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Nick Calder's avatar

Beautifully written-and sad?

You capture a lot about the strangeness we all live with - being alone in crowded spaces and alone in empty spaces.

Your reflections on NY put me in mind of Joan Didion writing about her feelings of first living in the city - I guess when she might have been your age?

I’ve always felt the sheer scale of the USA both wonderful and terrifying - and the scale of the distances that seem to be opening up in your society make me marvel that you all can live normal lives at all - but that’s just an old white male Brit’s view and so not sure that’s worth a hill of beans.

Freedom exists in the space between people…what does that mean? Surely we (at least in the middle classes of the west) can make our own freedom?

Because today for the first time (shame on me) I came across Susan Sontag’s ‘Against Interpretation’ I’m in the frame of mind to question all the questions we’re always firing off about the meaning of the meaning etc etc and maybe we should go back to telling simple stories about things we do and not spend so much time in fretting…anyway that’s probably all bollocks too - so I’ll stop.

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Nix 🕊's avatar

Changing selves comes w so much grief, the loss of who we were (maybe more innocent, open then). Another beautiful piece! Also can’t believe not taking off the shoes LOL

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