Top highlights from This Time Tomorrow
Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you.
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Any story could be a comedy or a tragedy, depending on where you ended it. That was the magic. How the same story could be told an infinite number of ways.
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All her life, she'd thought of death as the single moment, the heart stopping, the final breath, but now she knew that it could be much more like giving birth, with nine months of preparations. Her father was heavily pregnant with death, and there was little to do but wait.
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Alice wondered if no one ever felt as old as they were because it happened so slowly, and you were only ever one day slower and creakier, and the world changed so gradually that by the time cars had evolved from boxy to smooth, or green taxis had joined yellow ones, or MetroCards had replaced tokens, you were used to it. Everyone was a lobster in the pot.
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Happy endings were too much for some people, false and cheap, but hope - hope was honest. Hope was good.
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When she was a teenager, the 1980s had felt far away, a lifetime ago, but now, when she was so many more decades ahead, 1996 still felt recent. The first twenty years of her life had gone by in slow motion--the endless summers, the space from birthday to birthday almost immeasurable--but the second twenty years had gone by in a flash. Days could still be slow, of course, but weeks and months and sometimes even years zipped along, like a rope slipping through your hands.
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It was the worst fact of parenthood, that what you did mattered so much more than anything you said.
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grief was something that moved in and stayed. Maybe it moved from one side of the room to the other, farther away from the window, but it was always there.
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It was embarrassing, if you slowed down long enough to think about it, how many major life decisions happened because they looked like the model you'd been given.
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Sometimes people didn't understand that--Alice wasn't a writer, but she'd spent enough time sitting at dinner tables with novelists to understand that fiction was a myth. Fictional stories, that is. Maybe there were bad ones out there, but the good ones, the good ones--those were always true. Not the facts, not the rights and the lefts, not the plots, which could take place in outer space or in hell or anywhere in between, but the feelings. The feelings were the truth.
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But no one ever talked to me about it, that's for sure--what it feels like to love someone so much, and then have them change into someone else. You love that new person, but it's different, and it all happens so fast, even the parts that feel like they just last for fucking ever while they're happening.
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The way you spend your days is the way you spend your life.
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Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you. Transcendental meditation, maybe, but with hot dogs and the knowledge that everything would change, the good and the bad, and so you might as well appreciate the good.
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Why was it so hard to see that, how close generations were? That children and their parents were companions through life.
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The problem with adulthood was feeling like everything came with a timer.
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Teenage girls' skeletons were half bones and half secrets that only other teenage girls knew.
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Any story could be a comedy or a tragedy, depending on where you ended it. That was the magic, how the same story could be told an infinite number of ways.
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There was never this a day spent floating from one thing to another. This was how Alice imagined marriage, and family always having someone to float through the day with, someone with who it didn't take three emails and six texts and a last-minute reservation change to see one another. Everyone had it when they were kids, but only the truly gifted held on to it in adulthood. People with siblings usually had a leg up, but not always.
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What a very long time one had to be an adult, after rushing through childhood and adolescence.
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He had been young, and she had been young - they had been young together. Why was it so hard to see that, how close generations were? That children and their parents were companions through life. Maybe that's why she was here now. Maybe this was the moment when they were both at their best, and together.
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Things were always changing, even when they didn't feel like it. Alice wondered if no one ever felt as old as they were because it happened so slowly, and you were only ever one day slower and creakier, and the world changed so gradually that by the time cars had evolved from boxy to smooth, or green taxis had joined the yellow ones, or Metrocards had replaced tokens, you were used to it. Everyone was a lobster in the pot.
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Alice imagined a graph that showed how much people's personalities shifted after high school on one axis and on the other, how many miles away from home they had moved.
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Its not about the time. Its about how you spend it. Where you put your energy
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Mothering seemed like downhill skiing, or cooking elaborate meals from scratch sure, anyone could learn how to do it, but it was much easier for the people who had seen other people do it first, and well, from a very young age.
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There are too few opportunities, as an adult, to be surrounded by friends after midnight.
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Maybe there were endless opportunities for parties, and for love, if you built a life that made room for them.
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What a very long time one had to be an adult, after rushing through childhood and adolescence. There should be several more distinctions: the idiocy of the young twenties, when one was suddenly expected to know how to do adult things; the panicked coupling of the mid- and late twenties, when marriages happened as quickly as a game of tag; the sitcom mom period, when you finally had enough food in your freezer to survive for a month if necessary; the school principal period, when you were no longer seen as a woman at all but just a nagging authority figure. If you were lucky, there was the late-in-life sexy Mrs. Robinson period, or an accomplished and powerful Meryl Streep period, followed, of course, by approximately two decades of old crone-hood, like the woman at the end of 'Titanic
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she understood that it wasnt actually something one could ever work all the way through, like a jigsaw puzzle or a Rubiks cube; grief was something that moved in and stayed. Maybe it moved from one side of the room to the other, farther away from the window, but it was always there. A part of you that you couldnt wish or pray or drink or exercise away.
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Being a parent seemed like a truly shitty jobby the time you were old and wise enough to understand what mistakes youd made, there was literally no chance that your children would listen. Everyone had to make their own mistakes.
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What was the percentage of people who actually got to die while feeling loved and supported by their spouse?
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Alice wondered if no one ever felt as old as they were because it happened so slowly, and you were only ever one day slower and creakier, and the world changed so gradually that be the time cars had evolved from boxy to smooth, or green taxies had joined yellow ones, or MetroCards had replaced tokens, you were used to it.
