The Visa Diaries

Back in March, I went to a beautiful, fancy spa with my mother. It is hard to imagine that anybody anywhere could have stuffed more loveliness and good feeling into one week than the folks at the Rancho La Puerta. The weather was sunny and dry; the grounds were fragrant and beautiful; the fitness classes were fun and toning. The morning walks were magical; the people were friendly; the spa treatments were decadent. And to top it all off, the food was simply amazing – fresh and beautiful and delicious. At every meal I wanted to oggle the gorgeousness of the vegetables and marvel over the succulence of the fruits almost as much as I wanted to eat them. And when I did eat the food, not only was it delicious, but with every bite I could feel its vitaminy-goodness entering into my cells and its phyto-wonder sweeping out my toxins. But there was something even more: it was as if all the essence of the food’s simple, organic life – short but well-lived, grounded in the earth, reaching for the sky, kissed by the sun and stars – was entering my soul. I somehow felt more *moral* with every bite that I ate.

Yes, the week at the spa was divine. And then it drew to a close. I found myself in the San Diego airport, a little peckish. The options, as I looked around at the vinyl airport chairs and the gray utility carpet, seemed to be old tortilla chips with fake orange cheese, and the plastic baggied, slightly soggy sandwiches they now peddle at Starbucks. I felt sad. And the thought of returning to my life in New York made me sad too. Of course good fresh food and produce exists in New York, but it didn’t exist so very consistently in my life. I used to go to Whole Paycheck pretty regularly, but then I changed jobs and no longer work or live near one. I could go to the Farmers’ Market at Prospect Park on Saturdays, it is true, but I never seem to make it. The fast food options near my work tend more toward street meat than biodynamic. As I mentally surveyed the state of my food life in New York City, I could feel my cells shriveling, the energy depleting, and the chemicals pooling. My color fell and my skin sagged thinking about it.

Never one to resign myself without a fight, I looked into my options first thing when I arrived back on the Right Coast. Being the bobo place that it is, CSAs are quite popular in Brooklyn, and at first I thought this was the thing to do. I came close to signing up for one, but then I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to go pick it up during the 6-10pm window on Thursdays when it has to be fetched, and thus would waste my bounty. In the end I settled on Urban Organic. Unlike a CSA, they are not tied to one farm. They buy a selections of things that are in season (all organic) put ‘em in a box and – here is the key – deliver it to you. I was sold.

I get a box every two weeks. It is usually waiting outside my door when I get home from work on Mondays, filled with a friendly crew of things like chard, cabbage, tangellos, potatoes, etc. Some are more exotic than others, some I like more than others, but all of them provide that vital nutrient I was craving: the goodness for body and soul of well raised food.

I wrote a while back about buying a carpet in a Souk in Marrakech. I haven’t been to Marrakech recently, and sadly no upcoming plans to go, but yet I need a new carpet. So I am trying carpet-buying American-style this time, which is quite a different process. No tea is involved. Nor such beautiful, unique carpets for such good prices. Nor the high-pressure, mind-messing sales tactics. Alas.

I need the carpet for my living room, and it has to go with a very specific color: my couch is a surprisingly difficult to replicate eggplant-y, gray-ish brown. Or perhaps its more purple-y, brown-ish gray. Or if I were J. Crew, I might call it something like “Polluted Midnight” or – I know – “Oilspill.”

Finding a color that compliments that couch, as well as the light gray floor, and my bright pink chairs, is the order. It also needs to be neutral – there’s a lot of other action in the space. And it must be cool. I’m over shag rugs, I think most modern carpets with designs are trying too hard, and then there is just a whole world of “classic” designs that really should be called “tacky” and not even allowed through Homeland Security.

I started out not thinking much of this carpet-buying task, but this turned out to be a serious underestimation. I have come to long for a local souk to ply me with tea and apply minor torture until I have purchased several carpets. I will spare you the painful details of all the websites searched and the samples ordered, but I will tell you what I now know: stores have plenty of browns, and grays, and a few aubergines, but they do not have brown-y, grayish purple.

I finally did find one with the right colors, but it was way too expensive – $1500. Really? For a girl who is just graduating from Ikea that’s a bit much. So I kept on looking. And kept on, and nothing showed up.

After a few years (ok, it couldn’t have been years, I realize, but it felt like it) I decided to bite the bullet and buy the expensive carpet. I didn’t tell Matt the pricetag, since he was dubious about the look of it anyway. I put it on my credit card and eagerly awaited to carpet that was so dear, yet so perfectly colored.

Finally it arrived. We unwrapped it, unrolled it, adjusted the placement just so, and stood back to survey it. And it was… ok. It was fine. Nice even. Just not the perfect wow I was hoping for. Eh.

What to do? I lived with it for a week or two. Matt actually liked it. A two-year old narrowly missed dousing with o.j. Then my credit card bill came. The $1500 extra dollars sat rather heavily on that bottom line. I took a gulp, wrapped it up, and trundled it back to UPS. Maybe one day it won’t have to be perfect for $1500, but today it does.

The old Ikea shag that was acting as a placeholder is back on duty. I was dispirited for a while, but now I am back on the horse. There is a carpet out there that will be just right, I have faith. I am considering felt. I will let you know how it goes.

I was at a wedding a few months ago, and at the rehearsal dinner my friend Gillian complimented my dress. “Oh, its from GILT,” I replied, forgetting that Gillian lives in London, where GILT might not be a household name. She looked at me blankly, until I explained the concept: a recession business, good designer collections at big discounts, like who shops anywhere else these days? Her eyebrow shot up with interest.

