as baffled as my own that had asked the question. “Defer, defer, defer.”
There was no fiscally sound advice there, but what’s fiscally sound about being a writer anyway? The real answer to my question comes not from him, nor from the fantastical scheme in Camille’s novel, but from watching her write that novel over many, many years, at her kitchen table, in the time she could find, without ever giving up. Always hustling. That’s how you do this. That’s what hard work looks like, and that’s why I’ll never give up.
May 1st is also known as May Day, a day to honor workers. So here’s to the writers who are toiling on a Sunday. And here’s to Camille Perri’s novel The Assistants. Hard work never looked so good.
xo,
c
P.S.
* May 3rd I’ll be at Camille’s book launch at the Upper West Side Barnes & Noble. C’mon out! You can also catch her on her 7-state tour.
* Are you loving LEMONADE as much as I am? Here’s a round up of excellent essays in response to Queen Bey’s artistic achievement.
* (I mean, even Lin Manuel Miranda loves LEMONADE.)
* Another awesome book that came out recently: Lisa Congdon (whose artwork and spirit I adore) has an illustrated book about swimming called The Joy of Swimming: A Celebration of Our Love for Getting in the Water. It’s beautiful. (I also recommend her blog, which is always full of great advice).
* Have I ever told you guys about the best grilled cheese recipe ever? It’s SO GOOD.
* Dachshunds playing hockey. Enough said.