Myriam Schroeter
ODE TO LYDIA DAVIS
DAILY ROUTINE
A friend asked me what small thing in my daily routine has been thrown off by sheltering in place. It came to me immediately. I’ve stopped brushing my teeth in the morning. It isn’t as if I forget to do it when I wake up. I actively choose not to do it. By 2pm, when I’ve had coffee, two meals and a light desert, I think about the layer of gritty slime forming on my teeth, and the fact that I haven’t had a teeth cleaning in two years. And I still stare at my toothbrush, dry in its cup, as if challenging it, daring it to say something.
FLOW
Finishing a vinyasa flow from Instagram live, she lay down for shivasana. The rise and fall of her belly, feeling the ground beneath her skull, the sounds of her breathing slowing and… the clanking of the dinner pots from 50 feet away.
SOCIAL MEDIA AS ESCAPE
Emily Ratakowski’s boobs.
BIRDS
-When white swans fly, they gasp for air, honking with each flap of their wings. A failing, perhaps, of natural selection but also comedic relief in an animal that normally demonstrates such grace.
-A turkey wandered by the window, staring at the sea. Free to roam, pick at worms, munch on dandelions. I hear they’re vicious creatures, but I’ve never seen a more beautiful, pastoral seaside scene.
-There’s a bird nest trapped in the chimney, a family of swallows seeking refuge. I laid on the floor completely still, in rapture, as they began to sing. My closest interaction with a stranger in weeks.
-The mother tore herself from bed at 5:30am when she heard a massive THWAP. She checked the baby monitor – her daughter was safe and sleeping soundly. Another THUNK, she realized it was coming from her window. Was someone trying to break in? TWHAP. Tearing aside the curtains, she identified the source of the sound. A red robin, repeatedly flinging herself at the window. A perceived threat to her babies in the nest behind her, which turned out to be her own reflection. Was there a more fitting reaction for right now? I’d like to fling myself against the window, she thought, tired of my own reflection and protecting my baby from demons unseen.
DISTANCE
When even Facetime calls are avoided, because the difficult conversations feel less brutal with only a voice on the other end. Your mind, left to imagine the person’s reaction, as if the technology didn’t exist by which you could see a reaction.
PERSONIFICATION
Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if my hands were a human being. They would scream in agony throughout the day, with only brief moments of reprieve. Trapped in plastic, scrubbed until raw, bleached and sanitized, left out to dry.
THERAPY
My therapist took our FaceTime session from her car last week, her mask below her chin. “Look at this,” she proclaimed, switching the view to a shaky vertical of the street, “it’s so empty in Queens.” Perhaps she forgot we had a session or, more likely, miscalculated her schedule because everything takes ten times longer when you factor in the amount of cloroxing getting in and out of spaces requires and how can anyone even keep track of a schedule ever since time became a flat circle. I pause, think back to a few years ago. I was in Los Angeles, driving solo to see the super bloom. I forgot I had scheduled a session and pulled off the highway when her text came through “confirming for 10.” I parked near a gas station, wondering if I should try to hide the fact that I was in a car, on a road, going somewhere, nowhere. If there’s anyone you shouldn’t attempt to hide things from… “Where are you?” she asked. “I’m headed to see the poppies” I replied, laughing, as a 16-wheeler thundered past. We’re all human.
DEAR NEW YORK
I wonder how Mamta is doing. Despite inflation and rent hikes, her eyebrow threading price has steadfastly remained the same. $6. Face and head massage after she unflinchingly tears out your hair, included for free. I always give her $10 and ask her why she hasn’t raised her prices. It’s part of our routine. When I forget cash or I’m short a few bucks, she waves me away ‘pay next time.’ Even if that next time is in a month. I relish going to see her, an old storefront nestled between posh hotels and a rotation of new restaurants on the Lower East Side. The routine continues. I enter the salon, peak my head in. “Is Mamta here?” She emerges from the back, never chastising after I sheepishly proclaim “Sorry it’s been awhile, my eyebrows are terrible right now!” “We keep the shape the same, yes, the way you like.” “You look great, you’re happy, healthy?” “We’ll do it slowly, you tell me if you like the shape, how’s your mom?”
Will there be a routine to go back to? Will there be a next time now? With Mamta? With anyone? What will New York look like after this? Will the beloved people and businesses that form community and weave the fabric of this great city together remain? And for the ones that don’t, what spaces will they leave behind and who will swoop in to occupy them? It’s not from a point of vanity that I want – no need – Mamta to remain in the Lower East Side (though, nobody else in the world intimately knows the shape of my brows the way she does). It’s from a point of human connection, of belonging. Mamta was one of my first discoveries when I moved to New York. One of the first luxuries I could afford after I’d paid rent. Through the years, she’s met my mom, my friends. We talk about her family, her spirituality, life events. She knows when I’m tired or sad, gives me motherly comfort in the chair and soothes with her conversation and her meticulous work, the thin thread hovering between her teeth and my face.
There’s a comfort stepping into the Salon, the other ladies - who so rely on human contact, word of mouth, foot traffic to sustain - all waving hello and clucking ‘hola mija’ ‘que linda.’ The hums of blow driers, on and off, the jingling of the door as it swings open, the smiles from familiar customers. The community, the ‘someone tell my daughter I went to grab lunch if she comes by’. The Spanish-language radio on full blast, speaker hidden behind the growing vines of the climbing plant.
Mamta, and for that matter the salon, define why I love New York so heart-breakingly much and what has kept me here all these years. People outside New York like to tell me right now that humans aren’t meant to live on top of each other like this, the I-told-you-so-because look how COVID is ravishing your city. “Your” city. My city. A city that some will be quick to flee, that others will be proud to stand by, weathering the storm. We’ve survived before. I remember the exact moment the lights went out during Sandy. My roomates and I lit candles, listening to the wind as it howled, watched as a small car floated down the street. I lived above Lucky Strike at the time, which just shuttered after 31 years, unable to survive the financial toll the virus created.
My great city, that always takes me back in. That caresses and soothes me after it smacks me down. That pushes me to the edge of sanity but reminds me what it is to be human. That changes, but in a way that I choose to accept.