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all her life, shed thought of death as the single moment, the heart stopping, the final breath, but now she knew that it could be much more like giving birth, with nine months of preparation. Her father was heavily pregnant with death, and there was little to do but wait
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People who didnt love New York could just fuck all the way off. Look at this place! Look at these benches, at these cobblestones, at these taxicabs and horses side by side! Whatever happened, she had this.
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The problem with adulthood was feeling like everything came with a timera dinner date with Sam was at most two hours, with other friends, probably not even as long. There was maybe waiting for a table, there was a night at a bar, there was a party that went late, but even that was just a few hours of actual time spent. Most of Alices friendships now felt like they were virtual, like the pen pals of her youth. It was so easy to go years without seeing someone in person, to keep up to date just through the pictures they posted of their dog or their baby or their lunch. There was never thisa day spent floating from one thing to another. This was how Alice imagined marriage, and familyalways having someone to float through the day with, someone with whom it didnt take three emails and six texts and a last-minute reservation change to see one another. Everyone had it when they were kids, but only the truly gifted held on to it in adulthood. People with siblings usually had a leg up, but not always.
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Days could still be slow, of course, but weeks and months and sometimes even years zipped along, like a rope slipping through your hands.
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Forward, that was the idea. Until the future, whatever it was going to be.
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One of the worst parts of the whole thing, Alice understood, was that doctors were almost always guessing. They were smart people, and the guesses were informed by tests and trials and years of experience, but they were guessing nonetheless.
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Sometimes Alice thought it was strange, how many people stayed within the zip code where they'd grown up, but then she thought about how many people in small towns and cities across the country did, too. It only seemed strange because this was New York, a place that regenerated every few years, populated by newcomers and transplants.
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When she was young, shed thought he was old, and now that he was old, Alice realized how young hed been. Perspective was unfair.
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It was still dark outside, and the air was windy, knocking small branches against the window. October was a good month to confront death this was why Halloween worked. The trees were mostly bare and the air was warm enough that you hadnt yet pulled out a heavy coat. It was a month on the cusp, nature shifting from one mode to another. In transition.
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No one talks about thatat least not to dads. Maybe moms talk about it moreI bet they do. But no one ever talked to me about it, thats for surewhat it feels like to love someone so much, and then have them change into someone else. You love that new person, but its different, and it all happens so fast, even the parts that feel like they just last for fucking ever while theyre happening.
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Change happens without us noticing. We're lobsters in a pot.
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Alice hugged Mary longer than shed ever hugged a relative stranger in her life. This was how people felt about their midwives, or platoon mates, or fellow hostagesthey had seen things together that no one else would ever fully understand.
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This was what Alice had been missing. Not just the answers to questions that shed never been brave enough to ask, and not just family history that no one else knew, and not just visions of her own childhood through her fathers eyes, but also this: the embarrassing stories shed heard a thousand times and would never hear again. She could see the whole concert, Leonards sweaty, smiling facebefore he was married, before he was a dad, before hed published a book. She could see it as clearly as she could see the whale, even with her eyes closed.
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Alice wasn't sure - she hadn't been sure then, and even decades later, she thought she could have chosen a hundred different things and had a hundred different lives. Sometimes she felt like everyone she knew had already become whatever they were going to be come, and she was still just waiting.
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men werent trained to be in charge of their own friendships.
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Alice couldnt listen to everything her mother told her.
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Alice always texted her mother after leaving the hospital. Dad ok. No different, which seems positive? Serena sent back a red heart emoji and then a rainbow emoji, indicating that she had read the words and had nothing to add, no follow-up questions. It didnt seem fair, abdicating all responsibility just because you were no longer married, though of course that was exactly what divorce meant.
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Alice understood that these gifts, and all the ones like them that shed ever received, were their own form of silent apology, the only kind she was ever going to get.
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Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in ,that everything would change, the good and the bad, and so you might as well appreciate the good.
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One upside to having a single parent was not rushing to get married, like so many people she knew had, just because they were trying to be adults. It was embarrassing, if you slowed down long enough to think about it, how many major life decisions happened because they looked like the model youd been given.
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He had been young, and she had been youngthey had been young together. Why was it so hard to see that, how close generations were? That children and their parents were companions through life.
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If shed had rules, or a curfew, or a parent who grounded her when he found drugs instead of just taking them away, maybe she could have gone to Yale, maybe she could have had test scores high enough that she could even have said that out loud without the college counselor laughing. Maybe shed be wearing white in the fall, her hair long, and she would have left town and moved to France and done something, anything. Maybe shed be talking to the hospitals nurses station from her house in Montclair, watching through a window as her husband and kids splashed in the pool on the last seasonable days. When Sam had gotten too drunk as a teenager, she came to Pomander, and Leonard let her sleep it off in Alices bed. Maybe parents were supposed to be narcs. Alice had always assumed that he knew everything and trusted her enough not to get in trouble, but maybe he just had never been paying attention, like everyone else.
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Teenage girls skeletons were half bones and half secrets that only other teenage girls knew.
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Leonard unlocked the gate and pushed it open for Alice. The Romans lights were still on, but the rest of the street was mostly dark, with just one lit window on the second floor here and therefront bedrooms. Alice imagined all their neighbors in their beds, books open or televisions on. She felt like she always had on certain summer nights, like she was already missing the moment that she was still living inside.
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Most of the boys at Belvedere had already moved on from the Jordan Catalano school of fashion, but not Tommy.
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the beauty of New York City was walking, was serendipity and strangers,
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As Tommy talked, Alice could picture ita white house behind a hedge, a gravel driveway.
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Birthdays were inherently disappointingthey always had been. There wasnt a birthday she could remember truly enjoying.
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Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you. Transcendental meditation, maybe, but with hot dogs and the knowledge that everything would change, the good and the bad, and so you might as well appreciate the good.
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