Standing in the Doorframe

And then, slowly, stepping through the threshold

One of the very first things a friend said to me when I moved to New York a year ago this week, unprompted, was: “It SUCKS at first. The beginning is really hard.” And it did! And it was! She was right. But then it sucked less and less, got less and less hard. Once it no longer sucked too hard but I still felt close to that early stage, I wrote about my arrival. I had to lean hard into metaphor to say what I wanted to say, what I needed to get out. I workshopped this essay with two of my professors who helped get it here, and who also said it still had further to go. I’ve never workshopped an essay this much, like that, and their insights pushed it to be better and richer. But then I set it down for the summer, and now that I’ve been here a full year, now that it no longer sucks at all and that I can’t even remember why exactly it felt so hard, I don’t know how to edit this piece any further. It’s due for an epilogue, an amendment. But I’m sharing it with you now as is instead. Sharing it as a memento, as a marker of what was. To dust off the cobwebs. Etc. There are enough metaphors in the essay itself, so I’ll let it be. Voilà.

(It’s a long one, longer than what I usually share here, so it’s likely to get cut off in your inbox. Click the title above to read in full in your browser. And thanks, as always, for reading.)

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Standing in the Doorframe 

“I pulled the rug out from under myself. And it turns out I liked my comfortable rug.” I said into the phone. This was one of the phrases I kept repeating to myself and others in August.

“You’re just stepping through a threshold,” Eleanor responded. This was the phrase Eleanor kept turning to, that August.

“In that case, I’m bracing in the doorway,” I replied. This was how I felt then. Stuck.

In late August, in Brooklyn, I paced around Brower park while on the phone with Eleanor. It had been a hot week, my first week in the city, but in the late afternoon the air was beginning to cool. I paused on a bench in the shade. We were talking about our home in San Francisco. (I still thought of it as “our home”.) We talked about how it had been so filled with goodness, with beauty, with love. About how special it had been to share a home and a city, to live side by side for the past few years. So special, so filled up, so much so that it had reached its threshold. So much so that we outgrew it. We outgrew ourselves. We talked then about how it was all shifting: our lives, and the ground beneath our feet. She read me the definition of threshold she and her new girlfriend had texted back and forth earlier that month. Eleanor was naming something I hadn’t yet understood for myself. “We’re walking through a threshold,” she reiterated. Her for a new form of love, me for a new kind of home.

• Threshold: a gate, a door. As in, to step over and through the threshold.

• Threshold: an end, a boundary; the point of entering or beginning. As in, to reach a threshold.

• Threshold: the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested. As in, the thresh no longer holds.

After we hung up the phone, I sat in the park for a bit. Once it got too chilly or dark to keep journaling, I wrote: “I have to go home. I have a new home. It’s here, it’s walking distance from this little park I found. I’ll come back tomorrow to write more. Tomorrow is the beginning of what comes next.”

The next day, I began graduate school. But then I spent a semester standing in the doorway. As in, standing in my own way. As in, standing on the threshold instead of walking through it.

In an earthquake, you’re supposed to shelter in the doorframe, the strongest part of the house. That’s what I was always told. I’d hear this every year during the earthquake drills at school, when we would prepare for the inevitable.

In August 2024, I moved. I loved my (now former) house and its rugs. The one in the kitchen, stripped and long; the one in the living room, jute and huge; the one in the entryway, patterned and soft under foot. The striped one came with Lauren from her previous place. It was one of the first things to fill the then empty apartment. We’d stand on it after house dinners, doing the last of the dishes and finishing off the conversations that had begun as we cooked. The jute rug, Eleanor and Lauren picked up that one in North Beach during their move, when they were first furnishing 338 together. They stuffed the giant thing into Lauren’s little sedan, and had to hold onto it tight as they drove over the San Francisco hills, as they laughed their way across town. Frequently enough, we’d sit on it cross legged, surrounded by magazines and scissors, collaging together. The patterned one, that one arrived half a year after I moved in: our newest roommate Estella had driven it across country along with her other belongings. When she arrived, she asked us where it should go, and it found a perfect home in the entryway by the blue console and the shoe rack. We’d stand on it, the four of us, putting our shoes on and confirming: “We have everything, let’s go,” before heading out to Trouble Coffee and Ocean Beach or off to a weekend away, or taking our shoes off and stating: “That was fun,” with a sigh after coming back from a night out. But I never had my own rug, a rug in my room. That wasn’t an issue, I didn’t need or want one. It’s just an observation. All the rooms in the house had a rug except for mine.

