I hope walking 10 miles a day is combating all of the food adventures in Manhattan this week…

As a native Midwesterner, my idea of the New York food scene has been formed by the media that has traversed the nation: from the buzz of Eleven Madison Park to Le Bernadin, Momofuku and Milk Bar to Frenchette.

To solidify my perception of the restaurant scene here, I’m eating my way through Manhattan.

First stop: Bagel and Lox from Russ and Daughters. The wait? Worth it.

Next, dessert at Milk Bar: Cereal milk soft serve with corn flake garnish.

Next, lunch at Frenchette: a bit of “field wine”, duck, egg, chocolate mousse to finish the meal.

Dinner at Momofuku: pork buns, NYC IPA, black sesame soft serve.

From the experiences so far..

Who decides what is relevant in the food scene? Yes, each of these meals were excellent, dynamic, and well executed… but I am SURE there are many dining experiences as relevant as these places that haven’t received the marketing buzz and hype that drives someone as unconnected to the inseams of the NYC restaurant scene as a girl from Evanston, IL.

Tomorrow: Via Carota for some tagliatelle and Lucali for famous pizza.

Raindrops patter on the awning and construction workers dig into soil just beyond as bustling bikers wheel through the dampened streets. My cup, three quarters full of drip coffee of unknown origin to me, slightly creamed, adds its own moisture to the already thick air.

Things aren’t so clear anymore. I observe the world around me as if I were in a foreign land, picking out objects without judgement and free from my previous perception of them. Yet, I now realize my eyesight has diminished. Objects in space seem slightly blurred.

The past month has shifted my world and my eyesight now seems to be a metaphor for how noticing has revealed clarity through blur. The story that I’ve told myself about my world, the contents in it, and where I am going has broken down. My newfound clarity regarding the lack of control I have regarding the events around me and my reaction to them envelops my sense of self, blurring my identity.

We all have a story we tell ourselves about world around us. I’ve always been romantic about opportunities on the horizon but now I sense a newfound excitement of the ephemeral. Like when traveling, I have both a narrative around where I am and why I’m there alongside a complete detachment from it.

If this is a story of ego, it’s also a story of attachment, non-attachment. The epic beauty of having an idea, an opportunity, or person in your life- even if it’s yourself- that comforts you through narrative. Breaking down that narrative is the fun part. What’s left is your true self. Embrace the blur.

There are probably ten open google docs with a few words to a couple paragraphs typed down. Inspiration, contemplation, stagnation, deletion. Cycles and cycles of enlightenment, tidbits of my one, small existence yearning to be released through word. Ultimately, unfulfilled: a jarring poetic stop-and-go that holds the same sentiment as reading Pessoa’s Book Of Disquiet, or the labyrinth in Borges’s Garden of Forking Paths. Chunks of insight, pulses of deeply, spiritually communicative and evocative prose, left for the ether..

Dreams and reality are blurred. One is never quite sure which carries a closer glimpse of existential liberation and enlightenment.

“I’ve never done anything but dream. This, and this alone, has been the meaning of my life. My only real concern has been my inner life.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“This web of time – the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect or ignore each other through the centuries – embraces every possibility. We do not exist in most of them. In some you exist and not I, while in others I do, and you do not.” Borges, Garden of Forking Paths

Pessoa’s dream existence is a poetic response -rather, another dimension- to Borge’s labyrinth. What does this mean for us, for art?..

“I am not sure that I exist actually, I am all the writers that I have read.” — Jorge Luis Borges

..we all have an intuition of the labyrinth. It’s the artist’s calling to make sense of it. Music, poetry, an experiential meal, signifying everything and nothing at all. All of us, together, as an osmosis of thought; story lines being constructed in the mid brain.

“To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

The poetic irony from Pessoa to Borges becomes clear: the story is never finished. A labyrinth forever, even dreaming. Let’s make art about it.

Jean Langer Photography. https://www.jeanlanger.com/