— Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, Larry McMurtry

The weather couldn’t have been more oppressive that February morning as we headed on a train to Dortmund. Across from me, a bumper sticker on the dirty, blurred window of the NS train defiantly stated, “enjoy the moment.” As we crossed the German border, the pressure didn’t lift; it felt as if an enormous grey cloud was still enclosing the sky and the earth for miles to come.

I don’t think we would have ever visited Dortmund if it weren’t for Hélène Grimaud’s concert. The city was not able to animate us; the layout of the city felt like a maze, one in which, no matter the direction we took, we always ended up in the same place. I walked the city slowly in anticipation of Grimaud’s concert, remembering a few lines from her book Leçons particulières1, which always provided solace and relief, especially during times of tension related to my relationship with writing and its mediums.

The environment around us, the buildings, the shape of the streets, even the grey pressing clouds, shapes how we perceive a place, how we walk through a city. I think that online mediums have the same effect on our writing, eventually. I started this newsletter and The Flâneurs Project because I am very sensitive and attuned to urban places, and I think this sensitivity extrapolates to online places as well.

Platforms such as Substack are no longer just mediums of expression; they are also environments in which we create. And those environments can distort attention and box imagination in certain ways, depending on a variety of factors. This is nothing new. I think it’s a topic shared quite frequently in these times, but I also think that I didn’t actually understand my tension clearly all these years. Ultimately, this lingering tension led me to step away from Substack for some months, and to disengage permanently from other online places.

The problem was not writer’s block. Writing simply is. Writing flows out of contact with reality and inner worlds; for a writer, writing is home itself. Nor was it the medium of expression, but rather making writing subordinate to the medium. What made me feel more free and agentic, and therefore more likely to write and share, to jolt myself back into writing, was remembering that writing belongs to life, not to the platform.

There are a few writers who helped me in this process of focusing more on the movement of writing than on the mood induced by the medium. In particular, there’s a concept called “creative indifference,” coined by the German writer and philosopher Salomo Friedlaender (Mynona). In his 1918 work Schöpferische Indifferenz, he suggests that active selfhood requires both “pure inwardness” and will. But inwardness, if it remains passive, is not yet fully alive; it must first be shocked into movement. What he calls creative indifference is therefore not an escape from the world, but a condition of inner freedom from which a person can act in it more powerfully.

In my case, my inner freedom was realising that writing is agentic regardless of where it ends up: in a note, in a journal, on a napkin, or eventually on a Substack page, or published in a printed magazine. In other words, if I think and I write, I am already “shocked into life,” because my inwardness (thinking) is translated and bridged into movement (writing). Previously, I only recognised movement or agency if my writing was ultimately shared online, and that was the tension from which I couldn’t escape.

Another writer who rewired how I look at writing, its mediums, and ultimately the rewards of thinking and expression is Václav Havel, a Czech playwright, dissident, and later president. Deep into my hibernation months, back in January, I started reading Letters to Olga, a collection of letters Havel wrote to his wife while imprisoned between 1979 and 1983. The letters touch on a variety of subjects - from his thoughts on freedom, theatre, food, his health problems, to what he reads in prison - and they are living proof that one’s thinking and writing can remain free and agentic even in more oppressive environments.

Havel’s medium of expression was the letter, and even though he was required to write within certain constraints, as his letters could be read and judged by prison guards, he remained, in some ways, inwardly free. He wrote openly and frequently, following where his thoughts brought him, sharing them candidly with his wife. In one of his last letters before he was set free, he wrote:

Writing belongs to life, to thinking, to people, to interpreting and reinterpreting the world. The medium in which we share is not an external authority, as long as we can act within it from a point of creative indifference.

In my case, I jolted myself back into writing when I recognised that the medium in which I can reach that “creative indifference” is the plain piece of paper, or the blank page earthed in a folder on my laptop.

If the writing is ultimately shared at some point in another place, that’s not the point. The point is that I thought and I wrote in a place in which I could be free.

For a long time, Istanbul has been “The City” for me, and I think it still is. I was reminded of that somewhere on Oba Street on a late morning, when I was exchanging a few words with the young Turkish man who was preparing us the “New York–style” bagels. He told us, smilingly, that Istanbul feels like the capital of the world for him, and his honest smile made me forget the previous four days in which I had struggled to find my rhythm.

The modern name İstanbul derives from the Medieval Greek phrase εἰς τὴν πόλιν (eis tḕn Pólin), literally “to the city” or “into the city,” reflecting how Greek speakers casually referred to Constantinople as “The City.” Even after all these centuries, Istanbul is still “The City” for many travelers, myself included, who keep coming back again and again.

It’s my fourth time returning to this city in the past ten years, and the moment I arrived I was hit by a wave of familiarity and chaos. I had forgotten how hectic this city was; in my mind, it had remained one of the most serene places I’ve visited, but I must have mistaken that for its ability to eventually quiet my mind, as long as I managed to succumb to its rhythm.

It took me four days out of our seven-day trip to finally merge the city’s pace with my own. Those four days were spent with a pervasive sense of sadness, reflecting on Istanbul’s skyrocketing prices and Turkey’s inflation, the overwhelming pressure as a visitor to choose the next place to visit, and the constant comparison with how “things once were” seven years ago, on my last visit.

I think I finally surrendered to the city’s rhythm somewhere on Oba Street, when I set my eyes on Sabahattin Ali’s Madonna in a Fur Coat. After that, everything came with the ease and rooted satisfaction that I fondly associate with this city. I call this moment in any trip I make a “threshold moment”: crossing an uncomfortable boundary from mere outer observation to inner participation. For me, these threshold moments are usually marked by encounters with certain books or vivid signs scattered across the city.

Walter Benjamin names these particular moments “Schockerlebnis”, small or big jolts, shock experiences that sit between Erlebnis and Erfahrung. Erlebnis is the immediate lived experience (fleeting, sensory, surface-level), while Erfahrung is deep experience (cumulative, reflective, carrying memory). If the city had been, before that, a bombardment of stimuli, then after my encounter with Madonna in a Fur Coat, I could finally merge my imagination with the city’s hidden layers, and everything felt, finally, effortlessly in sync.

One particular sentence from the book reminded me why even our most beloved places can, at times, feel shallow:

There it was, a truth I kept forgetting, and without that threshold moment, Istanbul wouldn’t have revealed itself to me.

Looking back, visiting a place becomes a more immersive experience, an Erfahrung, if I manage to cross such a threshold moment, if I seek and tend to those big or small ruptures. During my first visit to New York last year, I came across Vivian Gornick’s The Odd Woman and the City, which transformed my agitated, overwhelming visit into a revelatory memory.

This single sentence reminded me why Istanbul has been such a precious place to return to all these years: some places have the power to stir parts of our imagination that lie dormant, and once they awaken, we shift from seeing without seeing to seeing with everything we’ve got.

Thank you for reading.
I’ve been writing less and less here, mostly because Substack doesn’t feel like the medium I most want to express myself in anymore, maybe it’s just a phase. For the time being, I’ll be sending these protected posts only to friends, paying subscribers, founding members, and specific readers I’ve comped, because I’d like to keep a smaller audience until I find my rhythm again or decide on a medium that feels right.

If you’ve read this far (or even if you just skimmed through), I want to sincerely thank you for your support, your time, and your kind messages, they always mean a lot.

Patricia

Edinburgh is a peculiar choice to spend a weekend to fully “rest” in at the end of August, but as always this city is a compelling call anytime in my life when there’s a big shift.

Edinburgh is anything but restful at this time of year, especially for a traveler like me staying at a motel on Cockburn Street, a magnet for tourists and locals alike drawn to its imposing Victorian character. I absolutely loved this street the last time I stayed here, so I insisted on coming back, very aware that I would have to wake up early to have undisturbed wandering time.

The city centre is hectic and loud, plastic made-in-China souvenirs with Scottish flags overflow from stores, promises of the finest cashmere, and invitations to whisky tastings at every corner. So, I walk and walk, using all my mental energy to avoid the frantic zig-zag of people, to notice the beauty of buildings at a hurried foot’s speed, to make my way towards another portion of fish and chips at Bertie’s.

I find some places of relief every early morning, basking in the golden light on my way to grab some filter coffee, and there’s so much comfort in these moments. I don’t desire anything but a few moments like these as I am swallowed by the busyness of the city most days, and I vividly remember Lispector’s words from her crônicas, of feeling worse than a beggar woman as I don’t know what to ask for.

I’ve been taking involuntary time off from writing, as I was waiting for two things to come to an end, the worst thing is not to have an end in sight to something that consumes us. But as with almost everything in life, things come all at once, so on an ordinary Thursday I got two resolutions, two big reliefs I had been waiting on for a while.

This space right after the much-desired and long-awaited outcomes, the ones which always seemed out of sight, is a peculiar place to be in. At Angels with Bagpipes I order a feast of small plates of Scottish dishes, salmon, fish, and crab, and a glass of white wine to celebrate outcomes I had been chasing relentlessly for weeks, and some for more than a year. And yet, as enjoyable as this meal is, there’s no extra added satisfaction; I would have enjoyed it just as much in the midst of all the uncertainty.

One could argue that two big resolutions should bring huge reliefs, but as with everything in life, I feel the full effects are slightly delayed. Relief is not instant; something still persistently throbs even after much-awaited outcomes. It’s almost an in-between ennui despite getting what one asked for.

I know I have two options, as this state of being is fertile, potent. I could keep asking for extraordinary things, but I would have to be prepared to give chase. Or I can dwell in the comforting, piercing honesty of the very simple.

For the time being, I will keep feasting on the ordinary.

Thank you for reading. I’ll be in Istanbul for a week starting tomorrow, so if any readers are in the city and would like to grab a coffee, write me an email.

Patricia

One sentence stuck with me as I was rereading it, looking out at the cornfields we own, attached to our countryside home: “In all this open space, values crystalize quickly.”

The more I read, the more I realised how closely Wyoming resembles the open spaces of the Romanian countryside, the abandoned homes in villages, the farms left in quiet disarray, and the quiet endurance of the people who choose to stay.

“There’s so little to do except work that people wind up in a state of idle agitation that becomes fatalistic, as if there were nothing to be done about all this untapped energy. So the dark side to the grandeur of these spaces is the small-mindedness that seals people in. […] Cabin fever explodes into suicides, or into grudges and lifelong family feuds.”

Beyond this aspect of untapped energy, which I find most compelling, open spaces also hold a deep capacity for honesty. They expose the unnecessary, the parts that shouldn’t be there, and reveal things that we’d rather keep sheltered.

The beautiful thing about human experience is our capacity to hold a wide range of emotions and feelings at once. In these open spaces, despite their vastness, emotions don’t dilute. There’s an overwhelming clarity and sharpness in holding so many conflicting feelings at once.

And so I’ve been thinking more and more this week about writing, and the recent conversations and experiences I’ve had around it. Writing has felt, and still feels at times, like an open, raw nerve along the spine: persistent, exposed, jolting at even the lightest touch.