In an earthquake, two tectonic plates collide and shake. Earthquakes are the result of pressure, built up tension in the earth’s crust that then needs to be released. As a kid, I’d play with the earthquake simulator at the Randall Museum. That’s probably where I first learned about plate tectonics, before even knowing how to read the words. The simulator recreates the San Andreas fault which runs vertically through the Bay. I’d turn a crank to build up pressure between the East Bay and South Bay plates. And then, when it wouldn’t turn any further, the whole thing would shake as it does in an earthquake, and I would dance as it trembled. And then I’d do it all again. As a San Franciscan, earthquakes are something I knew about without being taught. Something I know about as intuitively as packing an extra layer if heading towards the ocean, or sunglasses if going towards the bay. Something I know as intimately as I know that after a sunny day, the fog will roll in again and blanket the hilltops.

One of the first things I did when I was moving into my new apartment here in New York was get a new rug. The living room floor was bare when I arrived. My first night, I set out a blanket on the floor to have a picnic dinner with my friends who had carried my mattress in just hours earlier. That first week, I picked up a tan jute rug off Facebook Marketplace. It looks just like the one in my former San Francisco living room, but smaller. It was available just a block away. When I picked it up, it was packed up in a big plastic bag, and I carried the heavy thing back alone as best as I could, and then heaved it up the four flights of stairs. As soon as it was in place, under the white couch and the brown coffee table, the living room felt better. Looked more like mine. I texted a picture to my former roommates and said: “Like ours but in miniature!”

In an earthquake, it’s important to be prepared. My parents purchased an emergency radio just in case. It has a hand crank so that it can be used without batteries or electricity. Now it sits in the kitchen, always on as background sound while they cook. My mom keeps cans of non perishables in the fridge as her disaster food supply. When I ask if we should have tuna for dinner, she says not to touch her reserve.

When Estella moved in, a handful of months after I had, we gave her a tour of the house and its contents. Here is the hall closet where we hang our coats. Here is where we keep placemats and tablecloths. Here is the drawer for miscellaneous things, including, for no very good reason, a communal box of Q-tips. Here’s how the washer and dryer work. Here is the air purifier, which Lauren’s work gave her during the worst of the wild fires, and which we run on occasion now, as needed. Here is the pantry. It’s large enough that two of us can stand in here, come in. Here are baking ingredients, here’s where we stash the extra leaf for the dining table for when we host, there’s the air mattress for guests, and the picnic blanket. And down there, under the toolbox and lightbulbs, there are some extra masks, some bottled water, a flashlight. The beginnings of an earthquake safety kit. “We should probably build out a better one, just in case,” I said, thinking of my mom’s canned foods. Estella froze in the doorway. She had never been in an earthquake before. “Oh, but don’t worry, it’s just for safety. Earthquakes aren’t that big of a deal,” we reassured her.

“And if there is an earthquake?” she asked, “What do you do?”

“In an earthquake, it’s best to duck for cover. Move away from the windows. Stand in the strongest part of the house. The archway between the kitchen and living room is a safe spot. But we’re on solid rock here in Cole Valley. And if there’s a real earthquake, the Big One, well... The fire extinguisher is outside at the top of the stairs. But don’t think about it too much.” We moved on to the next room, pointed out the window to the backyard and the view of the city and the bridge.

In an earthquake, the foundation your house rests on can be the difference between survival or destruction. Some neighborhoods in San Francisco are built on stronger rock than others. The neighborhood I grew up in stands on firm ground. Some buildings are constructed more safely than others. The building I went to school in was designed to resist an earthquake. In middle school, as part of a science class project, I got to look directly at the building’s foundation. I could see how it was built to be anchored to the ground, how the cables that connected the foundation to what’s above would allow the building to sway back and forth if the earth shook without breaking.

That former house, that home with the beginning of an earthquake kit in the pantry, it was perfect. And how much perfect can you have in one life? In one moment? At one point, the pressure is too much and it all needs to shake free and tumble loose again. My roommates and I, in that former perfect home, we had all reached a turning point. We each stood on the verge of something new, something big: our own thresholds. We built each other up, stood as each others’ foundations, so we could then “build our own damn house,” per the Trouble Coffee mantra. No, so we could build our own damn lives. No, so we could sway back and forth on our foundation without breaking when the earth shakes next.

Before a big earthquake, there are sometimes a set of smaller quakes. These are called foreshocks. They act as warning, as a loosening. The tension has reached too high a magnitude, too much intensity. It’s the warning shot that gives you time to duck for cover before the mainshock hits. Afterwards, there are usually aftershocks. These are more dangerous: they can shake loose anything that broke in the quake itself. After the aftershocks settle, especially in brick buildings, it’s often just the doorframes that remain standing.

While home this winter, on a break between semesters, on a walk around Dolores Park, I told Eleanor about the golden fire hydrant at the top of 20th St. “Why is that one gold?” she’d asked. “Because it saved the neighborhood,” I answered. A fact I’d assumed was well known. A history I take for granted. A story I know so well I can’t tell you when I learned it. That fire hydrant saved my neighborhood long before it was my neighborhood. The fire hydrant that marks the line between the Mission and Noe Valley. It marks the threshold home.

