I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. — Oscar Wilde
I am not a stable person, geographically speaking. When I start to list all the places I’ve lived since graduating from college, I am appalled. Chestnut Street in Oneonta, New York. Then to Brooklyn (to Park Slope, before it was the Park Slope it is today). First I lived on 6th Street and then on 9th Street. Then to Waterside in Manhattan, a somewhat isolated enclave over on the East River, which was perfect for a newly divorced poet. Then up to the Upper East Side (68th Street, between Madison and Park) where I lived a stone’s throw from where Halston’s studio used to be. Finally down to Chelsea (19th Street, between 8th and 9th), my most favorite place of all, with its proximity to the (now unaffordable) Village, its trendy restaurants and the energy of a neighborhood being transformed on a daily basis.
I left New York in 1990 and moved to The Woolen Mill in Winooksi, Vermont, just outside of Burlington. A year later I moved to the South End in Boston; then to Cambridge; then up to Salem, Massachusetts, where Tim and I bought an old sea captain’s house. We stayed in that house for nearly 11 years — the longest I have lived anywhere since leaving my parents’ house. Four years ago we moved to where we are now, just outside of Richmond, Virginia.
Have you been counting? I’m talking about 11 residences since 1971. Eleven moves. Eleven times that I’ve packed and unpacked my 1,000 books and countless cassette tapes, vinyl records and CDs. Eleven times that I’ve had to figure out where to put things and, in some cases, how to start my freelance writing career all over again. It’s been exciting. It’s been exhausting. And it’s not over yet.
Each of my leavings has caused great consternation among my friends and family. Like when I told my father I’d be moving to Brooklyn. He wailed, “I spent my whole life working hard so you wouldn’t have to deal with the city — and now you’re voluntarily moving there?!? Twenty blocks from where I was born?!?” He never understood. I have one friend in New York who has basically lived in the same walk-up apartment (with two forays into subletting so she could experience different parts of the city) for nearly 40 years. The idea of living anywhere else is incomprehensible to her. When I left NYC for Vermont, I held a wake of sorts, inviting her and my other girlfriends over so they could pick through my wardrobe to select from the leather pants, short suede skirts, glitzy tops and fancy boots and shoes that I would not be wearing in the crunchy Green Mountain State. When I left for Boston, they worried about how long it would be before I was homeless. And when Tim and I moved to the South, two of our friends (both of whom had grown up in the South) practically threw themselves over us, begging us not to go. Shades of Faulkner (“I don’t hate the South, I don’t hate the South . . .”). Anyway, it all makes me laugh.
So why do I tell you all this? What is the common denominator in all this craziness? My journals, which help me remember all these things.
While my journals are not nearly as exciting as Oscar Wilde’s, I’m sure, they do provide entertainment and a certain degree of enlightenment in retrospect. When I read through them, I see my younger, braver self. I read about the day I moved downtown — thanks to a friend of a friend and his pick-up truck. We pulled all my things out of that Upper East Side apartment and jammed them into the white pick-up. When my great-grandmother’s wooden rocker wouldn’t fit, we strapped it to the roof and drove right down Park Avenue, three of us in the front seat, looking every bit like a remake of The Beverly Hillbillies. I read about the process I went through moving from New York to Vermont: buying a car over the phone, to the astonishment of the salesman, upon whom I had bestowed the easiest sale ever . . . and renting an apartment the same way. When I met the movers at the building and they asked me what they should bring off the van first, based on where things would go, I said, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the place yet.” True story. When I opened the door to my new home for the first time, I breathed a sigh of relief. We all did. Pretty new, twice as big as anything I’d rented in New York and half the price. My cockeyed plan had worked. Life was good.
I read about how much I have missed New York over the years and how important it is for me to get back a few times every year. About walking up Madison Avenue, down Fifth, all around Greenwich Village and Soho. About my favorite places, some of which are still there — like Pete’s Tavern, The Cupping Room, the Frick and the ground floor of Bendel’s. About one which is gone — The Right Bank restaurant at Madison and 68th — for which I mourn mightily, since it was basically the annex of my kitchen.
It’s the words that keep these places alive in detail. Sure, we’ll all remember the big things (although that wisdom is becoming more questionable with age). But it’s the little details that fade and, most times, that’s where the story is. Write them down. On the spot, if you can. Especially the things you remember in the middle of the night. Write them down. I’ve probably lost half a lifetime of stories by not taking my own advice consistently.
What about you? What have you forgotten? What do you do to keep remembering? Remember that journal on the train — amuse yourself. And us, please!
Buon viaggio!
Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…