I believe that, as writers, we welcome authenticity more than most things. We crave the nakedness of honest observations, whether they bring comfort or discomfort. And because we write from that place, any hopeful or joyful feedback on work that feels deeply personal can feel like a raised hand in recognition, after years of looking out at empty seats.

But if that feedback, that kind acknowledgment, is only a disguise for something else, something unrelated to the writing, the ideas, or the values we hold in common, then it compromises the honesty of thought we value so deeply. And if that feedback becomes an excuse to fulfil one’s own unmet needs, a way of performing honesty and closeness, it feels even more violating.

It feels only reasonable, after something like this, to retract, regroup, and momentarily lose hope for a real encounter. And maybe that’s a sane decision, a protective skin that shelters all the other raw nerves through which we take in the world. A way to moderate, reduce, even temporarily numb inputs.

And yet, I hope that even after such ruptures, after these momentary lapses in connection and trust, we persist. That we continue to be honestly jolted by what we see, and what we feel compelled to share.

It’s my last night here, in a place so remote that even Apple Weather can’t pin it down, and I’ve noticed something that brings an unexpected sense of comfort.

After every long day of sun-scorched air, a storm would pass through in the middle of the night, waking me around two or three. The sky lit up with endless flashes of lightning, and strong gusts of wind swept through, clearing everything that felt heavy or unnecessary. Few things feel as hopeful and comforting as a moody summer storm in an open space.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your stories. If you’re in Edinburgh at the end of August, I’m hosting a small gathering, you can RSVP here.

Patricia

“Meu instinto precedera a minha inteligência.”

“My instinct preceded my intelligence.”

― Clarice Lispector, Crônicas

It proves quite difficult to recall the gentlest place I’ve ever experienced, a physical space gentle enough to surpass all others. It feels easier to remember the most overwhelming places: those in which my brain cannot function at its peak, impaired by sensory overload, succumbing to different distractions.

In a world that’s not always the epitome of gentleness, finding such a place feels like drinking a cold glass of water after a long, torrid, physically exhausting hike.

What is a place? Ezio Manzini wrote thoughtfully about place-making in his book Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation and describes a place as a “space endowed with sense,” a space “that is meaningful for someone.” That sense is subjective because when a person endows meaning to something, there is already an imprint of that person’s ideas, stories, and being in that place, in that thing.

Perhaps the definition of “gentle” can bring some sort of common stance in how we experience the gentleness in a place. Gentle, here, is soothing, nourishing, soft, easy, natural, familiar, social, safe, and enriching. I think that:

A gentle place has a story, a story that runs independently, a story that attracts patient, active listeners.

A gentle place provides a two-way communication: there’s a dialogue that doesn’t die out because the input is limitless.

A gentle place has zero tolerance for “pseudo-intimacy”; it is honestly disarming and real.

A gentle place doesn’t, cannot, and will not manipulate our perception.

A gentle place is easy on our nervous system: the inputs, though richly layered, never startle, freeze, or numb us.

A gentle place has a personal aesthetic, one that is both timeless and fresh, organic, attaching itself naturally to the person inhabiting it.

A gentle place leaves room for the unthinkable; we know we are on the verge of something special, something already changing as we enter it.

A gentle place allows us to entertain our inner world.

A gentle place adds to our inner world; we leave feeling acknowledged.

There are a few places that cross my mind as I try to conjure gentle places: San Telmo Museoa in Donostia-San Sebastián, a full physical embodiment of Basque mystery, culture, charm, and knowledge encapsulated in a building that bridges the old and the new.

A more recent gentle place that I experienced is 370 Strand in London, a small and intimate café where I had the best bacon and egg sandwich, and where the owner would play old jazz songs, carrying a form of hospitality which is rare these days.

I can also recall a hidden library in a Waldhaus hotel somewhere in eastern Switzerland, where everything was as gentle on the senses as possible, enveloped in complete quiet, and offering infinite access to ideas through books peculiarly curated, both old and new. The room had the character of an old, timeless story.

I wondered how moving to a gentler place reshapes our world perspective. For those reasons, I was curious to ask my friend and book collaborator, Silvia Paizan, how her new home, a village in Sjællands Odde, Denmark, has been treating her. Silvia is the person who created the beautiful shells and other dividers for my newsletter, and she also designed the logo of The Flâneurs Project. She recently left Sibiu, Romania, behind and started a whole new life abroad.

Interview about Sjællands Odde with Silvia Paizan

Sjællands Odde is a 15 km‑long peninsula in northwest Zealand, Denmark. The peninsula has a distinctive maritime microclimate with lots of wind and very clear light, which has attracted painters and photographers over the years.

Why did you choose to move from Sibiu, Romania, to Sjællands Odde in Denmark?

Silvia: I was longing for another way of life, and I couldn’t find it (or couldn’t make it work) in Sibiu. I felt like a plant cutting in a jug of water, ready to be planted. I never thought I’d feel at home in rural Denmark, or anywhere in Scandinavia, really, but during a volunteering project I did last autumn, I felt a deep sense of peace and belonging I’d never felt before. Here, I found good soil. I’ve only been in Sj. Odde for a bit over six months, so I can’t say yet if I’m growing roots in a pot, in a garden bed, or in an open field. I hope it’s a field.

Is there a spot in Sjællands Odde where you instantly felt “this is home”?

Silvia: This way to the sea.

In your eyes, what makes Sjællands Odde a gentle place?

Silvia: The people. I expected to find a cold & reserved country, and I found peaceful, generous & kind people. They have trust in others, have respect for personal space, and don’t push you to be someone you’re not - in Romania I constantly had to protect myself from misogynism and other pressures. I also sometimes wonder if the place itself is gently guiding us to let our guard down, there’s something magical in the air around here.

What has living there taught you so far, about the peninsula / village or about yourself?

Silvia: Living here has shown me the sadness and fear I’ve been pickled in, and the heaviness that so many Romanians have been carrying on our shoulders, unaware. I’m learning to squeeze that sadness out, to trust my neighbors and to feel the ground beneath me. There’s a lot of unlearning to do. I still have old skin to shed, what kept me out of trouble in the past is now keeping me stuck.

I’m unlearning to tip-toe around people, afraid to disturb, and learning to make my presence felt. Vice versa is also true: all the useless things I did before are now making my life possible: that clay building workshop I did back in 2011, all the cooking and DIY videos I binge-watched, my endless tinkering and fixing things around the house, my silly drawings.

Could you share a photo, sketch, or any creation that sums up how this new home feels for you?

Thank you, Silvia!

In a world increasingly less gentle on the senses, safety, and imagination, there’s a lot of comfort knowing that such places exist, as long as we keep searching and asking for them. I hope they provide us with much-needed hope, nourishment, and agency in ungentle times.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your stories.

I will revisit Edinburgh at the end of August, over a weekend between the 29th and the 31st, and I would love to connect with readers and writers / storytellers.

My good friend Alina Jitari and I are working on a project involving myths and legends in overlooked, remote Romanian places, and we’d love to meet people who write, or simply love, a good story.

Edinburgh always feels like a calling, even after multiple visits, so I’m grateful and excited to plan a return.

Patricia

I’ve recently returned from a long weekend spent in a place so beautiful it felt imagined, tucked away in the English countryside. It’s my second time attending the Realisation Festival, and if the first time, two years ago, I could see, sense, and connect with the place more vividly than with the people, this time I experienced the opposite encounter. The place, as striking and abundant as it was, became just an insignificant character beside some of the most beautiful people I had the pleasure of conversing with.

In a group of 150 people, the chances of truly connecting with everyone are impossibly slim, especially over just three days. So are the chances of having a second in-depth conversation with someone we really clicked with. Those first, impactful conversations are gemstones, liquid gold, already deeply ingrained in us, and we carry them for a long time if we preserve them well.

I spent the weekend in a constant flow of conversations: some brief and comforting, some long and heart-opening, some extremely raw, and a few deeply confusing and unsettling. Regardless of the outcomes, most of these conversations reinforced Rebecca Elson’s beautiful reminder of our “responsibility to awe”. 1

One idea that keeps returning to me, in different visual shapes and forms, is that of relationships mapped through the energy and eccentricity of orbits. There’s something reassuring about visualising our interactions as orbital shapes, defined by brief moments of intense closeness, stretches of distance, and then the inevitable return. Reassuring in the sense that we escape the mindset of seeing our relationships through a timeline: there has always been a flow, a pull, a return, and, if we are lucky, moments of Lagrange points.2

In orbital mechanics, or celestial mechanics3, we find the science that describes how objects move under the influence of gravity: planets circling the Sun, moons orbiting planets, or satellites traveling around Earth. Two main parameters define the shape and fate of any orbit: energy, which combines kinetic energy (motion) and potential energy (gravity), and eccentricity, a measure of how stretched the orbit is.

An eccentricity of 0 means a perfect circle. When it falls between 0 and 1, the path is an ellipse. If it reaches exactly 1, the object follows a parabolic trajectory, with just enough energy to escape. And when it exceeds 1, the orbit becomes hyperbolic, carrying the object away with more than enough energy never to return.

Contemporary thinkers have explicitly drawn analogies between gravitational orbits and interpersonal relationships. For example, astrophysicist Avi Loeb notes in the article The Three Body Problem: From Celestial Mechanics to Human Interactions that strongly bound pairs become stronger through interactions, while weakly bound pairs tend to break apart.

As for the shape of orbits, circular orbits mapped onto relationships are those enduring, long, steady friendships that exist in our lifetime from almost the very beginning to almost the very end. Even in celestial mechanics, these are very rare in nature, as all real celestial bodies have at least some eccentricity, even if it is tiny. Some examples are Neptune’s moon Naiad, Venus around the Sun, and some small moons and ring particles.

Most of our relationships are of an elliptical nature: distant at certain points and very close again after a while, always in motion as we go through life. They remind me of how planets orbit the Sun, like Earth, with its almost circular orbit, or Mars, with a more pronounced ellipse, and Pluto, whose path is even more stretched out.

This ebb and flow, closeness and distance, is defined by what Rebecca Elson beautifully phrased as “things unseen” in her poem Let There Always Be Light (Searching for Dark Matter). I’ve always been fascinated by how, after a long unmeasured distance, in some friendships, we always find our way back.

As for the hyperbolic orbits, defined in celestial mechanics as paths with an eccentricity greater than 1 and enough kinetic energy to escape a body’s gravity forever, these are like the interstellar object ʻOumuamua4: sweeping through our lives only once, unreturning, and all the more striking for their fleeting passage. These relationships have a lasting effect, even if their exit and non-return are quicker than the blink of an eye. In contrast, parabolic orbits have a less dramatic exit, but they too are marked by their never returning.

All this web of relationships, the movement of ideas and impressions, is something that we carry with us, willingly or unwillingly, with a promise of return or not. All I know is that those of us who are meant to continue the conversation will find our way back eventually, at least once in our lifetime.

