The King of Time

I think a lot about the “inside of you there are two wolves” meme, because inside of me there ARE two wolves: one that is somewhere running cheerfully through the woods and causing chaos, and another that is on the verge of having a panic attack.

This was the accidental theme of my vacation this past week when I went to Provincetown to catch up with Rebecca and our friends. And it was delightfully apt, because the moon was fuller and brighter than I have ever seen it and it woke me up at 2AM two nights in a row and all I could think in my head was the line from that TV On The Radio song: “Show you what all the howling’s for…”

The first night, I got up and went outside and just STARED it down until I realized I wasn’t falling back asleep any time soon and I read half of a book on my phone until I fell asleep again  around 4:30. The second night, I got up and got in the hot tub at my Airbnb, because what is the point of spending money at an Airbnb in a tourist town if not to have a hot tub? 

I am always surprised by how it feels to be a woman over 40, because I’ve never been as smart as I am now, had my priorities as straight, felt prettier or more successful or more self aware than I do now. But I’m also reacquainting myself with the whims of my body in a way that I haven’t felt since it first broke down in my early 20s: I know now that when I get sick, it’s gonna feel worse and I’m not going to bounce back. That I’m going to wake up at 2am most nights, full moon or no. That there is simply a level of hydration and vegetables I have to maintain on the daily to function at anything like a normal rate.

Vacation, as such — my first “real” vacation in the “new Covid” world — was a bit of a mind fuck. I spent most of this spring sick: A 3-week version of the shitty cold most people I know went thru transitioned later into a shitty Covid week that most people I know also went through. Finally getting Covid was a heartbreak and then a relief: I was terrified and then I was simply feeling poorly and then I was lucky to be on antivirals and recovering quickly. And then all of a sudden I was a person who’d been vaccinated 4 times and had new antibodies, and the summer broke open for me.

I had a lot of complex feelings at the time, but they all happened within a week or so, and I purposefully didn’t document them because I knew that if I came out on the other side and Felt Fine, then ultimately it didn’t matter (even though all of this has mattered, always).

So, in the present: I booked a trip to Ptown to see all of my friends, at a time before they’d be too exhausted by summer’s demands and also before it would be impossible for me to catch covid again. This would be the first time I’d eat inside a restaurant without a second thought, ride the ferry without a mask, walk into a store without a mask on and be like everyone else in the room. (I can’t really underestimate for you guys how cautious I have been, outside of going to my actual job, which was of course the place I ultimately caught it.) Once in the clear, I went for it, and I went for the big, art-filled Airbnb with the hot tub, because if I was gonna make my friends hang out with me in busy season, I was gonna make it worth all our whiles. 

I am not a person who is good at taking time and space from work, but I am a person who is good at recognizing when it will be good for my work to do so. This week, I needed that, and I leaned into it, and I learned that when I get my head empty in the right ways, there’s always more there to fill it: I wrote 13,000 words of a new project that is fun and lighthearted and might never see the light of day, but that I deeply enjoyed doing. There is no hardship in sitting down in a sun-filled room with your laptop and some cheese curds and pickles and a small glass of bourbon. There is only joy in the act of making shit because you feel like making it. 

There is also immense joy in walking through a small town greeting people who you already know or who your friends want to introduce you to: In a town of 3,000 locals, if your best friends own a restaurant, you can guarantee they know everyone. I have always felt like a minor celebrity in Provincetown, and this past week was a prime example of it. My love languages are food and compliments, and those two things merge easily in this town: Rebecca introduces me as her dearest friend, people want to make me food and drinks, those same people later run into me in the street and admire my outfit, then we all go on to eat more and better foods.

It’s all incredible until it isn’t: I am prone to anxiety, but not to panic attacks. Still, I had two of them this week: One that hit me so hard I cancelled evening plans and spent the entire day inside, and the other on my last night in town, standing with my friends a mere ten minutes after Scream Along With Billy (a neighborhood institution) started and I was watching John Cameron Mitchell bellow along for an adoring crowd. The first time, it was easy for me to bail: It was early in the week and I could claim, rightly, that I hadn’t taken my anxiety meds in several days. The second time, I walked out the door of the bar without saying goodbye to any of my friends.

Some of this is who I have always been, and some of this is collateral damage from the last couple of years: I think it would be very crazy if I walked into a crowded bar after all this time, maskless in a room of maskless people, and did not feel like I was losing my mind. At the same time, I am very conscious of the fact that being in these kind of spaces in these moments is temporary: I can only get away with this for so long. I will wear a mask on public transit and in most public places perhaps for the rest of my life: who is to say? But right now, in this moment, I can do this thing and feel relatively safe.

While Rebecca and I were walking around town having drinks and meeting up with our friends, we ran into someone she knows and loves who is a fan of this newsletter. (Hi, Nina!) She was excited to meet me and I felt, for a second, like even more of a minor celebrity than I already do in that town, and then I just felt like I was home. It was clear to me that Nina was a fan because she’d also spent the last 2+ years in the same pit of despair that we have been in, and that while we may have come out the other side to some degree, we are all also still there.

It feels good to have allies in the war against the bad shit, and I’m really grateful for the Ninas of the world, for the Rebeccas of the world, for all of the friends I’ve made in that small town by the sea, and for the fact that as bad as everything can get, I’ll have always had this week there to focus on what matters to me.

A lot of weird, chaotic shit happened this week while I was hiding away in an art-filled loft on the hill in Provincetown, not the least of which was that one of the best musicians and people I know got a heart transplant. That incident, the juxtaposition between my absolute panic and my absolute joy, and the way it feels to me to be a creative person in the world again have all collided, and I’m reminded of one of my favorite songs by Ted Leo, whose music I am for some reason always recalling when I’m on the water.

I spend an unbelievable amount of time thinking about what happens when I get to troubles with language - I tried to make a career of it for a minute, and then I tried to make sure it didn’t define my career. But still: I think a lot about how much time I’ve spent trying to untangle my words for myself, my loved ones, and the world, and I think a lot about what it might be to be the King of Time.

You’re reading “Soup and Despair,” a (sometimes) weekly newsletter by Sarah Flynn and Rebecca Orchant. It’s about food, feelings, and surviving the dark times. If someone forwarded you this email, it’s because they love you and they want you to eat. You can subscribe to it too!