A Weekend In Montauk
On Thanksgiving weekend, Caleb and I spent a night in Montauk with Brad and Jess. For some reason I’m having a difficult time saying “they are our couple friends who are married and we like them a lot” in a neat sentence, so I’ll just write it in bad English like that instead.
Brad and Jess are originally Caleb’s friends, and initially, I was very intimidated by them. Brad has this cool thing going on, and also his Instagram name is “Guy Debord.” Whenever I try to cite Debord’s movement, the Situationists, in an art review, my editor usually writes, “this logic does not make sense.” Thus, I automatically feel stupider whenever Debord’s name even gets mentioned, especially in relation to my boyfriend’s close friend who I am, by nature of the fact that I want him to like me, constantly trying to impress. Another thing editors frequently write is “this is a run on sentence.”
Jess is that girl who is always wearing the best outfit in the room. Saturday night, she cooked us dinner, and she was wearing a bow in her hair that also appeared in Mila Kunis’ advertising campaign for Dior.
“How did Jess get her hands on that bow?” you might ask. Because that seems pretty outlandish. But that’s because up until now, you didn’t know that Jess does the hair for all of the Dior mannequins in the US. She owns a salon in Greenpoint called Adelaide, where, knowing what you know now, you should obviously be getting your hair cut.
Whenever I know I’m going to see her, I usually buy a new piece of clothing so that she thinks that I have good style. That is painful and embarrassing to admit, but it’s the truth. Some girls just inspire imitation.
As it turns out, Jess also has the sort of sensitive heart that hurts unless everyone around her is comfortable and happy. Then, and only then, can she herself relax. Both she and Brad have been unerringly kind to me ever since I was first introduced to them, and I’m happy to know them. I’m also happy they don’t think that I’m an annoying twat.
All of our birthdays—me, Caleb, Brad, Jess—fell during the week of Thanksgiving. To celebrate, we rented motel rooms at the Oceanside Beach Resort, which is right at the beginning of town, on the ocean. During the summer it is prohibitively expensive, but to stay for a night in the fall, with an added fee for a dog, it was $145 per night. In the dead of winter, rooms run as cheap as $65. Could be an option if you want to do like an “absolutely bone chilling cold” romantic getaway this upcoming January.
Jess and Brad recently got a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy, Barlow. He is Franke’s only friend. Because he is a puppy, he doesn’t get offended when she steals his bones, and bites him on his inside lip, where she knows it hurts especially.
Most dogs, no matter their size, are absolutely terrified of Franke, but Barlow has known her since he’s been a tiny baby. A five pound biting bitch will forever be to him a standard dog.
Watching them play together, in the sand, was a pure joy. Franke runs really, really fast, and Barlow, who still hasn’t quite gotten a sense of his legs, trips after her. We took them out to the ocean just before sunset on Saturday, and let them enjoy the barren stretch of deserted beach until the sun, a slip of red, sunk below the horizon.
On the ocean, the air was freezing, and the wind whipped hard. The colors in the sky—winter pinks, blues, purples—seemed especially saturated.
Facing the sun, the palette looked heavenly, pastel and golden.
Facing the rising moon, the landscape was all steel, eggplant, taupe, orange, midnight blue. The further the light faded, the more silvery and slick the traces of the waves became on the shore.
By the time we got back to the hotel, we were thoroughly freezing. Jess had made an amazing second Thanksgiving meal, with all of the delicious, fattening stuff that had been missing from our first.
Yams with marshmallows, duck fat stuffing, a broccoli casserole. The turkey was perfectly cooked, and golden.
We had champagne; the night drew on. At midnight, bundled up, we took the dogs to the beach beside the lighthouse at the very tip of the island, down a dark path lined with smooth, polished rocks.
I won’t bore you with details about Montauk. It seems like it’s the place everyone is always discovering, even though people like Andy Warhol—definitely not a surfer—have owned houses there since the 1970s.
I’m sure you’ve read about its relatively laid back vibe; the cliffs; the myriad paths to strips of deserted oceans. To me, the shoreline looks like a far less majestic version of the tiered coastlines on the Western coast of Patagonia. I make the association because the colors are the same, and I visited both in the late fall.
In Patagonia, even at tourist sites, human beings were entirely absent. You could park your car, walk 50 feet, and completely lose reference to the inhabited world. It was thrilling, but also terrifying. Sometimes, standing on a cliff, or walking to a vista over crunching permafrost, I would lose my nerve, and run back to the car. Even the wind felt prehistoric.
In Montauk, even on the most desolate shores, traces of humans were everywhere. The natural world feels much more manageable.
Such is the hazard, and the blessing, of all places within easy reach of New York.