The Certainty of a Little More Time

Farewell For Now New York

Mary Oliver’s essay “Swoon” opens with her intimately observing a spider spinning its intricate web in the stairwell of her rented house. Throughout her time in this abode, she’s witnessed the spider hatch her eggs and feed her spiderlings, casually passing them by as she ascends or descends the stairs, sure that some kind of careless motion will eventually knock the spider and her web down. But after months of passing by the mini-ecosystem, it’s stayed intact, to Oliver’s surprise. And so she can’t help but pay it mind, taking each step up and down the stairs with care, so as not to knock it down by mistake. To tear the web down after all these months of coexisting would seem pointless. Now that she’s aware of how long it’s withstood the conditions of the home, striking it down would feel unjust. So she lets this tiny world exist within her own small world, allowing this minuscule life with its solely essential tasks to be a fixture within her own day-to-day life. She watches it continue to be until it simply is.

I think about this essay during the moments between an opening act and a headline performer at a general admission concert. At this point in the concert experience, you’ve likely been standing for the better part of an hour, your knees and lower back yelping out in quiet agony. You’re likely dehydrated and covered in sweat - either your own perspiration or that of the fellow concertgoer next to you. You might be a bit claustrophobic, but there’s nowhere to run, I fear. In these moments, you must make like Mary Oliver and her spiderweb and simply coexist, perhaps even making a careful note of your surroundings to make the situation less uncomfortable. Allow the people around you, the blown smoke in the air, and the instruments on stage to all become temporary fixtures.

This was my experience several weeks ago at the Clairo residency at Webster Hall. I arrived at the concert a half hour or so too early and was left with nothing more to do than observe my surroundings to pass the time. I could have scrolled on my phone in this moment, but given the nausea that had already overtaken me from being in the stuffy, crowded room, I figured that wasn’t a smart move. Instead, I watched those around me scroll on their phones. The person directly in front of me was sexting on iMessage. Another guy in front of me played Candy Crush while his girlfriend - merch T-shirt on, pink ribbon in her hair - swayed to the music that played as we waited. I watched friends chatting and laughing while they sipped their drinks, even though everyone looked, in my eyes, well below the legal drinking age. Maybe they all had fake IDs, or maybe this is just what it means to be approaching my mid-twenties - I had just turned 24 that day. Or maybe everyone was my age, but far more vigorous than me. These days I feel as though I have the energy of someone several decades my senior.

When Clairo and her band finally arrived on stage, the audience erupted in cheers and many put down their phones. When they began the first song, I was utterly transfixed by the harmony of their instruments - that’s always how it goes when I see live music being played. All the separate parts create a whole in perfect time - it’s a beautiful kind of alchemy. Sorcery. One band member kept switching between brass and woodwind instruments, shuffling between a saxophone, clarinet, and flute with ease. The Candy Crush boyfriend swiped out of Candy Crush and opened up his NFL app to stream a live game with his head down. His girlfriend sang loudly and danced by herself.

Screenshot of a video I took of Clairo at Webster Hall

A few days later, I listened to Clairo as I took the G train to the Fulton station in Brooklyn. I was meeting a friend for dinner in Fort Greene and, similar to the concert, I was arriving quite early. I decided to walk around the park a bit to pass the time. Clairo’s “Softly” played on repeat, acting as a backdrop to my stroll. I am leaving New York in a few weeks and with that knowledge, I wanted to turn all my senses on at their fullest capacity, as if I could somehow absorb the city into my DNA by paying extra attention. A late summer sunset washed over the park, the sky enveloping all of the parkgoers in a warm pink glow. 

Time can move so fast living in a city, but in these moments - waiting in a crowd before a concert, moseying around the park before dinner - it turns to taffy. I can stretch time and bend it to my whim. I can choose to speed through the idleness (with outlets like Candy Crush) or choose to sit in even the briefest of bored moments and truly try to notice. I remember trying to do this every time I would walk to class during my final year of college in Seattle. I wanted to catalog every crunch of a leaf underfoot, every drop of rainwater that soaked through my sneakers, every moment of quiet in the library. And I’m glad I did because like that moment in Fort Greene Park, these moments of shuffling around my university are also embedded in my fabric. When you pass through life in this way, it’s as if you never truly leave a place, but rather take a piece of it with you. At least that’s what I tell myself to make transitory moments less somber.

Cherry blossoms in the quad at the University of Washington, Seattle

These final days of mine in New York are like the moments before the headline performer and the moments ambling through the park at sunset, head hurting and stomach growling. I tend to want to act rashly and cruelly in the moments preceding a great life juncture. What’s the point in continuing life as it was for these few more days, knowing it won’t be this way much longer? If you know a change is coming, why not just make it happen already? I am excited for what’s to come and also scared because it’s new - I might as well kill this anxiety by moving up the date. Get all my teeth pulled in one sitting.

Mary Oliver shares this anxiety with the spider dwelling in her home. Knowing she’s moving out in the coming days, she’s nervous about what will come of the spider and her web, which have become reliable housemates to her. She knows that upon seeing the spider and her web, the homeowners will promptly sweep it away without a second thought. Oliver contemplates attempting to move the spiderweb, but where would she put it? In the yard, where crickets and an impending winter lurk? Could she even move the spider and web without damaging them?

After mulling it over in her mind, Oliver finally lands on what to do: nothing. She writes:

“I simply was not able to risk wrecking her world and I could see no possible way I could move the whole kingdom. So I left her with the only thing I could - the certainty of a little more time.”

The spider’s demise is inevitable - even if Oliver were able to safely transport her outside, she surely wouldn’t survive winter. The spider knows her life cycle and her life duty implicitly and her heart doesn’t bleed like Oliver’s (because she is a spider, after all). The spider probably somehow also knows the value of time, in an abstract sense, even if its time is constrained.

Change of all kinds is impossible to curb. Every day we make easy choices and hard choices and choices that fall somewhere in the middle. The most challenging part isn’t making the right choice, but choosing in general. And once that choice is made, there is sanctity in offering ourselves and those around us the certainty of even just the smallest bit of time. The uneasiness before the concert. The stirring in your stomach before dinner. The days of living out of boxes and final meals at your dining table. The last glance at the spider’s web before shutting the door. There’s sanctity in the certainty of all of it, even if that certainty is limited.

Sunset in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

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