Love in This Timeline for October 17
There are too many people on the train upstate. It’s leaf-peeping season, and I am just as unoriginal as every other Brooklynite who wants to hit the Hudson Valley before it snows. My boyfriend, M, reads his book beside me while I scan the crowd; he is unfazed by the cheerful squawks of unsupervised children behind us.
Back in 2018, comedian Steven Phillips-Horst wrote a very funny piece for the New Yorker (an unusual feat) titled Dia:Beacon Rebrands as Ideal Date Spot for Couples Who’ve Been Dating for Two Years and Have Nothing Left to Say, which satirized the urbanite ritual of dragging a nonplussed partner to the mammoth factory-turned-museum complex in the institution’s namesake idyll. Dia’s far-flung satellite location takes the “edutainment” scourge of contemporary museology to heart, transforming stodgy post-Minimalist installation into a form of dinner theater through the power of scale. A visit to Dia:Beacon might feel cultural, but the experience requires almost nothing of its visitors—the space is engineered for smartphone-use, as evidenced by the sheer amount of hand-held ring-lights present on any given afternoon.
I’m hardly above the hype—the only thing cringier than an influencer visiting Dia is a female Ryman Stan (I know) visiting Dia—but small adventures with M are so easy, and New York foliage blares with these tones of vermillion so seldom, and I think he might like Rymans, too.
I am confident we have lots left to say.
M listens patiently while I explain why Michael Heizer is a genius in no small part because he was such a dick to museum curators. M buys me theory books in the gift shop and carries them in a heavy bag to the shitty pizza restaurant I’ve selected in Beacon’s downtown. M refuses to get impatient about our 15 minute Uber wait or the drizzly, damp weather. M likes the Rymans, but he likes the Smithsons more. M suggests we buy cupcakes at Grand Central station. I agree.
M is contemplative and careful. We met because he liked my TikToks and felt moved to send me a three-paragraph introduction email asking me on a date. I was amused by his formality and candor. I said yes.
His is an easy, old-world beauty, a worn-velvet masculinity that finds precedent in portraits from the Scottish Reformation— soft beard, arched brow, fast, thoughtful eyes. He moves with purpose, he speaks with intention. He is unprepossessing and likes it that way. He, like me, is a student of culture, high or low notwithstanding. M ruminates quietly at a speed most others can’t match, but never succumbs to boastfulness, despite his brilliance and professional success. M is generous with his laughter. M is rigorous, but easily amused. M takes notice, but judges only sparingly. M remembers everything. M habitually kisses my shoulder because he can’t reach my cheek. This doesn’t bother him one bit.
He’s an unencumbered inhale, a stalwart little lighthouse beaming calmly through the dark.
When both of your parents die in the space of a year, people you previously presumed were normal start to talk to you about spirituality on a regular basis. It’s not the worst part of the process, but it’s one of the most obnoxious. The Universe comes up a lot, as do Signs, as do Psychics. I often wish I believed in the Universe and its allegedly serendipitous machinations, but I know too well that my mom and dad can’t see my book deal—they’re dead. Finality is the only uncomplicated part of grief.
Still, when I hold M’s hand in a beautiful place or sit next to him on my couch to debrief after a dinner or watch him tenderly care for my geriatric spaniel, I can’t help but wonder if someone, somewhere, thought I needed a gift.
In December of 2021, I fled a relationship with a man whose self-destruction had begun to poison my heart’s well-guarded well. Kindness had never come easily to him, and he struggled more and more as despair clouded his ability to love. My mom was dying, and I couldn’t watch two people drown at the same time.
I chose my mother, I chose myself. I refused to go down with his ship.
When M and I began to fall in love, my body flooded with a thick, dark mourning. Why didn’t anyone tell me a relationship could be…simple? Why didn’t anyone teach me that love should feel fun instead of painful? Why had I conflated profundity with venom for so fucking long?
My mother passed just eight months into my relationship with M. He responded with a sober, empathetic pragmatism I’ll never forget and can only dream of reciprocating. When I moved to Massachusetts to care for my father during his six-odd months of hospitalization and subsequent hospice, M took our unexpected long-distance status in stride, calling me every night to listen to me whine and wail. He sat with my dad and asked him questions about the glory days. He checked in on my friends, he tidied while I wept, he designed a shared mosaic from the splinters of my life.
He loved me without strain, which shocked me. I had always assumed I was hard to love. M disagreed.
The world is unfair. Some children get bombed in their beds by American drones, some children complain about how Paris is boring on summer vacation. Some women die at the hands of an alcoholic partner, others test out their boyfriend’s latest baking creation to ascertain its tastiness for a Thanksgiving audience. I reject rubrics like “worthiness” or “deserving”—these are markers of magical thinking for those who bristle at the entropy of luck. I am wildly, irresponsibly lucky. I do not “deserve” M because love is not a meritocracy, but I am grateful all the same. I am no longer alone at the precipice of disaster. We face each wave with strong backs and a shared sense of well-worn hope. We wait for the end together.
It is my most earnest wish that anyone who interacts with my “content” online —this Substack, my TikTok, my forthcoming book, my occasional actual web writing—takes a single message with them. Love is not supposed to distract you or hurt you or weaken your resolve. Love is quiet, ennobling, comfortable without giving way to sameness. Love should help insulate you against the onslaught, not assist in its erosion.
You are allowed to refuse to go down with the ship.
“Did you like Dia?” I ask M expectantly.
“I liked it a lot!” he replies with a friendly lilt. “I always have fun with you, no matter what we’re doing”.
“Me too”, I say.