A BLOG POST BY
PUBLISHING INTERN OLIVIA GO
New York City, 2024
On the last day of class, my creative writing professor at Smith College quoted Rilke:
If one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn’t write at all.
“It’s not worth the agonizing,” he explained. After ten weeks of laboring over our creative pieces, all nine of us students knew exactly the agony he was referring to: the grief of establishing your voice, plagued by constant self-doubt, all to create something that in six months that might make you cringe. Hands clasped, my professor continued in a serious tone, “But I couldn’t live without that agony because without writing, my life would have no real meaning.”
I have thought about his words for a long time, wondering where I find myself within them, if at all. My time at Smith exposed me to many fantastic writers, and I’m not just talking about the likes of Adrienne Rich and Sylvia Plath and George Eliot through my literature classes. I’m talking about Greta M. and Emily H. and Sofia C., whose work I have had the privilege of reading in my creative writing workshops. I feel so lucky and inspired to have encountered all of these writers, but in the past four years, I have also wondered about the impact of my own work and if it is worth saying in my own words what greater writers could better.
I have been writing creatively since I was eleven years old, scribbling short stories in a Lisa Frank notebook, promising myself I would be published by seventeen, and planning to move to New York, where the writers lived. I was voted “most likely to be an author” by my seventh-grade class, which at the time felt like an earnest promise of success. By the time I got to college, I had a complicated relationship with writing. On good days, I would start thinking I was one of the greatest minds of my generation; on bad days, I would spiral into an existential crisis, wondering what on earth I was even trying to do.
At the time of writing this, I am twenty-one, a senior in college, and as graduation approaches I am squinting my eyes, looking out towards what will be the rest of my life. The vision for my future is somehow hazier than the one I had when I was eleven, and my dreams of being a writer living in New York feel foolish. Echoing in my head, I hear the voice of my wise and acclaimed professor tell me on the last day of the last creative writing class I will ever take in undergrad that he could not live without writing, and I no longer know if I could say the same.
* * *
I’ve been going to New York monthly to visit my partner, a recent Mount Holyoke graduate, who now lives in the city. When I am there, we spend most of our days together, holed up in their apartment, ordering Thai food, and rewatching shows we’ve seen so many times we’ve memorized the lines. Those days are only sweet and only wonderful. But on some days, my partner has a job to go to, and then I am left alone to find ways to occupy my time.
One such day, it was particularly beautiful and warm, and I had spent the entire day inside reading and checking my email because I did not know where else to go, or what else to do. Something about going outside by myself in the city where I had always hoped to live as a serious writer made me nervous and tired. But by dinnertime, my hunger outweighed my anxiety, and I walked out the door.
"I ate in silence and let myself imagine living in the city, being in love there, and writing there for real. The image was foggy like a dream."
Outside the apartment, it was dark and humid. Some men were playing acoustic guitar in front of their repair shop, and women and children danced to the music. I wandered around, trying not to look lost until I found a pizzeria around the corner. I bought a slice of pepperoni and a can of beer with a crumpled five-dollar bill. It was a crowded place, and I didn't know where to stand while I waited for my order. I finally took a spot by the corner and turned on my phone, frantically trying to make it look like I was doing something, as if idleness were some sort of crime. It had started to rain while I was waiting, so when my pizza was ready, I took shelter under a tree and awkwardly sat on a planter. The rain dodged the leaves overhead and managed to find my face. I ate in silence and let myself imagine living in the city, being in love there, and writing there for real. The image was foggy like a dream.
Meanwhile, around me I watched a fat rat run in front of a couple taking a nighttime stroll. They both screamed and clutched each other as they crossed to the other side. I laughed and then quickly stood up, panicked, turning around to make sure there weren’t any rats next to me.
At the time, we had been reading Joan Didion’s essay “Goodbye to All That” in my creative writing class. In it she says the city smelled like “lilacs and garbage.” I could smell the garbage sweating from the bags tossed haphazardly on the sidewalks the moment I stepped outside. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to also smell the lilacs. I swore I could smell them then. I swear it now.
Didion writes:
It is often said that New York is a city for only the very rich and the very poor. It is less often said that New York is also . . . a city for only the very young.
* * *
When we are alone, my partner admits to me that they sometimes regret choosing to live in New York.
“But you love it though,” I remind them, “right?”
“Yeah. . . yeah I do.”
They say it like they are trying it convince themselves of it, and yet I still believe them because I understand that feeling of loving something that doesn’t always love you back. Why do we keep trying? The more appropriate question is how can we not, when we are so young and so hopeful?
* * *
I had felt like I could live in New York only if I was a serious writer. But I’ve come to realize that being a “serious writer” does not mean being widely acclaimed, nor does it mean you know exactly what the future holds for you and your craft. It just means you take writing seriously.
I was standing in the rain among the rats—pizza cold and socks soggy. I thought about how stupid and young and terribly out of place I felt in New York. But it didn’t make me want to leave. It made me want to write. “Goodbye to All That” begins with the line:
It is easy to see the beginning of things and harder to see the end.
Maybe one day I will tire of writing and tire of the city. I don’t know when that day is, but it is not here now.
I walked back to the apartment and did the only thing I could.
I pulled out my notebook.
I wrote about the rain.
Olivia Go is the fall 2023/spring 2024 publishing intern for Modern Memoirs, Inc.