this time last year i would listen to this song every day on the subway to my mind-numbingly boring barista job. i worked eight hour shifts alone, serving the occasional customer but mostly just sitting around eating expired baked goods and staring down at my ten-year-old docs spattered with matcha and espresso, the soles crusted with sidewalk salt. i listened to Phair singing about closing her eyes and her bank account and needing someone to do her thinking for her, and i fantasized about walking away from the shapeless, sleepy postgraduate life i’d sunk into.
taking off my apron, abandoning the city and everyone who knew me there, getting on a train or a plane or just walking until i was swallowed by the sunset…it all sounds so trite now, but at the time i carried that idea around like a lucky charm. something to hold onto, to help me feel real. i thought it was the most romantic thing a girl could do. go west, young woman.