The next evening, the scenario repeated itself. Different dress, but Gillian liked it also (she’s very kind), and lo-and-behold, that one came from GILT too. I felt a little sheepish for some reason – actually, the same guilt I feel at work each time the mail guys come in with a new personal package for me… from GILT. Thank goodness the boxes are not overtly marked (like exterminator vans and porno magazines) but really the trained eye knows a GILT box when they see one, and I think my colleagues and the mail guys are starting to catch on.

But anyway, back to our story: by Sunday of the wedding weekend, Gillian assumed that my entire wardrobe was from GILT. At the beach, she looked at my bathing suit and said, “GILT?”  (It was not, actually).

GILT is not news at this point, but it is interesting for me to realize that, over a year into my association with GILT, it has truly transformed the way I shop. I pass brick and mortar boutiques these days and think, “Oh god, who would ever buy something at full price??” and also, “Well, that looks cute, but I don’t have any money left b/c I already bought two things on GILT this month…” I do feel sorry for the demise of local fashion retailers… and yet GILT is just an unbeatable combination for me. It my guilty habit.

Here are the reasons its got me hooked:
1. Discounts. Here I have to say that I don’t actually spend less money by shopping on GILT, I just buy things that had a higher price to begin with. Are they better? Are the prices listed actually prices, or were they just inflated to be discounted? I can’t say for sure… but it does make me feel like I’m getting a bargain. (Which means that I’m actually being frugal… right??)

2. Timing. It pops into my inbox every day at approximately 11:50 a.m. I am almost invariably feeling slightly bored and disenchanted with work (the nature of the beast), and welcome the escape. It is a small diversion, a bit of effervescence. Shopping is the opportunity to imagine myself and my life transformed into the fantasy of the person who would wear that thing. Work turns out to be the place where that fantasy is direly needed.

3. Variety. J.Crew and Urban Outfitters regularly pop into my inbox announcing sales also, but I almost never even open those messages. Part of the appeal of GILT is that its got different designers everyday. No annoying self-promotion, no flogging of the same tired pony.

That’s it, the 1-2-3 killer combination. The product itself is almost secondary. It is exciting when a box arrives, but in most cases I’ve practically forgotten about it by that point. The joy is mainly in the envisioning.

What are the results of my association with GILT? For one, my wardrobe has gotten better. For two, I spend almost no time shopping anymore (umm, at least not outside of my lunch hour…) But for three, I have an increased level of shopping anxiety. Or should we say guilt. I live with a faint but perceptible worry that I will be tempted by something in the day’s email.

However, this anxiety has not proven enough to make me cancel my membership. For now at least, the thrill of the occasional jewel/ bargain is worth the demon of constant temptation.

Gillian emailed me a few days later to report that GILT does indeed ship to London. Her first purchase was on its way.

Back in April, I got an email from my lovely neighbor Nick, asking what did I want to do with our common planters? Growing season was upon us, he pointed out, and the dead sea grass in there just wasn’t coming back. Simple and kindly as it was, this email made me want to curl up into the fetal position. I had been clinging to the idea that the sea grass would come back, and his note shattered my delusion. I liked the sea grass – it gave me a sort of Hampton-on-Brooklyn feel – but that wasn’t the real reason for my distress. The real reason for the little knot of panic was that I knew as little about gardening as I do about Arabic, and it seemed about as complicated. On top of a to-do list that was already on code red, adding on the project of learning about what to plant and how to care for it seemed too daunting to contemplate. I went outside, hoping in vain to see little green shoots in the straw brown mass of (clearly) dead grass. Alas there were none. The breath became quick and shallow in my throat.

My seed packets

Fast forward 2 months, and sappy as it sounds, it turns out that sometimes when you face your fears and take ownership of a situation, life really does spring up to meet you (literally in this case) in wonderful ways. Left with no choice, I decided that I would indeed take on the garden task, and a whole new world opened up to me. Problem No. 1 of the urban gardener, no car, was temporarily fixed the following weekend, when Matt and I had a car rented for another purpose. A Home Depot magically sprung up on our route, and I discovered to my delight a whole section not only full of plants of wondrous variety, but also big bags of dirt and even pots. Who knew?! One hour and $130 later, we had the beginnings of a respectable patio garden: a reddish tree that we thought was a Japanese Maple, but have since discovered is not, and still remains unidentified; several creeping Phlox fillers for the planter with bright purple flowers; and a spunky Persian Lilac. As we pulled the old grass and filled the box with rich new soil and blooming plants, I felt terribly earthy and rooted to Life, and I understood for the first time the appeal of dirt under my fingertips.

This exercise would have been enough to stave off garden guilt – my planters were full of living vegetable matter. However, a funny thing happened: I kept going. I got some Clymatis vines for the roof; the Brooklyn Botanic Garden had their annual plant sale, and I came home with a Violet, and a Jasmine, and an happy light green plant with little purple flowers, and an evergreen with pink flowers; my brother came to visit, and gave me hanging plant with bright pink flowers; while at the local hardware store, I picked up some seeds for Cosmos and Morning Glory, and I planted those; another time I got a Dahlia bulb, and put that in a pot too (upside down, I believe). I turned pots (so expensive!!) into an arts and crafts projects and now have an lovely, eclectic collection of multi-color spray-painted pots.

Each evening when I come home, I check in and water the plants. The slow steady progress is incredibly soothing and fulfilling. The plants that have come up from seed are especially thrilling, but even coaxing a bloom out of a pre-grown plant is pride-inducing. Hell, just keeping them alive makes me feel good. This all probably sounds like ‘duh’ to people who’ve been gardening for years, but hey, now I get it. Better late than never to the garden party?