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Going back somewhere that shaped you

its nothing that hasn’t been said before a thousand times. Im back in Philadelphia and we’re both different. I go to a fancy cocktail bar that’s opened on the road I’ve only ever been down to get to my ex‘s apartment. there were fewer businesses then, and many buildings were shuttered and dark. now there are high rises where there used to just be skeleton structures of plywood and plastic. I get coffee with two friends I introduced just before I left, and it’s sweet and strange to see the new flower of a friendship there that I didn’t watch grow. I take the bus down Washington Ave and try to catch a glimpse down the street my best friend used to live on, at the rooftop where we laughed and cried and sang and smoked and took five hundred thousand pictures of ourselves silhouetted against the skyline. I get lunch with my ex in his new neighborhood, eating at the diner we ordered delivery from when we had to quarantine together in late 2020. We talk about therapy and new partners and change. I take the regional rail out to the suburbs to see an old coworker who now has a baby. She shows me pictures from their family’s Christmas. I sit backwards on the way home, letting my eyes relax the row homes into a blur until im almost sick. A flock of starlings flies next to the train, gliding through the air for an almost unbelievable amount of time even with their wings closed. The birds all suddenly alight in a tree and the train pulls away.

@lynnnnie

Dec 30, 2024

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feeling like a person again

there's really something about summer. i was back in my home city and i've been more content than i've been in ages. i've been slowly but surely becoming a more functional, productive person and i revised for an exam in the sun, got myself a really good chai latte, took myself for a long walk - slowly feeling less like a cave creature trapped in mental hibernation

@ravioli

May 11, 2025

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Making a new friend in your hometown you only go back to occasionally to see family

Really helped me see my hometown through fresh new eyes, and appreciate things about it I took for granted! It also made me feel like I could bring all of me that has developed since I left the city back into it instead of purely regressing into my teenage self🥳

@gtrevi

May 21, 2024

Top Recs from @ryn

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pi.fyi irl

chicago hang success !! it was so lovely to meet everyone today <3 more plans incoming soon 📥mossyelfiejoe_m_millerbashfulchicken

@ryn

Aug 18, 2024

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cool aunt

my sister just had a baby and i am considering the type of aunt?/guncle ? (the designation becomes tricky w gender lol) i may be. but ultimately the archetype of “cool aunt”—mysterious, distant-yet-warm, uninvolved in family dramas, arrives at family gatherings wearing strange, somehow stylish clothes, bearing copious gifts and floating on an air of urban life—resonates most soundly with me this has also led me to reflect on how my mom’s sister played such a key role in my  youth by revealing to me a foundational truth that this is not all that there is! ‘twas a very hopeful message to me, a miserable child/teen unsuited to christian suburban life, forced to procure my wardrobe primarily from the women’s section at the department store because that is what my mother deemed reasonable (and kohl’s cash)  some of the notable moments my aunt bestowed upon my adolescence include: • taking me to see moonrise kingdom at the indie art deco theater in a nearby mountain town  • driving me to philly for shows at tla even though she had no idea who the artists were and would stand in the back; also paying for all my meals and whims on our south street jaunts • curating a collection of signed books from author visits at her local library, which she’d always drop off nonchalantly as gifts (charles santore picture books, lemony snicket !)  • signing me up for 5ks and carting me along to her races • explaining to me what a “lesbian” is and taking me to meet said lesbians in a dimly lit new york restaurant where i tried alligator sausage and felt so urbane  • general trips to ny for broadway shows and museums   • introducing me to rummikub • letting me roam free at community music festivals from late afternoon til dusk, where i’d encounter children from different counties, get in harmless trouble and infuse my life with the intrigue of those unknown to me but in those brief moments 

@ryn

Sep 25, 2024

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feeling the cumulative effects of therapy, exercise, and rest

these landed all at once and i’m feeling tapped into a wellspring of compassion and gratitude

@ryn

Dec 6, 2024