Meditations on Pittsburgh

Recently, I was re-watching one of my favorite episodes of My So Called Life, and it ended with a shot of Angela riding her bike (or maybe it was Brian Krakow’s bike?) down a suburban street. She’s moving away from the camera, trying to let go of the handlebars to ride with no hands. She lets go and then grabs back on, lets go and grabs back on, before finally letting go and raising her hands in triumph up in the air. And as I watched, I thought about Pittsburgh—the city Angela lives in and the city where I grew up. I was reminded of the freedom I felt bicycling down very similar suburban streets as a teenager and a pang of nostalgia hit me hard, knocking me into a daydream where Matt and I moved back, I got pregnant, and we lived there, with a little yard, fewer neighbors, and a couple of animals.

Coincidentally, or perhaps guided by my daydream, I checked in on my friend who just moved from Los Angeles to the suburbs of New York to see how the wintry transition was going. And she told me her personal theory of how living in Los Angeles was just too easy and how she has learned that she needs winter to appreciate those first cold spring days. “There is always something to look forward to when you have four distinct parts of the year,” she wrote, and the poetry of her argument resonated with me. Maybe Los Angeles—with its perfect weather, proximity to the mountains and ocean, the pretty people and prettier produce, the special places like Runyon Canyon and Koreatown with its Korean spas—is too good for our own good.

So, I went home to Pittsburgh with all of this in mind, and without telling anyone, I decided I would try to imagine what living there as an adult would be like: what neighborhood Matt and I might move to, what the price of a house was there, how we might spend our Sunday afternoons, and what it would feel like to be so near the support of family.

And then I stepped off the plane into the jetway, and the cold, Pennsylvania-in-January air blew right through my purchased-in-Los-Angeles winter coat and boots, and rested in my bones where it would remain for the rest of the night.

As is customary on the first night back, Mom and I picked up Grandma, and we went for sushi. Since my last visit, because of failing kidneys, Grandma has cut sugar out of her diet, and though Mom warned me that she had lost a lot of weight and was teeny tiny now, I still wasn’t ready for the change.

In the morning, the icy wind burned my eyes, filling them with tears as Matt and I walked from a breakfast spot in Lawrenceville to the cute coffee shop a few blocks away. And when we arrived at Matt’s parents new loft space where construction just finished, instead of being able to properly ooh and aah, all I could do was sit on the couch and try to bring life back to my feet, which had become two low-functioning blocks of ice. My body had completely forgotten about winter. 

But, later in the day, I was ready to give the outdoors another shot. It was dusk; it was snowing, and I wanted to breathe in that frosty, clean air. I offered to walk Matt’s parents’ dogs. I borrowed a hat and gloves, grabbed a Havanese and went outside.

I lasted three minutes. I wasn’t even at the neighbor’s house before I handed my dog over to Matt, who was doing just fine with the other one, and ran back to the house.

That night, we were having a family dinner with both Matt’s and my family, which included Grandma, my brother and his girlfriend—these latter two I hadn’t seen in over a year and a half. Matt’s dad made a fire, Matt’s mom made chicken Parmesan, Matt made his famous garlic bread, my mom made her famous Caesar salad, and I did nothing more than clean a few mushrooms and pour red wine. It was the big holiday dinner I’d wanted all holiday-season long. And about halfway through the meal, I felt the color return to my face and the circulation to my feet.

The next day, my recluse of a dad, who lives in rural Pennsylvania, drove down to see my brother and me. He doesn’t exactly travel and so, I haven’t seen him since my wedding, over three years ago. If I was a little upset to see my grandma’s weight loss, I was even more upset to see Dad’s weight gain. He had open-heart surgery a few years ago and doesn’t seem to be taking care of himself or making the lifestyle changes I had hoped he would. In his defense, he says his dad died at 62 and that at 63 he’s living on extra time. Even if his response can be considered an argument, I find it very lacking. The good news? Between navigating controversial family topics and political conspiracy theories, he tells my brother and I about his new, online chess “clan,” the Chessperados.

Pittsburgh is cold and complicated.

*

For those of you unfamiliar with Korean spas, let me tell you that this is reason enough to live in Los Angeles or any other city that has them. For only fifteen U.S. dollars, you can spend your day spa-ing away, and for an additional thirty, you can get a body scrub that will rid you of skin layers you didn’t even know you had. Of course, my first time there, I did it all wrong. I went from the hot shower (You must shower first. This, they make very clear.), to the hot steam room, to the hot sauna, to the jade room (not sure what the benefits of this room are, but I like it.) to the scalding hot tub and back again. It was fun. So many options! And all of them hot! But by the time the woman called my number(!) for my scrub, my face was lobster red and I was having trouble stringing a sentence together. She took one look at me and diagnosed my condition: “Too much sauna!”

A week or so later, I came across this super interesting article, which among other things, discussed the spa culture of Sweden. The article revealed my mistake: I hadn’t cold plunged. I had gone from hot to hot to hot to hot, and guess what? Body don’t like that. And now that I thought about it, I had seen a few brave women plunging themselves in this one tiny pool, but when I dipped my toe in and it nearly froze, I promptly trotted off toward the sauna.

*

Two knots in my lower back had me dreaming of a massage all weekend long, and so when we got home to Los Angeles, I ran myself to the Korean spa where the price is right when it comes to massages. As a seasoned veteran, I know now to cold plunge between trips to the sauna and steam room. This knowledge doesn’t make it any easier. Your whole being is screaming to get out of that freezing water. What does make it easier is knowing how great you’ll feel once you’re out. Maybe life is like this. Hot and cold—no matter where we live. And maybe the trickier part is in the moments in between, when we’re not sure where we're headed or how to feel.

Pittsburgh is a beautiful city. And for better or worse, it's responsible for much of my constitution.
But this morning, Los Angeles didn’t feel so scattered and demanding. We woke up to rain, and Matt made pancakes, substituting the called-for milk with half and half. And guess what else? That dreamy shot of Angela Chase riding her bike on that suburban street? I bet they shot that in L.A.