In my old home, in Cole Valley, the N MUNI runs down the street right outside. (I can call it my “old home” now.) Every 10 minutes, I’d hear it rumble by. Every once in a while, when I’d been away and then would return home, the sound of the train would wake me in the night, when service resumed at dawn. But quickly I would no longer hear it and sleep through the night again. While home this winter, when I went over for dinner with my old roommates, the noise startled me at first, and then reminded me of where I was. It hadn’t changed too much, this house I used to live in.

In my new home in Brooklyn, my windows shake when a bus rumbles past below on New York Ave. The floor beneath my bed trembles. The rumbling, alongside all the street noise and honking cars and all the rest, kept me up at first. I couldn’t fall asleep, and once I did, I couldn’t stay asleep. But my Californian roommate finds the movement of it comforting. It reminds her of the earthquakes she slept through growing up. Now, like all the things you stop noticing about a house when it becomes a home, I have stopped noticing the noise, stopped noticing the windows when they quake.

In an earthquake, you’re supposed to stand away from the windows. You’re no longer recommended to stand in the doorway. The guidance about standing in a doorframe got revised a while ago. Doors can slam as the earth trembles and break your fingers, if you’re bracing too hard.

Now that I’m past the threshold, I can write about it, finally. Like a geologist analyzing the rock bed for historical data, I can look back at the earthquake of mine and mine it for understanding. I can see the earthquake clearly, and on either side of it, I can spot the foreshocks and the aftershocks.

Here’s what I haven’t stated explicitly yet. Earthquakes are frightening because they can destroy your home. They can make a house crumble within seconds. They can start a fire that burns a whole neighborhood down. They can bury you in the rubble. They transform a city, a landscape. They create rifts and they create mountains. They separate things that once stood next to each other and drive them apart. As much as I can pretend not to be scared of earthquakes, as much as I can stockpile an emergency kit, I know the threat they imply. Anticipation and preparedness doesn’t inoculate me from natural disasters.

Here’s what I mean by this extended metaphor: when I moved from the West Coast to the East Coast, I felt a rift in my life. The pressure had built up over time, reached a tipping point, and I knew I had to move. I created my own earthquake. The metaphors are rife with meaning. I knew the move would be hard for me, and yet, seeing it coming didn’t prevent me from feeling its effects. The reason I have to say all this through metaphor is I can’t come out and say it outright. This is the hardest thing to name: in leaving my home, I was afraid I’d destroyed what it had been. I was afraid I would bury myself in the rubble of what I’d left behind. For a minute, I let myself believe I had. I let myself be trapped in the debris.

Now that I'm past it, I can see all that as a geologist would. Now that the dust has settled, I can see where the plates shifted and settled back into place. I can tell you that the points which the quake separated did not get as far from one another as it looked at first glance. But I can only tell you that through metaphor.

While home this winter, my mom and I stood at the top of Corona Heights Park, right above the Randall Museum. I hadn’t been to either spot in years. From there, we looked out at the museum below us, at the neighborhood I grew up in to the left, at the neighborhood I’d lived in as an adult to the right. As we looked out west, my mom said something she’s said before: “It’s these views that make San Francisco so beautiful. It would be so boring if it were all flat.” And it’s the earthquakes that make the hills from which we take in the views. It’s the seismic shifts that create the ruptures and turn things over and allow us, over time, to build this home on top. You get my point.

After an earthquake, after the aftershocks have settled, you get out of the doorway. You get out of our own way. You rebuild. You call your loved ones, you check in. You reassess, you reassemble. You help your neighbors, they help you. After clearing the rubble, you lay a new foundation over what was before. You paint the fire hydrant that saves the neighborhood gold. It stands at the threshold.

Once back to New York, my roommates and I gathered for a house dinner all together. I picked up our take-out around the corner, and brought the big plastic bag full up the four flights of stairs. We sat around our round dining table, and swapped stories about our holidays with family, about our New Years celebrations with friends. And then we loaded the dishwasher. I stood on the little rug in front of the kitchen sink as I rinsed the plates. This rug is blue, and patterned, and one of my new roommates brought it with her when she moved in in August. After a night out for another roommate’s birthday, we sat on the white couch, taking our shoes off, comparing notes. We’d had a fun night dancing, and it was good to be home. Frequently enough, on a quiet morning, I’ve gotten in the habit of sitting cross-legged on the jute rug I picked up months ago, reading or writing, my mug of tea resting on the brown coffee table in front of me. This weekend, I’m going to pick up a big striped rug. This one will be for my room.