There’s something reassuring about the fact that our relationships and lifetime trajectories are shaped by energy and eccentricities. Reassuring, because most relationships in our lives are elliptical: there will always be closeness after distance, and distance after closeness. And because there is a comforting urgency and acceptance in those rare, fleeting hyperbolic encounters. They never really fully leave us. They are carried as a resonance throughout our lives.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your comments and stories.

Patricia

“Cluj? Who would actually visit Cluj?” I was asked a while ago by a social media acquaintance I met briefly over coffee.

At first glance, Cluj-Napoca might seem like a puzzling choice to host an urban gathering or to visit for a weekend or a full week. Most travellers choose to see and experience Bucharest’s communist-era boulevards or get lost in Brașov’s postcard-ready Old Town, seeking the visual heaviness of recent Romanian history or the romantic and dramatic castles tucked deep in the Carpathian Mountains.

So I wondered what Cluj could offer, something hidden beyond first impressions, something experienced only in person, slowly, at leisure. At first, it was difficult to find an unbiased answer, as I lived in this city for a few years in my early twenties, and my memory of it clearly shapes how I see it, and why I keep returning every year for a weekend.

Upon closer introspection, I found that there is something quintessentially Transylvanian about Cluj, something I experienced more strongly here than in other Transylvanian cities like Sibiu or Brașov. And that bone-deep knowledge brought me closer to my answer, and to a regional word: tihnă.

The verb a tihni is most commonly used in Transylvania and the northern parts of Romania, including Maramureș, Crișana, and parts of Moldova. It is a regional word that has survived in spoken Romanian, particularly in rural areas. It is one of those not fully translatable words, carrying a texture of emotional and bodily resonance, a kind of ease that is fully savoured. The opposite of restlessness or time-paced enjoyment. The emphasis here is on the bodily aspect; tihnă is more than just ease or relaxation, it is something felt deeply in the body, in a way that satisfies the soul for a prolonged time.

I was recently in Cluj for just three nights, hosting a Flâneurs Project gathering that turned into a casual weekend with friends, similar to the gathering I hosted last year in The Hague. I always wanted to host a gathering in Cluj, as this city is best enjoyed slowly: through bites, coffees, and unhurried conversations. So, I mapped tihnă in the places we visited, the things we ate and drank, and in the way the city encourages slow, focused movement.

Tihnă in Taste

Garlic, Bread, Elderflower Lemonade

As a host and former local, I wanted to start the weekend with a Transylvanian dinner right after we landed in Cluj-Napoca. As a personal tradition, we began our weekend at Garlic – Bites & Tales.

This place offers a variety of dishes where garlic is the star of the menu, and as a Transylvanian, I couldn’t be happier, or feel more at home. Garlic might not be everyone’s craving, but I was lucky that my companions thoroughly enjoyed their meals: garlic bread bite appetizers, followed by mains of chicken with baked potatoes, garlic sauce, pickles, and a bottle of Liliac Fetească Regală, a white wine from Transylvania. For dessert, we had papanași: golden, fluffy cheese doughnuts topped with sour cream and blueberry jam. We stayed until almost closing time, and such a hearty, heavy meal required a night promenade under the soft lights of the Old Town.

Our brunches and lunches were always set up under the elderflower trees in Piața Unirii, on the terraces, people-watching, sinking into the slowness and vibrancy of the place. Cluj-Napoca is not a big city, but in the city center, things are always happening, there’s plenty of input to digest, to ease into. The local specialty coffee scene is a treat for those who love good coffee, and this culture contributes to the tihnă of the place.

Cluj is also savoured, by locals and travellers alike, through its freshly baked bread, sandwiches, or croissants from the Panemar bakeries scattered throughout the city. Panemar is a quiet constant, a big part of what makes Cluj, Cluj.

Tihnă in Light and Movement

Trees, Shade, Architecture

Light touches the buildings softly when trees offer shade and movement for the eyes. The Gothic, Baroque, Neoclassical, and Art Nouveau buildings, telling the story of Transylvania’s Hungarian, Saxon, Austrian, and Romanian influences, are beautiful in themselves. But what adds to the charm, that particular tihnă feeling, is the way light filters through the many trees planted throughout the city center.

One of the best times to see this light is early in the morning or around golden hour, from Turnul Croitorilor towards the Reformed Church and down Mihail Kogălniceanu Street.

Since I left, over the past ten years, plenty of new pedestrian areas have been created around the historical centre, and that has been the key to why one can savour the light, the taste, and the entire environment: undisturbed, freely, and with full awareness. The pace is slower, and attention less distracted, when there are no cars in sight.

A friend who joined the weekend gathering asked me two good questions on our last night together, over dinner at a Romanian restaurant, Roata:

What has changed drastically for the better since you left? And what could still be changed but hasn’t been?

A lot has changed for the better in terms of urban design and the pedestrian experience since I left, and the change is widely felt, not only in Cluj, but also in lesser-known, smaller towns like Satu Mare, where I was born. Historical city centres are being cared for, thoughtfully redesigned, and given back to the people. And that couldn’t make me any happier.

As for what still needs to change: I believe much more can be done to improve connections across Transylvania, especially through trains and other forms of fast, reliable public transport. There are plenty of raw, wild, beautiful places scattered throughout the region, often hidden in plain sight, but right now, one needs a car to discover them. Then again, maybe some things are better left hidden, only to be found through stories from locals and friends.

—

Thank you for reading. I’ll be in London on the 25th of June, send me a message or an email if you’d like to meet for a walk and / or a drink.

Patricia

“When we first moved into the apartment, the view’s insistence caught me off guard. It was as if the place – the house – was not only delivering me a project – this book – but was also giving me advice. It seemed to suggest that the crisis in which I found myself, if harnessed in the right way, could become an opportunity for redefinition.”

Kirsty Bell, The Undercurrents: A Story of Berlin

At a certain point in a layered personal crisis, we begin to see omens and symbols everywhere, whether we want to or not.

When I arrived in The Hague almost three years ago, in the midst of a chaotic year-long sabbatical and a series of solely gut-inspired decisions, I too saw omens, or at least life-giving coincidences, at every corner. I was seeking them faithfully, so they sought me back in return.

I sometimes, honestly and half-jokingly, explain that my journey to this city began when I realised that staying long-term in the hastily found apartment on Rheinsberger Straße in Berlin would slowly but surely drag me into a pit of deep unhappiness. I remember an existential moment in the bathtub, surveying the old, grimy surroundings, knowing that, as a renter, I couldn’t do much to change anything—except leave, as soon as possible. Again.

The apartment was in one of Berlin Mitte’s prime locations, just steps from my previous pre-pandemic home. But the neighborhood couldn’t compensate for the state of the place: for nearly €1,800 per month, we got furnished rooms filled with old, dirty, mostly broken down furniture, and a locked “Oscar” room where the landlords stored their belongings, in case they ever returned to live in Berlin from Spain. You might rightly ask why we accepted such a deal. But anyone who’s hunted for housing in Berlin knows the market’s truth: a sometimes year-long search, and fierce competition.

For immigrants, the ongoing quest for a good home protects both imagination and dignity, especially when we land in places we can’t easily leave behind. I’ve never stopped believing that where we live shapes our outlook on life and our sense of self, and that wanting a safe, inspiring space that supports both our well-being and imagination is a fundamental human need.

There’s always been a quiet, uncomfortable guilt when I speak about this, as if wanting a beautiful, clean, and inspiring home were a wild request. Yet out of necessity, and sometimes urgency, I’ve often paid more than I should have for places that lacked some, or most, of those things. I’ve also been lucky at times, especially in Switzerland, where I lived near the mountains in a house that improved with time rather than decayed. In that case, the landlord lived just above us; as a Swiss homeowner, he too was directly affected by the home’s functionality and beauty.

After conversations with others in similar situations, people who rent or bought homes and moved across countries, I can now more confidently assert this: the spaces we live in shape how we think and hope.

The paper Psychological Needs in the Built Environment is one of the few that explores how the built environment intersects with our psychological well-being, particularly through aspects such as privacy, biophilia, clutter, and colour temperature. These elements, when present, help satisfy fundamental needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

In the essay The Camping Cure Jill Neimark highlights how environmental illness can push individuals to redefine “home” and seek refuge beyond conventional walls. She describes how debilitating multiple chemical sensitivities in her rent-stabilized, mold-infested high-rise in New York drove her to abandon indoor life and seek relief by sleeping under the open sky:

While camping as a cure for indoor sickness might not be a long-term solution for most, it can serve as a starting point for a deeper discussion: what should we demand of the places we live in, and why should we never settle, long-term, for something that drains our vitality, or compromises our imagination?

After the bathtub revelation and a binding commitment to leave that apartment behind, exhausted, yet full of the hope, I came across The Undercurrents: A Story of Berlin. As with omens, or self-made metaphors, books also tend to find us when we are ready to find them. Throughout the book, Kirsty Bell practices what she calls “radical close readings” of the view from her window, the canal’s water, and Berlin’s architecture, to uncover “messages” in everyday details.

Her personal life, and the end of her marriage, were symbolically mapped onto the large leak destroying her apartment, leading her to the conclusion that the “house was mourning”:

I think it’s only human to try to map our emotions onto the built environment, to seek a physical symbol for an idea, a decision, a feeling, just within reach. When things come to an end, the house, the city, even the country can seem to expel us, to our quiet relief.

And yet, no matter how bad things get, if we still want to stay, we should keep demanding from the place what we know we need, because of the understanding that the long-term cost of not doing so is simply too high.

A few years later, I now find myself living in a newly built high-rise with water damage that has remained unresolved for over a year. Each month, technical inspectors arrive to investigate the source of the problem, muttering “bizar” in Dutch, as if part of an absurd theatre script, only to leave once again, baffled and without answers.

There’s no symbol I want or need to assign to the leakage. Every morning, I try to embrace the stunning views more than the peeling wooden floors. But I also know this: if I ever have another gut-wrenching realisation, I’ll know when it’s time to move on. Hope and vitality are here to stay.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your stories.

Patricia

“In the city, time moves differently; it collapses, expands, and sometimes stands still.”

—Vivian Gornick, The Odd Woman and the City

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams...”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

The Hofje

There’s a kind of silence in the churches of small towns and villages that has always made me think: this is what time sounds like. If you’re lucky enough to be completely alone, undisturbed by footsteps, whispers, or the click of a camera, eventually the silence itself envelops you, like an echo.

Recently, I’ve been wondering what the quietest urban place within minutes of my home could be. And so I came across the hofje.

A hofje is a very old Dutch concept - think of it as a small, hidden courtyard surrounded by modest houses, traditionally built to provide housing for elderly women, often widows, who could live independently but within a community. They were usually funded by wealthy benefactors as acts of charity and were often religiously inspired (Catholic or Protestant), though some were secular. They are, in a way, similar to English almshouses, but their architecture (enclosed garden), legal, and social conventions are quintessentially Dutch.

The oldest hofje in the country is the Hofje van Bakenes, in Haarlem, founded in 1395, built to house elderly women of limited means, similar to later hofjes. It is still in use today. On the beautifully ornate gate, one can read:

The inscription cleverly encodes two meanings: (8 + 2) × 6 = 60, the minimum age for residents, and 8 + (2 × 6) = 20, the number of women the hofje could house.

