The garden of forking paths
I’m back from a whirlwind apartment search in Philadelphia, which can best be summarized by "Ow. My feet hurt." Or "You call that a one-bedroom?!" Or "Damn, that’s some ugly carpet." Or, with a nod to Robert Browning, "Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what’s a heaven for?"* But eventually: success, though it’s not completely official yet, so cross your fingers. The friend I stayed with (who’s probably reading this: hi! and thank you again!) watched me freak out a little about the sudden realness of the imminent move, and then wisely reminded me that all of this is just for a year or`so.
I thought of "The Garden of Forking Paths" ("El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan"), the first Borges story I ever read, and the moment when the narrator senses the possible futures swarming around him. Any decision closes off a swirl of possibilities and sets up new ones instead; and this spring and summer have brought a whole string of decisions large and small. I could practically feel that hum of possible futures, the ones that might have happened if I’d chosen differently here or there and the ones that might happen now. It’s the oddest feeling: as if one were in a Star Trek episode about parallel universes and seeing how reality took any of an infinite number of other directions at any given point.
Other things I did in Philadelphia: interviewed for a part-time job and got a lead on a couple of full-time ones, scoped out Drexel’s library, discovered that my new Drexel login lets me onto the library computers, bought SEPTA tokens, tried the #10 trolley from 36th Street into Center City, and ate some Tastykakes. Alas, I missed the storming of the Bastille at the old Eastern State Penitentiary; I left a day too early. Next year, I’ll take in Bloomsday at the Rosenbach and Bastille Day at the State Pen. And the architecture! I remembered some gorgeous buildings from previous visits, but I’d forgotten just how beautiful those 19th-century houses are.** I wandered around Center City wishing for a camera.
* Sample scene from the search: My hostess and I, walking in west Center City, spied a beautiful old brownstone with a sign in the window advertising a studio apartment. I called the number on the sign and asked "How much is the studio?" "Including utilities," said the guy on the other end, "it’s $1100 a month." Eep.
** No wonder it costs so much to live in one. I walked past one grandiose brick mansion with a little carriage house behind it, and found myself speculating whether the carriage house might be for rent, and how long it would be before I could afford it.
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