Do you ever check your spam folder? I had not in some time, but had occasion to last week and found a bunch of good stuff: some seriously nice emails from friends and family that I caught before the 30 day deletion period, the opportunity to join a class action lawsuit, a notification that a dress I’d sold on TheRealReal meant I would soon see an extra $35, and a very necessary reminder that I had $117 to ResortPass.
If you don’t know, don’t tell anyone else who doesn’t know, because slots can already be hard to come by, but ResortPass is an app that lets you book day passes to spas, access to hotel pools and cabanas, and other short term hospitality desires, of which I have many. I used it a couple of summers ago to check out the TWA Hotel pool with my friend Emily, and then to book, cancel, and forget all about the credit for a trip to the Times Square Margaritaville (I was curious!!).
That’s how I ended up, on this lightly snowy unemployed Tuesday, alone at Spa Castle.
This morning I woke up, dug out a bathing suit I bought at a Vegas H&M1, put on a white tank top, a cropped navy blue sweatshirt from the Gap, my always-closest Madewell jeans, and my Blundstones2, and made it my business to be at Spa Castle by 10 am. The multilevel palace of cold plunges and dry heat is an hour and half away from me in College Point, Queens, which meant a journey of two subways (each taken to the end of their respective lines) and a bus that was shockingly pleasant. The trains weren’t crowded, and the long ride was meditative. Possibly it was just nice to have someplace to be.
I actually took this once I got home because I forgot this morning.
One thing I wasn’t totally aware of: Today was Veteran’s Day, and while I did not see many vets (to my knowledge), but I did see a lot of children in Spa Castle instead of school — like a surprising amount, given I don’t totally think of saunas as a family-friendly activity? Kids were wearing swimmies in the women’s only nude hot tub, they were tying their siblings’ ankles together with the robe belt outside the halotherapy room, they were somewhere out of sight but still audibly singing the all-”meow meow” version of Billie Eilish’s “What Am I Made For?” Like the long journey, that is a set of facts that feels like it should be part of a complaint, but was in fact totally cool and mostly even nice.3
I love spas; I also tend to get a little in my head about if I’m relaxing right. A masseuse once told me to “stop trying to help” because working on me was like “trying to wrangle puppies,” a haunting admonition that I’ve brought up to every person who’s touched my back since. Another time, a woman hired to give back rubs at a media party told me — in a way that I thought seemed at least a little impressed — that I was the most stressed out person at the event.
Today, though, I floated from sauna to sauna, dodging 11 year-olds; basked the big room where they project the Cracklin’ Fireplace channel to an audience of pool loungers; pushed past thinking “is this too much time in the steam room or not enough?” and just vibed.
Eventually, I landed at the Himalayan Salt Room, which it appears to be cavernous inside, until you lay down and realize there’s a mirror on the ceiling. Here’s what’s really impressive: lying on my back in a worn-out bathing suit, staring myself in the face, I managed not to think about my body, and what it might be doing wrong4.
On the far left, salt room (also, a child)
Instead, I thought about my career, starting with how temporary I expected the job to be when I started at Racked ten years ago. At the time, I needed someplace to hide out after a career fuck-up brought me more positive attention than I knew how to navigate. I did not feel then that I belonged at a shopping website, because of how we all know I dress. I couldn’t anticipate how much I’d love both the people and the work; couldn’t guess who weird they’d let me get, or how much it would change how I thought about the world for the more radical. When Racked folded, I didn’t foresee a handful of us getting absorbed into Vox dot com, a website I would never have thought to apply to — because news — and I definitely didn’t think I’d love so much of that work too, and many, many coworkers, old and new. Once I did feel that way, once I got really and truly comfortable, I didn’t imagine I’d find myself growing complacent, afraid, lost, until at the start of this year, when I’d be effectively immobilized by a marrow-deep desire not to have the news be my job anymore. Chronicling things without acting on them needs to be a calling; I was hearing too much noise.
I’ve been caught up in the last few weeks and months with how much more potential it felt like there was in 2015. With all the global, political, cultural, and economic shocks that came after, I find it easy to get bogged down. Plus there’s the pure, unavoidable chronology, too; there was more potential before a bunch of things got realized.
I almost always only ever feel better about something existential and scary, though, when I can realize it’s an opportunity. Not an obvious win, which is cheap and probably fake, but the kind of opportunity that’s an opportunity because it has to be. When there’s a situation right in front of you, maybe difficult, certainly unclear, but you know it can’t be a moment to give up, so the only question is “what can you do with it?” When I can think like that, I can start to see the good in something terrifying.
I’m absurdly lucky to have had the career I had, and doubly so now to have the savings, support system, and little bit of energy to try and make a change. It’s not an endless runway, and it’s a dumb fucking time to do it, but at least I can look myself in the eye from a floor in Queens, listen to the kids outside playing, and feel like something exciting could be next.
1 I did not take a picture of this because this newsletter is voluntary.
2 Typing that out, I’m starting to become depressed with the sameness, and I have vague aspirations to dress differently – purposefully! — tomorrow. Maybe!!
3 If I’m being honest, I did feel weird about the kids in the naked parts, and then I started to worry that with my “get away from me” body language and refusal to look at any of them, I was contributing to a culture of shame that is endemic to this country, and by being weird, wasn’t I actually sexualizing something that wasn’t sexual??, but then I solved those concerns by putting my bathing suit on and leaving the area.
4 Fair warning now: we’re really quite likely to go into body stuff, including the small personal breakthrough that explains why we’re not talking about it right now, tomorrow.