I moved into my first apartment this past week! Which is exciting and nerve-wracking. I moved in with two of my closest friends from home, so I'm happy I'm in good company. They both lived in Harlem prior to the pandemic and moved out over the summer. They were trying to move to Brooklyn and wanted me to join them, so here I am. Moving during the pandemic wasn't that unusual, we wore masks and cleaned everything before we began unpacking. But in the five days since we've been here, and have all been working here since we're all working remotely (and all trying to find new/better jobs), rates have begun rising in the area. We joked about whether we were making a mistake, since this might be the darkest winter ever--everything closed and cold. But I'm taking comfort in the fact that if I'm stuck inside for the entire winter, I'm doing it with two people I love and enjoy spending time with. Truthfully, we would've never gotten this apartment if it hadn't been for the pandemic. The monthly rent we're paying was lowered from last year by over $500. We frankly wouldn't have been able to afford it. And it's beautiful. It's bright and airy, and I have a skylight (as does one of my friends) and it just feels right. So we'll figure it out. Whatever happens, I have faith we'll figure it out together.
October 7, 2020
As a lifelong bibliophile, I have often relied upon books to buoy me through difficult times. Since March 2020, when the pandemic first began to alter all that we knew and loved, books have been my passport to safely visit people and places without mask, worry or guilt. I have walked the streets of Paris with Chief Inspector Gamache in Louise Penny’s All the Devils Are Here, found myself quaking in a remote mountain estate in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s creepy Mexican Gothic and assisted in solving assorted mysteries confronting a Kent retirement village in Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. Fredrik Backman transported me to a small town in Sweden in his heartwarming Anxious People, Marjan Kamali invited me to 1950s Tehran in The Stationery Shop, and Lucy Foley introduced me to a dubious cast of characters gathered on a fictional island off Connemara in The Guest List. Even a deadly pandemic cannot restrict travel by book nor discourage the awakening of imagination through literature.
January 29, 2021