My main reason for visiting these enclosed urban gardens is to discover what kind of quiet they hold. Living in a city with few pockets of quiet, apart from some distant beaches near the North Sea and the Haagse Bos, the “Central Park” of The Hague, I rarely experience urban time without unwanted jolts of stimuli at every pace.

I wonder what price we ultimately pay for the constant stimulation, offline and online. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the clarity of our imagination.

The Feed

What could be the quietest place on the Internet? It’s not the feed. Even here, on Substack, the Notes wall is becoming noisier and noisier with the passing of time. After reading some old Reddit posts, in my attempt to answer this question, I came across The Thoughts Room, which was apparently a source of joy for many people in the past, but the project shut down some years ago. Someone decided to recreate it.

In the “I’m thinking” bar, people can type their thoughts, which then quickly drift away and disappear into the background of stars. Amusingly, the open comment section is overflowing with the most personal thoughts.

I’ve found some of the quietest places online in the corners of odd blogs, peculiarly curated boards on Pinterest, and Substack essays quieting my mind with honest writing and curiosities so filling that I stop scrolling the feed for more.

The Hofje

A few days after writing these paragraphs, I visited for the first time a hofje, tucked away behind a dark forest green door, very close to home. As I approached the address, I became more and more alert and uncomfortable: the street was close to the main road, and the traffic was as loud as ever. I couldn’t believe that an enclosed garden could be spared from the noise, not in this central area of The Hague.

I passed by the door and immediately missed it, it was hidden in plain sight.

The corridor was narrow, and the ceiling surprisingly high, the boundary between public and private life mapped very thinly.

As I closed the door, all the noise was abruptly and satisfyingly muted, and as I entered the garden, it felt like the outside world was no longer there. Two older women were planting flowers and talking. I walked and sat on a bench, and shortly after, the women went inside their home, leaving me alone in the garden. The only sound from the outside was, from time to time, the distant rumble of the tram making its way through the streets, and an airplane passing well above the clouds.

I sat and listened, and for a brief moment, the only sound I heard was the wind gently stirring the leaves overhead. Then I realized I was mistaken: this is what time sounds like.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your notes and stories.

I’m planning an evening walk & talk in London on 25 June. If you’re interested in joining, please drop me an email.

Patricia

December 9, 1967

A THING

I saw a thing. A real thing. It was ten o’clock at night in Praça Tiradentes and the taxi was moving pretty fast. Then I saw a street I will never forget. I’m not going to describe it: it’s mine. All I can say is: it was empty and it was ten o’clock at night. Nothing more. But the seed had been planted.

— Clarice Lispector, Selected Crônicas

“A metaphor is not an ornament. It is an organ of perception.”

— Neil Postman

There are plenty of metaphors we use for a city: the Green Heart, the rotten tooth, psychic prison, brain, organism, machine, labyrinth, garden, sanctuary, dream. Metaphors are powerful. They summon entire worlds in just a few words, stretching our imagination beyond what we previously perceived.

In a paper called Metaphor and urban studies-a crossover, theory and a case study of SS Rotterdam, Peter Nientied examines whether Gareth Morgan’s eight organizational metaphors can also describe cities. These metaphors include the machine, the organism, the brain, culture, the political system, the psychic prison, flux and the instrument of domination. Metaphors do more than shape language. They shape how we think, how we move through cities and how we understand the world around us.

On a recent visit to Leiden, a small city ten minutes away by train from The Hague, I couldn’t help but compare this city to a Kunstkammer, a cabinet of curiosities. My experience of it always stretched my imagination and satisfied something within me. I find different worlds scattered along my walks, and the closer I look at them, the more they multiply into other worlds of their own.

To give an example, I started my walk facing Pablo Neruda’s poem Testament II, one of the 100 poems displayed on the buildings of this city. I tried to capture and understand the essence of the poem, but my Spanish is rusty, so what struck me at first glance was the beginning:

I let those lines sink in and think about testaments as I make my way into the Saturday market – a feast of colours, smells, and movement.

Slowly, I am lured into a bookstore, one I haven’t visited before, and all my present world is shattered yet again into other worlds, a multitude of them, all of them reviving parts of my imagination. I’m completely hooked and revitalized, and my eyes fall on Shell Shock, a book about conchological curiosities. I’ve been obsessing over shells in the past months, and here it is – a physical testament that shells proved to be obsessions for other people as well.

I move my fingers over photos of paintings of shells as I learn about the Lovers of Neptune’s Cabinet, a group of six shell collectors from the early 18th century. They met once a month in Dordrecht, Holland - about an hour from my home - to discuss their hobby and possible swaps. I look them up online, but there is no information about this group, apart from an art exhibition years ago in Adelaide, Australia, that mentions their name. There is still so much knowledge that can only be found by stumbling upon books in second‑hand bookstores, not online.

As I do some research, I find another group: Foundation Creature Shell, a group of Dutch collectors based in Utrecht with a collection of over 63,000 items, most of them donated today to museums across the Netherlands. I keep wondering what drives us to collect things, and what drives fascination into a lifelong search and ritual of collecting.

I return to The Hague and I remember a special place I visited just once, the type of place that’s very rare to find these days outside museums: Het Rariteiten Kabinet, a cabinet of curiosities. The shop, which resembles a very unique gallery, is owned by Loek Dekkers, known for his unique collection of natural history objects, ethnographic items, and rare gifts from nature. In my short visit there, I eyed one of the most beautiful shells I’ve seen – a white translucent shell with a faint shade of purple, resembling in shape a Diadema melon shell.

The owner and I strike up a short conversation, and I ask about the music playing in the shop, as it feels comfortably hypnotic. “Armand Amar,” he says, asking if I have watched the documentary Human. I take down notes, not to forget. I return home curious to make connections between everything I’ve come across.

Not all cities and places are designed to feed human curiosity. But the ones that are - those designed as multilayered worlds, as bridges to the past, posing questions to the future, and holding a mysterious, curious layer in the present - can rewire how we see the world.

And I hope that as we walk through these cities and these places, we find ourselves, little by little, transformed by something hard to put into words, something wholly ours, as Clarice Lispector once described in one of her crônicas.

A note in case we cross paths in the near future:

I’ll be in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, from May 29 to June 2 to host a Flâneurs Project weekend gathering; in London on June 25, where I plan to host a salon; and in Wimborne St. Giles for the Realisation Festival from June 26 to 29.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your emails, notes, stories.

Onwards,

Patricia

76 Hours in Washington, D.C.

I used to interview people (full archive here) about the cities they loved walking in and exploring, and one recurring question that I kept asking was: if you could name a street, what name would you choose? One answer that I loved and keep remembering is my friend Kerry’s. She answered:

“Let’s live on streets named for concepts and qualities that uplift us and give us hope: Possibility Lane, Heartfelt Way.’’

Prospect Street in Georgetown felt like an uplifting anchor on a morning when, at 7 AM, I was already strolling, jet-lagged, in a loop, waiting for Call Your Mother Deli to open, to order the bagel I had been eyeing even before I started this trip, back in The Hague.

As the deli opened, I went inside and ordered a Sun City: a bagel with egg, pastrami, and a spicy honey sauce. I savoured it in front of Georgetown University’s main building, as I was taking in the moodiness of that day: the grayest gray, crows covering the sky, enveloped in the silence of an early morning.

Then I continued my walk toward the Exorcist steps, some very steep steps featured in The Exorcist movie, which I’ve never watched, and made my way to another café, maman, where I ordered large amounts of mint tea to soothe my sore throat and rest until other shops and bookstores opened.

Despite the jet lag and being ill, I was terribly grateful to be there. I’ve always had such a strong desire to visit and see places in the US: big cities, small villages, anything. Everything felt like an adventure that I prepared for such a long time. I wrote more about this in Before New York.

Being back in the US after everything that happened since October, my last visit, until now, feels in a way like decades apart. I won’t dive in this particular post into matters of politics, democracy, freedom, or human rights, but it felt heavy and strange nonetheless to understand everything that changed in such a short amount of time.

I had just a few hours for myself on that Friday morning, before the unconference started, and I decided to dedicate them to what I love most: slow, unhurried walks, bookstores, and good food. The Lantern Bookshop opened around 11 AM, and I was its first visitor that day. Three lovely old ladies welcomed me as I entered, and they told me what I could find on each floor. I ended up buying a copy of the American Constitution for one dollar, as a souvenir from this trip.

The next place on my list was Jenni Bick Custom Journals, recommended by a reader of this newsletter, where I ended up buying a few custom leather notebooks for loved ones and myself. I wanted to have lunch at Old Ebbitt Grill, Washington’s oldest bar and restaurant, but even though I had a reservation, I gave up on that idea as I entered and noticed the long queue of people waiting around and the chaos of the place.

I returned to Arlington, to the hotel where I was staying and where the Emergent Ventures unconference was being held, quite satisfied that I had all those eight hours to myself before diving into three days of discussions, lunches, dinners, and salons with interesting and curious minds from all around the world.

Emergent Ventures Unconference

The unconference was everything I hoped for and more. There was an easiness of being, a kind of curiosity about one’s ideas, and a generosity in welcoming people like me, who are still trying to figure out where their long-held obsessions and curiosities might take them.

By an easiness of being, I mean “not knowing where I end and the others begin,” in terms of ideas, hopes, prospects. All the good events I’ve attended had this quality: a full immersion into a kind of acknowledgment that we are here to help each other, in some way.

As a young woman and immigrant, I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a group of people, however small, who support you and whom you can support, and for them to at least take you seriously, however unfleshed your ideas might be. It has a ripple effect. You start to feel a new form of vitality taking over you.

I’m grateful for the people, gatherings, places, and opportunities that offer a glimpse into other worlds.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your emails and comments.

At the end of May, I’m hosting a gathering in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, over a weekend. I hosted a similar gathering in The Hague last year.

We’ll spend our time walking and discovering this beautiful city in the heart of Transylvania. The group is always kept small, maximum 5–6 people. There’s one place left, if you’d like to join us, you can read more about what to expect in this guide I’ve crafted for you.

– Patricia-Andra

I believe that our search for home and whether we allow ourselves to arrive there is deeply rooted in our imagination, or in the lack of it.

After ten years of living abroad in three European countries, I’ve realized that I feel at home wherever I can cultivate and, most importantly, sustain a rich interior life.

Beyond safety, comfort, and close proximity to the people I love, I also imagine home as a place where my imagination is nourished, a place where I have the freedom and luxury to tap into a rich inner world. A place in which I can “dare to declare who I am,” as Hildegard of Bingen beautifully puts it: “Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep."

This year, I’m celebrating and contemplating ten years of living abroad. I left my home country, Romania, in the early autumn of 2015, at 22, with the sole desire to study in Berlin and eventually return. Since then, I’ve called three different countries home: Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

In this brief post, I’d like to reflect on what home felt like in each country I’ve lived in over these years. Perhaps, I will spend more time weaving places and time together in a way that brings more stories, in a longer essay at some point later this year.

Romania

Every time I return home to visit my parents in Romania, usually in late spring and over the summer, they religiously ask me what I’d like to eat the moment I arrive. Almost always, I reply: “Salată de vinete și roșii din alea care au gust, din piață” / “Roasted aubergine dip and those delicious tomatoes from the market.”

Once, when my dad visited me abroad by car, I asked him to bring a basket full of those tomatoes: the taste of home. He joyfully complied.

Romania, for me, is a deeply sensorial memory, it’s the taste of something good, something hard to find elsewhere unless I return to my roots.

In a previous essay, I explored my relationship with Romania through post-communist places, and I also wanted to see it through the eyes of a villager, Mica, in the place where my grandfather was born and lived a good portion of his life.

In these years abroad, I returned to live for a few months in Brașov, a mountain town in the Carpathian Mountains, an “intermezzo place,” as I love to call it, while I was thinking about my next place to call home.

Switzerland

Last year, after the Flâneurs Project Gathering that I held in The Hague, one of the participants, Christoph, a Swiss man who lives in Basel, sent me a book by Shelby Stuart: Schwyz. Uri. Unterwalden. It took me nine months to actually start reading this very brief book - not out of lack of curiosity or time, but because of the pit in my stomach every time it reminded me of the home I had left behind there, in Schwyz.

Home in Switzerland meant an unending reservoir of natural beauty, in which I was a privileged spectator - a home identical to Turner’s paintings, ridiculously potent, cinematic, and vast. Living there during the pandemic, and through tough personal times, felt like an out-of-time experience - two full years felt like two full decades.

Imagination-wise, Switzerland gave me a taste of remote, overwhelming beauty, but what was missing was close human connection, I felt profoundly alone. I left to embark on a sabbatical, which I wrote about in this essay published a year ago.

However, there’s something about this place, this country, that still stirs my imagination in ways that not many places do. Somehow, I know that at some point, if life is long and good, I will live there again.

Germany

Unpacking what home felt like for me in Germany was more difficult than I expected. Berlin was the place where I lived the longest abroad, yet the sense of home I felt there still feels blurred, hard to grasp, to remember.

Home, for me, was walking around Fehrbelliner Straße early in the mornings, long evenings spent writing at Weinerei Platz, and weekends at the market in Boxhagener Platz. Thinking about it, the feeling of home in Berlin is bound exclusively to a few places, rather than to sensory experiences, as in Romania or Switzerland.

I ceaselessly, obsessively walked this city, and even after almost five years, I still think I could find my way on every street.

The Netherlands

When I arrived here two and a half years ago, more precisely in The Hague, the soundscape felt like arriving home, even though I had never lived in a city by the sea before. By soundscape, I mean the near and far screeches of seagulls covering the sky and the North Sea Wind.

The Dutch brick architecture, the proximity to the sea, and the seagulls reminded me of places I’ve visited in the UK, which brought me comfort. Although I’ve never lived in the UK, I visit once a year, and my body always feels so relaxed and at home there.

Only recently has The Hague started to feel like home. In the past months, my imagination has begun to feel more expansive again, and this has ultimately affected how I view my everyday life here, how I actively engage with this city.

Home, Now

I cannot place the feeling of home in a singular, physical location. If I had to, it would most likely be a house somewhere in Romania, a home base in a secluded, quiet village where I could return for a few weeks or a month each year. Home there, in the Eastern European countryside, is deep quietness, an expanded sense of time, a restorative rhythm of life.

As for home as an experience to be lived, it is wherever I dare to declare myself and where I can delight in my imagination.

Thank you for reading.

I will be in Washington, D.C., from March 13 to 18 for an Emergent Ventures Unconference. If you're around and would like to grab a coffee, send me an email.

Patricia

Subscribe now

I’ve always found the word “pa” in Romanian, the language I was born into, a bit peculiar to say out loud when parting from a friend. It has always felt so abrupt. It means “bye,” used only with people we know well. Some online sources suggest its origin lies in the Italian word “ciao,” but no matter how much I squinted at “ciao”, I couldn’t see the “pa” in it. For some time, I assumed it came from pax, the Latin word for peace, given Romanian’s strong Latin roots. However, it turns out its origin could be Hungarian: “pá”, a friendly farewell, especially prevalent in Transylvania, the region I’m from.

"'Good-bye' is originally 'God be with you.'

The Romance languages say 'to God'; the Slavic languages, 'with God'; while Japanese sayonara is literally 'if it must be so.'

'So long' was first imported into Britain by soldiers who had been stationed in Malay-speaking countries. The Malay salutation, salang, is a corruption of the Arabic salaam ('peace')."

—Mario Pei, The Story of Language

I think our world needs more rituals of goodbye, I know of so many people who simply disappeared one day, without a word. And I am aware that people are busy, their attention grabbed in different ways by different things every single day, but I find life a little hollow without the ritual of a proper parting.

I am reminded of Marina Abramović's long walk on the Great Wall of China, a walk of her and her partner Ulay, initially entitled “The Lovers.” They wanted to be the first people to walk the Great Wall of China, setting off alone from opposite ends to meet in the middle, where they would marry. For five years, they planned this walk, and, as we know, a lot can happen in five years. So, by the end, they still committed to the long walk, but to meet in the middle to say a final goodbye and to part ways. After that, they didn’t see each other for 22 years.

I don’t think we should make every single goodbye one big ceremony, but I do think that the people and places we love or loved, should be offered the ritualistic power of a goodbye, even if it’s just one word, a letter, or a symbol given to mark an ending.

This year, I said a final goodbye to my grandfather, in early spring. This time, this goodbye was a full ceremony, one externally with the burial, and one internally, within me. Beyond the grief, I also experienced a form of peace and understanding that some things are never, in fact, final, even if reality painstakingly reminds us that they seem to be final every single day.

This year, I also said goodbye to social media. In the past two months, I’ve been mostly away, only on Substack, avoiding Notes as much as possible. I just woke up one morning in October not wanting to come back to X or Instagram, and it was one of the easiest goodbyes this year. Twitter was a big part of my life back in 2020 and 2021, in the pandemic. It changed my life for the better in so many mindblowing ways, but I never had the chance to say a proper goodbye to it, and with X taking over, it’s not the same platform—it’s already gone. So, goodbye Twitter, and thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

In a few days, on the 10th, I will be saying goodbye to another year of my life—31. It’s been a good year, one that has laid a strong foundation for the things I care about: loving more, writing more, meeting fellow writers from around the world, and finally traveling to a place I’ve dreamed about for a long time. I’ve also grown fonder of The Hague, the city I’ve called home for the past two years, and I feel ready to put down some roots here. For someone who has changed countries so often over the past decade, this feels like a blessing.

As the year comes to an end in a few weeks, I’m also preparing my final goodbyes to this year. Usually, on New Year’s Eve, a few hours before the fireworks, I try to map and draw the whole year on an axis, marking every event that shaped that year, and drawing another blank map for the coming year. Maps, for me, are in this case also a form of goodbye—a way of creating a visual snapshot of the experiences of that year.

Memory is fallible, but I believe we always remember the goodbyes we put our hearts into. Goodbyes, when done well, are a kindness - both to ourselves and to other people.

Thank you for reading. I wish you Happy Holidays and a beautiful new year ahead.

Goodbye / pa 👋🏻,

Patricia-Andra Hurducaș

I began this essay intending to write about observation - writing down paragraphs, sentences, thoughts, and ideas in a notebook every day for a month. My goal was to explore my curiosity about those who observe the world actively and well. By well, I mean with passion, clarity, generosity, and an awareness of both the expansiveness and the limitations of language.

Then I started reading Too Much of Life, and every paragraph of this essay became about Clarice.

What makes an observer—specifically, a writer—good, generous, and transformative?

Some words never reach me, no matter how often I return to them. I read articles, essays, thoughts, questions, scattered notes here and there, and it’s as if they pass through me, leaving nothing behind.

But some words deepen their way into me, and I carry them as a conversation throughout my life. And then I came across Clarice Lispector, and I became more aware of the words I want to carry.

“Clarice has a passion for the void,” I read these words in The Paris Review, in an essay titled Madame of the Void, written by José Castello. I write down in my notebook: “utter nonsense.” I don’t normally dismiss an idea so quickly, but after having read Clarice’s crônicas, that sentence feels like a careless attempt at trying to understand. Some words obscure for obscurity’s sake, or perhaps we are simply afraid to go deeper.

I think that great, active observers, like Clarice, tap into something that makes language a little hard to use, some things cannot be contained, words don’t clarify but inform, they spill out more awareness that language has a threshold. Clarice tried with words and active observations to go beyond the limits of a language, still bound to it, but using it as she herself described it “a fourth dimension”.

Clarice Lispector was born on December 10, 1920, in the town of Chechelnyk, which was then part of the Soviet Union (in present-day Ukraine). As a child, she left her homeland with her family and ultimately settled in Brazil. Throughout her life, she lived in various countries, but she felt most at home, understood, and free in the Portuguese language. For her, the language was a profoundly personal realm, something she made abundantly clear in her reflections.

I am glad that I continued reading José Castello’s essay, as the more I read, I noticed that he was determined to go beyond the often-thrown description of Clarice’s writing: “It’s not literature. It’s witchcraft.” José Castello is generous and honest, observing and sharing some of his past interactions with Clarice:

“Christmas Eve. The phone rings and a low, raspy voce identifies itself.“Clarrrice Lispectorrr,” it says. She gets right to the point. “I’m calling to talk about your story,” she proceeds. The voice, faltering at first, now grows firm: “I have just one thing to say: you are a very fearrrful man”—and the r’s of that “fearrrful” claw at my memory to this day. The deafening silence that follows leads me to believe that Clarice has hung up the phone without even saying goodbye. But then her voice reemerges:

“You are very fearrrful. And no one can write in fear.”

At first, I wanted to start this essay with this question: what observers unburden me? Great observers feel the language. Great observers bring clarity. Great observers are generous. But there’s something more, beyond language, awareness, clarity, and generosity - something that feels uncomfortable and exciting to articulate, to admit.

“Poised to decipher Clarice’s oeuvre, Claire had taken this sentence as a point of departure and developed what she calls a “telepathic method.” Its basis is as simple as it is disorienting: one can only read Clarice Lispector by taking her place—by being Clarice. “There’s no other way,” she assures me.”

“I ask whether this method could in fact work. Claire answers by reading a passage from one of Clarice’s crônicas, brief literary sketches collected in Discovering the World: “The character of ‘reader’ is a curious character, a strange one. While completely individual with particular reactions, the reader is also terribly linked to the writer, since, in fact, the reader is the writer.” Clarice had already taken it upon herself to inform us.”

- José Castello, Madame of the Void

Clarice was an extraordinarily generous observer. She conveyed the one truth she knew - her truth - and shared a profoundly specific human experience: that of being Clarice. That’s what draws us in - the compelling mystery of a singular human experience, raw, honest, clear, intimate, and riveting.

I gather my thoughts and rewrite my notes once again here, striving to understand, to peel back more layers: Great observers deepen our awareness. Great observers offer honest generosity. Great observers reveal and share clarity.

There’s also something mystical about great observers, something that leads some to view their insights as "otherworldly," "witchcraft," or even "dangerous." We don’t merely share their language; we share their consciousness. That’s the only way their words can reach us.

Great observers unsettle time.

A Literary Pilgrimage In Four Countries

Every time I feel a close connection with a writer, I find myself opening Google Flights, searching for possible dates to visit the city where they spent most of their lives. I want a full literary immersion, a literary pilgrimage.

Clarice Lispector lived in Rio de Janeiro, Naples, Bern, and Washington, D.C., among other cities throughout her life. By chance, I already have a trip to D.C. planned for next spring, in March, serendipitously arranged before this idea took shape, as I was invited to the Emergent Ventures Unconference. That leaves Naples, Bern, and Rio de Janeiro as the next destinations for my journey in 2025 and 2026.

I do not know where this pilgrimage will lead me or what I will write about in the essays to come. What I do know is that lived experience will guide my writing, just as my writing will guide my lived experience. That, in itself, feels like one of the best kinds of adventures.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your emails, stories, and notes. In the coming weeks, I will be traveling to Hungary and Romania, and I might have another essay or post to share before the year ends.

Patricia-Andra Hurducaș

Speaking of archives, I’ve compiled all the interviews I’ve conducted so far with friends and readers into a dedicated page on Substack. This page will be regularly updated and maintained. While the interviews page is quite extensive, it is easy to navigate—just click on the left-hand menu to select a title or question that piques your curiosity.

Infinite Archives

I think we are all collectors of some kind, tending to our (infinite) archives every single day—both online (Substacks, social media timelines) and physical (memorabilia, libraries, and more).

There’s something profoundly alluring about infinite archives. I dare to say that every collection is an infinite archive—not merely a gathering of objects, but a vast web of relationships. A collection is more than the sum of its parts; it is shaped by the countless ways those parts relate to one another, to every observer who encounters and engages with them, and to the myriad possibilities for mapping, displaying, or reinterpreting the collection.

A book that epitomizes the concept of the infinite archive is Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, an unfinished thousand-page montage of quotes, references, essays, and fragmented notes. While ostensibly about the Parisian arcades, it is so much more: a critique of his era, a snapshot of history, and an ambitious attempt to transcend the fallibility of memory through meticulous documentation.

I don’t think I would be as passionate about archives and collections if it weren’t for Walter Benjamin’s work. He seamlessly merged the roles of archivist and collector, reshaping our understanding of memory, knowledge, and history.

Benjamin was not only a writer and philosopher but also a true collector—one whose passion transcended personal obsession to reflect the Zeitgeist, the spirit of his time. Among his most cherished collections was his library, which he described lovingly in his essay Unpacking My Library:

The book Walter Benjamin’s Archive beautifully unveils and describes Benjamin’s different archives, emphasizing the passion and intense curiosity that drove him—beyond methodology, beyond rules.

Benjamin was also an avid picture postcard collector, finding meaning in the act of constantly revisiting them. For him, collecting was “a form of practical memory,” a way to preserve and engage with fragments of the past.

Memory, Amnesia, and Long-Durée

Another collector who has deeply inspired my work and fueled my obsession with archives is the Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. He is renowned for the various archives he tends to every day. One of them is an ongoing library housed in an apartment in Berlin, which he purchased solely to store his books—an extension of his daily ritual of buying one book per day.

Another archive he curates is his collection of ongoing interviews with artists, writers, architects, scientists, and more. He has conducted over 4,000 interviews to date, many of which have been published in various books. During the pandemic, he conducted 2-3 interviews per day via Zoom, reaching out to artists, scientists, creatives all around the world.

Obrist is also a promoter of long-durée forms—lifelong projects nurtured with care, which he describes as a “protest against forgetting.” These projects reflect his dedication to preserving memory and resisting the erosion of time, the “amnesia” of today, offering a counterpoint to the fleeting nature of modern culture.

THE WHITE REVIEW

HANS ULRICH OBRIST

Archives As Anchors

Collecting and archiving are ways to reclaim and own our attention—they are acts of meaning-making. These practices are rituals: habits and skills that demand time, patience, and a willingness to look beyond the surface.

To collect well is to resist algorithmic influence. A true collection reflects deeply personal values and a genuine desire to know, understand, and reveal.

Collecting and archiving ground us. They invite us to trace connections, dismantle rigid categorizations, and uncover links between the unexpected.

Whenever I slip into collector-archivist mode online—chasing rabbit holes of papers, forgotten PDFs, or obscure books—I break free from the pull of mindless consumption. I am no longer swept away by the endless timelines shouting, “This is important! This is important!” Instead, I resist the lure of aimless scrolling and embrace a slower, more deliberate way of engaging with the information I encounter.

Attention and deep awareness, after all, are the collector’s most precious assets.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your notes, emails, and stories.

– Patricia-Andra Hurducaș

As I closely examined the cover of a book that caught my eye in a secondhand bookstore in the center of The Hague, The American Landscape, I was struck by Thomas Wolfe’s words, shared with you all above. I cannot find better words to encapsulate my infatuation with places "where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time."

Miracles. That's what I've been searching for, chasing ever since I left my first home in Romania—and every home since then. Miracles.

Miraculum:

"Origin (Latin): from mīror ('I wonder or marvel at') +‎ -culum (derivative suffix)."

I cannot recall my first miracle abroad—it might have been an encounter atop the Siegessäule in Berlin or a rooftop meeting in Istanbul. These simple moments, occurring in the split of a second, profoundly altered the way I perceived reality. I felt held and enraptured by a surge of understanding that there’s so much more out there.

In recent years, my writing has been infused with a deep sense of longing—especially for places that satisfy an indescribable itch that some of us carry: the desire to arrive somewhere good, somewhere transformative, where we can become our 'best.' We place our hopes for transformation on yet another place—distant, out of reach, and full of promise.

But something changed after returning from New York, and I hope that change lasts for a while. This shift brought a sense of relief, peace, and the first signs of vitality. I had expected my recent U.S. trip to fuel my appetite for 'more, more, more,' igniting my ambition, but it did the opposite. I returned with a deep appreciation for what I already have right in front of me, and now I crave 'less, less, less.' The Hague no longer feels like just another intermezzo place.

I wonder why I, a Romanian woman living in the Netherlands, feel so guilty for not having more 'American ambition.' When I reflect on it, I realize that nearly every online page I open is infused with American culture and desires, which still fascinate me and spark my curiosity.

My desire for more ambition largely stemmed from the belief that it was the only way to achieve something miraculous, something that could change what now feels impossible—a way to escape a rigid lifestyle.

For me, ambition has always been tied to leaving, escaping, and embarking on an adventure into the unknown. I grew up hearing great stories about “those who left,” particularly those who left Romania, the country I was born in. In a place where perceived scarcity was high in the '90s and 2000s, many adults back then believed the best thing one could do was to leave—chase a different life and stumble upon more miracles in a land “where miracles don’t just happen, but happen all the time."

But here’s the thing: I don’t think miracles can be chased. Some are simply experienced on a daily basis if we hone our attention and learn to notice them. Some are a matter of patience, timing, and place. And some, well, might never find us. What’s important is recognizing when we’ve been found.

In the past 12 years, since I was 19 years old, I have lived in 12 different homes across four countries, never staying in one place for more than a year and a half—and sometimes just a few months or half a year. Moving so frequently was never my intention. I simply craved change. For me, change always meant relocating to a new place for various reasons: study, work, and love. If I’m honest, it was mostly for love.

In the interview below, I asked Kev, a friend I met through Substack last year, a few questions about his move to San Francisco from Lyon, France, and living in 18 cities in the past 15 years.

I connected with Kev right away the first time we had a video conversation. Kev has a type of inner reflection that I admire, together with a very intentional way of living life. I hope you’ll enjoy this interview.

, thank you for your stories and for your time!

An Interview With Kev

Please tell us a bit about yourself and any creative projects that you are passionate about.

My name’s Kev. I grew up in France, mainly split between Paris and Lyon. I left the country 15 years ago to move to Singapore first, and I’ve settled in 18 different cities across 4 continents since then.

Today I’m a father, a husband, and a builder. I have two boys who turned 5 and 3 a few months ago. I’ll celebrate my 19th anniversary with my wife, Mathilde, at the end of October. Last summer, I celebrated 10 years of building things with her and our third co-founder, Max.

My main creative project is Objet. We embed memories into clothing. We’ve already thrown two soirées—parties with a French touch—in SF, a third one is coming in December, and we’ll host one in NYC before Thanksgiving too. I’m also one of the people behind Krak—the world’s biggest skate spots database and archive online.

Another creative project I’m quite excited about is Subvert—a collectively owned Bandcamp successor—that’s about to launch very soon. I’m not behind it, but I definitely want to be a part of it.

Which cities bring you deep joy while walking?

Hmm, that's a good question. Thinking about this, I realize I’m too curious not to enjoy any proper walk. Even in the least walkable cities I’ve been to—let’s say LA, Jakarta, and Buenos Aires—I still genuinely enjoyed walking.

But back to your question, I think it’s less about the city itself and more about the emotions and memories attached to the specific area.

NYC would be the second. I traveled there for the first time when I was 18, alone with my grandpa—who’s been like a real father to me. We spent a whole week there, and I was so excited I couldn’t even sleep. I think I walked every street of Manhattan—from Wall St. to Central Harlem. As a kid of the 90s, I feel—and still do—that NYC encapsulates so much of my cultural influences. It feels like the whole world is living in a few square miles.

Why do you want to move to San Francisco?

Also, since we have two young kids, it’s not just about us anymore. We want our kids to be surrounded by a "sure, you can do it" mentality. We’ve already spent the whole summer there, and I can’t even describe what happened in their heads when they saw their first Waymo—fully autonomous car. Their minds literally went crazy. They’re still so excited today to mention it to their friends. I can tell you it expanded their imagination 100x, which is so much more powerful than anything else at their age—I mean, beyond love and attention, of course.

What desires of yours do you think will be fulfilled in San Francisco?

This answer can be very singular, and we can’t all agree on what place would be absolutely perfect—or at least better for most. The answer also evolves depending on the stage of life you’re in. For example, we spent 3 years in Lisbon and loved the place as a couple with no kids and then with a baby, but we ended up hating it for young kids. I wrote about it—specifically its urbanism—after our last week spent there a few months ago.

Back to your question. A possible answer would relate to your previous question. One thing I hope from this new life in SF is that it will make our kids truly optimistic and give them the energy, naivety, and hunger to build the future.

If you could bottle San Francisco into an idea, what would that idea be?

Utopia. Beatnik. The summer of love. Silicon Valley then. Maybe it’s something about the “Far West” too.

You have lived in many cities around the world; which city felt almost in sync with you?

I’m not sure I can answer this one. Have you read The Multitudes of Self by Nick Susi? This was my version back in the day—through the lens of the clothes I’d choose to wear. There is no single version of “me,” which means there might not be a city on Earth truly “in sync” with me—or at least with a stable, non-changing version of me.

That being said, I can tell you every moment I truly felt “in sync” with a city and a version of myself. Berlin, for instance, was the best partner ever for the “clubbing-let’s-party-all-night-long” me. I feel in sync with SF every time I want to think more ambitiously about what I’m building. As a clothing and craft connoisseur, and just a lover of beauty in general, Paris has a special place in my heart. Surprisingly for most, maybe, the skateboarder in me also feels in sync with Paris, as well as London, NYC, and Barcelona. That skateboarder—coupled with the long-time video game fan I’ve always been—felt very in sync with LA 10 years ago.

If I decide to move to the U.S. one day, what advice would you give me?

To give it a try and not let anyone tell you otherwise. The U.S. is fascinating. My grandpa used to say: "This is the country of all extremes," which I find true. And that’s why the U.S. as a whole is hard to grasp. This is a country the size of a continent. I mean, especially for us as Europeans, most nationwide statistics don’t make sense at all. If we want to compare the whole U.S., let’s talk about the whole of Europe. Otherwise, if someone wants to consider just France, Germany, or any other European country, well, let’s talk about California then, or New York, or any other state, but not the whole of the U.S.

Most of this country is empty too, so you can imagine all the different realities. Cities are also experienced very differently. Neighborhoods feel so much more identity-defining. I wrote about it here in the last paragraph. This is something I personally like in SF, for instance—walking around Marina or The Mission feels like you’ve changed countries, literally. It also means you can talk to two different San Franciscans and hear two different realities regarding their daily lives.

Back to you and your question, my advice would be to go spend some time over there, as soon as possible, to experience as many neighborhoods as possible to really find your favorite one. I can’t recommend home-swapping enough. This is how we’re able to spend one—sometimes two—months straight somewhere else, even now as a family of four, without breaking our budget. We mainly use both of these platforms, by the way: Kindred (following my referral code would give you 5 credits right away, with one credit = one night anywhere) and HomeExchange (here as well you’d get points by following the referral link).

So, want to move to the U.S.? Hell yeah! But where exactly: Sunset, Bernal Heights, Boerum Hill, West Village, Venice Beach?

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your notes, questions, and stories.

Onwards,

Patricia Hurducaș

A bar in East Village, Manhattan

It’s a warm, quiet Sunday night in October, and I’m in East Village, Manhattan, at a bar that shall not be named. I’m exhausted, having walked 25 kilometers through the city today, and I think I’m feeling the first signs of the flu. I hope it’s just travel fatigue—I’ve been in and out of planes all week—so I stop to rest at a place my friend Jonathan brought me to just the night before: a bar that plays Gregorian chants, where the bartender shushes people if they speak above a whisper. Someone left a review online that said: “Nothing changes here. If it ever does, it will be time to leave.”

I arrive around 8 PM, and the place is empty, with soft classical music playing in the background—a contrast to the Gregorian chants I heard last time. Slowly, I approach the bar, order a glass of apple cider, and take my book out of my bag. I choose a cozy nook in the corner, near the wall, as a place to rest for a few hours. I remember the lighting being warmer the last time I was here, just yesterday, and indeed it feels brighter and less intimate now—perhaps because there’s someone else behind the bar.

More guests arrive, quietly approaching the bar to order their drinks before settling into their seats, eyes fixed on their phones. It’s so quiet—nobody speaks. Normally, I’d be pleased by this silence, as I love reading in peaceful places, but tonight the stillness frustrates me. There’s a palpable division between the guests, and it feels uncomfortable. The bartender is the type who clearly doesn’t want to be there—it shows, despite his politeness and friendliness. In a quiet place like this, it’s easier to notice all the other, subtler ways people speak.

The man who returns

The silence is shattered by an older man who arrives, and I recognize him immediately—he was here last night at the same spot at the bar. There was something special about him, even though he didn’t speak that night.

This time, he breaks the silence, trying to engage with the bartender after ordering his drink: a framboise, a beer with a berry flavor. He asks questions, curious and very much alive, and my frustration with the earlier silence dissolves into the air. There’s something comforting about this conversation between strangers and about men like him who are eager to keep asking questions.

“How many nights are you working here?” he asks the bartender. “Only one night per week,” he replies. We later learn that the bartender teaches fiction classes on the other days.

“Is this a framboise? Delicious. Many calories,” the older man remarks.

I stand up and order one as well, even though I do not like beer.

The older man shares that he has started to enjoy Thomas Wolfe’s books and wonders if the bartender has read anything by him. My ears perk up, and at this point, I’m taking serious notes. I know I will leave New York with one of Wolfe’s books.

“Last round: we’re closing at 10!” says the bartender, visibly bored and tired. I’m surprised because I remember clearly that the bar closes at 11 PM on Sundays.

The older man isn’t pleased either; he mutters something that sounds like “of course…” and takes a big sip of his framboise.

A group of four people, all dressed in black, arrives and quietly approaches the bar. They whisper among themselves—clearly familiar with the customs of this place.

The bartender informs them that it’s the last round and that the bar will close in 30 minutes. “So, you can leave or stay,” he says.

“Stay. Stay. Stay,” the man who returns sings out in a cheerful tone.

The group immediately warms to his presence. They decide to stay and order four beers, moving to a nearby table. One of them stands close to the man who returns and starts a lively conversation.

By then, fatigue envelops every part of my body. As I can no longer hear the curious, kind questions being exchanged at the bar, and everyone returns to their phones, my discomfort grows once again. Feeling lonely, I make my way to the bar to settle my bill and step outside into the warm October night, somewhere in East Village, Manhattan. I’m out of mobile data, so I rely on my GPS and my memory of street names to find my way back to my friend’s home.

I leave feeling grateful for the story I’ve captured in my memory and thankful for discovering Thomas Wolfe’s books (the next day, I ended up buying The Web and the Root). However, I also feel a bit sad and disappointed this time. I realize I am indeed sick; beyond the flu, I’m also very homesick. New York was lovely, and I hope to return someday to observe more stories, but for now, all I wish for is to be back among the people and places I know and love.

Later that night, around midnight, I book an earlier flight home.

Leaving New York earlier

I left New York on Tuesday night, just two nights before my original flight on Thursday. But there was something in me that no longer wanted to roam around the city—I felt so tired. I can only compare this feeling to visiting a museum, engaging closely with the exhibitions. However, after about an hour, no matter what you see, it no longer captivates your attention; you’ve absorbed so much that the input passes through you. You’re no longer an observer but merely a spectator. If I cannot pay close attention, then why should I stay longer? This, coupled with my increasing illness, led me to decide to leave.

On another note, for the first time, I felt terribly homesick. I believe that a good place also makes you excited about your return home, which is one of the most important parts of any journey. This trip to the U.S. made me realize how much I love my home in The Hague and the life I’ve built there.

New York was beautiful, hectic, and intense, but it was also occasionally disappointing, like any place. There were moments of sheer beauty, vivid cinematic experiences, especially when surrounded by nature, alongside instances of discomfort and being pulled in different directions. Upon my arrival back in The Hague, I immediately recognized that I had returned with a quicker and more purposeful pace. I’ll keep the “purposeful” part when necessary, but I plan to discard the “quicker” aspect, as it’s not what I want right now—or perhaps ever.

I appreciate all the ambitious minds I encountered and the urgency to “go places,” but I found comfort in stubbornly accepting my own pace—I love to linger much more than I realized. The next time I return to New York, I hope to visit even fewer places and observe as closely as I can. It is a wonderful and, in some ways, heartbreaking city. During my long walks, I had realizations I couldn’t have experienced anywhere else. New York is the place I imagined—a city that transforms something significant in how I will continue to walk in this world.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your notes, stories, and questions.

Patricia Hurducaș

New York takes on a different character in the sunshine. After three days of continuous rain, and the stories I’ve already expanded on in my previous essay, Quick Field Notes From New York, I wake up to one of the most beautiful, sunny autumn mornings. But it’s time to leave—for now—and head to the airport to catch my flight to Austin.

“Why Austin?” I’ve been asked a few times by baffled New Yorkers with whom I’ve had brief, spontaneous chats—on the streets or while standing in line at the supermarket. I share that I’m visiting a good friend and that I’m curious to experience a part of Texas.

I know I’m in very good hands. Catherine, my friend, has lived in Austin for quite a few years now, and I know she loves—and most importantly, understands—this city.

A friend recently compared Austin to a farm-to-table restaurant where all the best ingredients are scattered across a huge field and you have to slowly collect them yourself. Everything is here to make for an amazing neighborhood experience … it’s just that none of the really great stuff is together in the same place!

snippet from an interview I conducted with Catherine for The Flâneurs Project

Subscribe now

Morning walk

I arrive in Austin on a delayed flight at midnight on October 1st, but my soul is still somewhere in New York. I recall a beautiful article, Traveling at the Speed of the Soul, which explores about how when we travel long distances, we don’t always arrive “complete.” It takes a while for our “souls” to catch up.

“The soul travels at the speed of walking.” - an old Arabic saying

Half asleep, I stumble my way through Austin airport, which feels like a freezer (a friend had warned me about the air conditioning in Texas). I try to catch an Uber, relying on the kindness of strangers. My gratitude is immense for the Uber driver, who is patient and helpful when I am slow and confused. After sobbing in a JFK airport bathroom earlier due to a rude waiter (jet lag, delayed flights, and bone-deep exhaustion can make some of us cry in the most unexpected situations), I feel so much love for people who are kind to travelers and strangers.

On my first morning in Austin, I head out early with my friend, who shows me around her East Austin neighborhood—the nearby park where she walks every morning, and the cute, dog-friendly cafés. My body finally feels good, and after four days, my jet lag seems to dissipate.

Austin has a completely different pace compared to New York. Coming from the busy streets, I now find myself in a city where I don’t see a single soul for minutes at a time. The scorching sun likely keeps people from walking, but the vast distances between points A and B also seem to contribute—I’ve never taken so many cabs in just a few days. I feel less connected with people on the streets, in cafés, and apart from my friend, the only people I’ve spoken to are cashiers or waiters at the places we visit.

While New York felt like I was always on the verge of meeting someone new and stumbling upon a story—crumbs of connection here and there—Austin feels less intimate, with fewer opportunities for human connections. “Are you sometimes lonely here?” I ask her, knowing she has good friends nearby but sensing the deeper direction of my question. “Yes,” she replies, “especially intellectually lonely.” I understand her.

Night walk

Around nightfall, my friend and I head out for a walk to a place she’s certain I’ll love: Patrizi’s. The darkness makes me a bit uneasy—I’m not used to walking in pitch-black streets, surrounded by cars, with no one else in sight. But I find myself enjoying the landscape, my eyes hungry to explore. We order drinks and carbonara, along with a delicious starter of Marfa tomatoes, and find a spot to sit under sprinklers and a chandelier. A big gray cat is sleeping peacefully on the table next to us. “You’re right, I adore this place,” I tell my friend, feeling at home. We start talking about moments when we feel powerless, and moments when we feel powerful, and I’m completely enveloped in her stories.

Austin becomes this memory: good food, good conversation with a good friend under the big, open Texan night sky.

What are the places that we cannot stop thinking about?

Today, I’ll be hosting a salon in Austin about The Places That We Long For.

“What now?” a friend asks, knowing that this trip has been one of the most exciting things I’ve planned in years. “You’ve seen New York, you’ve accomplished something you’ve been dreaming about for years—what now?”

Now, the adventure can really begin. I want to find another place tied to a deeply personal sense of adventure. Planted, fabricated desire—especially in terms of places—can be tricky to let go of. But once fulfilled, once experienced, it opens up pathways to seek places simply for the sake of mapping new feelings.

I want to know myself better and discover a new place to long for—something that will surprise me. At the same time, I’ll soon be returning, on Saturday, to New York for more walking and talking. I know it will take a lifetime of returns to see this city.

Thank you for reading. As always, I welcome your notes, questions, and stories. If you’re in New York on Sunday, October the 6th, I’m hosting this walk.

Onwards,

Patricia Hurducaș

In Before New York, I wrote about my long-awaited trip to the States, a journey I had been planning for a full year. America, with its diverse and beautiful places, has always seemed like one of the greatest adventures I could embark on.

I don’t have many wishes when it comes to places I want to see in New York, which might seem sacrilegious to the touristic eye. I’d just like to walk often in Central Park, and I’d really like to end my first evening with a slice of pepperoni pizza from Joe’s Pizza. As for experiences and people, I hope to meet someone new every day. I believe that conversations will help me map New York and Austin in ways that go beyond the automated interactions I might have with these cities. As I write this, I’m still awaiting boarding at Schiphol airport.

1435 Broadway, New York - accepting gifts

As soon as I check in at the Renaissance Hotel, I realize I have two options: crash and succumb to my first-ever jetlag (I’ve never crossed so many time zones before) or grab my purse and walk ten minutes to buy a slice of pizza. Hunger and thirst win, so I head to Joe’s Pizza. New York is definitely one of the craziest cities I’ve ever had the chance to walk through—similar to Istanbul—crazy in the sense of loud and hectic, but also so rich in sensory input. As I walk, I realize that despite my sensitivity to noise, the city’s pace envelops me. I become a different kind of walker—somewhat hurried (though still much slower than most)—with my attention drawn to everything around me. I feel very tired, but so damn good.

When I approach Joe’s Pizza, I’m greeted by a very long queue. At first glance, I know that if I stay, I’ll be waiting at least half an hour. So, I stay—half asleep, half very much stimulated by the ongoing hustle and bustle around me. As I wait, a woman approaches me to ask about the line, and soon, a man in the queue joins our conversation. Ten minutes into our chat, we’ve only moved about three meters, but I already know that Rafaela is in New York only for the weekend, with a full list of things to do that she generously shares with me. She talks about her love for the city and confesses that it’s her fifth time here—she keeps coming back to see more. Her husband and baby are back home in Massachusetts, and she tells me her husband strongly dislikes New York. Meanwhile, the man who joined our conversation shares that he’s originally from Poland but has lived in New York for over thirty years. Ironically, he’s never had Joe’s Pizza.

I order two slices of pepperoni pizza, and as I try to pay, the Polish man kindly offers to cover my order—and Rafaela’s too. At first, I try to decline, but I recognize that this is a gesture of kindness, and I gratefully accept. As we thank him and say our goodbyes, he wishes us to “enjoy New York”. Rafaela confesses:

“I should learn to say yes to gifts more often. It’s just hard for me to do.”

We hug as if we’re old friends and part ways—she’s off to her next destination, the 9/11 Memorial, and I’m heading back to the Renaissance Hotel with my two slices of pizza, ready to dwell in the aftermath of these encounters.

462 7th Ave, New York - thinking good thoughts

I wake up at four in the morning, craving coffee. Jet lag makes me feel slow, almost sedated, but I’m also acutely aware that I’ve finally arrived in a place that has felt so out of reach for much of my life. So, I get dressed and wander the early morning streets of New York. I order a medium Americano from the only coffee spot open this early—a Starbucks around the corner—and I sit, trying to take everything in. It starts raining—drizzling, pouring, then drizzling again—and it doesn’t stop all day.

The highlight of my day is a good conversation with a friend and another iced Americano. There’s something so pleasurable in exchanging ideas and stories. This experience encapsulates exactly how New York feels to me for the first time: it washes over me, too rich to be fully processed. I’m very slow, not entirely alert, but fascinated. That fascination fuels my body and I keep walking, keep observing.

Since I arrived, people have asked me:

“Is New York what you hoped for, what you dreamed of?”

My answer for now is, “I don’t know.” It’s different from my dreams. Lived experience is messy, unpredictable, very human. It requires surrendering a lot to our environment. To surrender to New York means to be completely swallowed by it.

What brings the city closer to how I’ve always imagined it are the people and the spontaneous conversations that arise. Here, people initiate conversations, ask questions, listen, and then say goodbye and part ways. I love that. I rarely experience this in Europe, but on just my first day here, I’ve already spoken with several people about both nothing and everything.

Tonight, while waiting in line at Whole Foods, I had a brief conversation with an older woman. She was surprised to hear that I find “this dirty, loud city” so compelling. I return to my hotel feeling grateful and crawl into bed with a book I bought from Strand earlier today: Servants of the Map by Andrea Barrett.

Central Park, New York - looking for conversations

I’ve been rained on for six hours since eight in the morning, and even after arriving at the hotel to rest, I still feel the rain deeply embedded in my bones. Yet, I return feeling satisfied because I finally took a long walk in Central Park, followed by another rendezvous at Strand bookstore and a spontaneous shopping session at an outdoor market—which felt like one of the most autumnal things one can do on such a day in this city.

By now, I’m quite sure that I don’t like Midtown. The flashy, colorful, huge billboards in Times Square give me a strange form of anxiety—it’s one of my least favorite parts of New York so far.

The Upper West Side, on the other hand, felt more intimate in its interactions. The outdoor market was located in this area, where I bought apples and maple syrup candy, all while savoring the smells of petrichor and fresh produce.

The highlight of this day was discovering Vivian Gornick’s writing:

Tomorrow, I’m heading to Austin for five days, and I will return to New York on Saturday evening to explore more places and to seek more conversations.

Thank you for reading! As always, I welcome your comments, questions, stories.

p.s: If you’re in Austin or nearby, I’m hosting this in person salon on Thursday, the 3rd of October.

🧡,

Patricia

Subscribe now

There’s a book I keep returning to: The Eyes of the Skin by Finnish architect and writer Juhani Pallasmaa. In it, he critiques the overwhelming emphasis on vision in modern architecture and advocates for a more immersive sensory experience in how we design and build our world.

I tend to revisit this book whenever I feel a sense of disconnection from my environment, seeking deeper intimacy with the city around me, with others, and with myself.

Personally, I think of intimacy as feeling safe and being able to both receive and give ‘a new kind of complexion,’ as David Whyte beautifully expresses in the first video session of ‘Intimate’ from his Three Sundays series.

“Intimate—the ability to unburden yourself, shed a certain skin, and feel a new kind of complexion around you (…). Intimacy is a type of unburdening in the presence of a partner, or in the presence of (…) the stranger inside you.” – David Whyte

Intimate places are where we can unfold and explore beyond just the visual. We don’t simply see with our eyes, consuming what’s in front of us—we become entirely enveloped in a place.

Some of the places I remember most fondly are those where I left with a deeper experience beyond sight. Leiden is one such place. Below, I’ve shared a collection of scattered photos, short videos, and thoughts from various walks in Leiden over the past year.

Video snippets from a walk along Pieterskerkgracht 17 in Leiden. The poem displayed on the building is “River and Sandbank” by Seiichi Niikuni.​

Every time I walk down the streets of Leiden, a small Dutch town close to the North Sea, I have this urge to record everything: to take photographs of the intricate details on the buildings, to capture short video recordings in the hope of remembering the flow of light, the movement.

Our desires and our ways of recording experiences are predominantly visual. I keep reminding myself of that.

“Susan Sontag has made perceptive remarks on the role of the photographed image in our perception of the world. She writes, for instance, of a 'mentality which looks at the world as a set of potential photographs', and argues that 'the reality has come to seem more and more what we are shown by camera', and that 'the omnipresence of photographs has an incalculable effect on our ethical sensibility.” - The Eyes Of The Skin

The walk I took around Peter Church that day was one of the most intimate experiences I’ve had in Leiden. Beyond the beauty of the human-scale architecture, I was enveloped in a single sound: the echo of my footsteps in the profound silence. Such a touching silence is rare in cities. The city felt vulnerable, soft, and open in a way I hadn’t perceived before, just with my eyes.

“The eyes want to collaborate with the other senses. All the senses, including vision, can be regarded as extensions of the sense of touch - as specialisations of the skin. They define the interface between the skin and the environment - between the opaque interiority of the body and the exteriority of the world. In the view of Rene Spitz, 'all perception begins in the oral cavity, which serves as the primeval bridge from inner reception to external perception'. Even the eye touches; the gaze implies an unconscious touch, bodily mimesis and identification.” - The Eyes of the Skin

Most of the places I find truly intimate have a certain acknowledgment and consideration for all the human senses. Cathedrals, bookstores, museums, galleries, parks, forests, and beaches.

“Sight isolates, whereas sound incorporates; vision is directional, whereas sound is omni-directional. The sense of sight implies exteriority, but sound creates an experience of interiority. I regard an object, but sound approaches me; the eye reaches, but the ear receives. Buildings do not react to our gaze, but they do return our sounds back to our ears.” - The Eyes of the Skin

I don’t think we can speak about intimacy without considering safety.

A friend once told me, 'Safety is a privilege,' during a Zoom conversation, just before I was about to catch a train to Leiden.

Safety is on my mind quite often. It might be one of the reasons I’m so curious about how people navigate the world and what brings them enough comfort to engage their senses more deeply, beyond just a visual experience.

‘Do you feel safe in Leiden?’ I asked my friend Alina while we were walking the streets of the city in the evening. She nodded and smiled, then began sharing stories of the times she didn’t feel safe while living in Barcelona.

I feel safe when my nervous system is finally soothed.

Being constantly hyper-aware on the streets, always alert and viscerally feeling the world around me, can be draining. Loud sounds distract me, sudden noises feel like pins under my skin, and I’m always acutely aware of my surroundings.

As we were heading back to the train station, Alina and I both agreed that we seek out places that help regulate our nervous systems. We are drawn to locations where we feel safe and at rest. Once we feel safe, it becomes much easier to fully experience a place beyond mere sight.

Subscribe now

Thank you for reading.

Together with PamPam, I’m organizing a group walk in Manhattan, New York, on the morning of October 6th. If you’re based in New York and would like to join us, please RSVP here.

Onwards,

Patricia Hurducaș