The Summer of I Don't Know

On New York, froyo lines, Knicks fans, and everyone waiting for something

Everyone in my life right now feels like they are in a place of “I don’t know.”

Not in a bad way, necessarily. Or maybe in a bad way — I DON’T KNOW! Someone’s figuring out whether to stay in their job. Someone else is figuring out whether to stay in their relationship. A friend is waiting to hear back about something. Another friend is waiting to hear back about something else. Everyone is mid-sentence, mid-breath, mid-decision. There’s this collective holding pattern I keep noticing, where people are not quite here and not quite there, circling something they haven’t landed on yet.

I find myself in it too.

But here’s the thing — I also find it kind of comforting and confronting, in a weird way. Because if everyone is waiting for something, then maybe waiting is just the condition of being alive right now. Maybe the not-knowing is not a problem to be solved. Rilke said:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (1903)

“Live the questions now” — maybe you will live your way into the answer eventually. Maybe it’s just… TIME FOR SUMMER!

When you don’t know what to do, you have two options. You stay home and think about it

— or you just go. You show up for something. You enter the stream. New Yorkers have clearly chosen the second option right now, and I find it completely instructive.

I’m in New York and the theme here is really Knicks and staying outside. Sounds like it was a hard winter for everyone. Sorry to just show up and enjoy your summer, but it is what it is.

A few weeks ago I posted about the froyo craze in New York — New York (and it seems Paris too) is all about: LINES. LINES. LINES. To me that’s a sign of life, not a sign of lack of life. And I say this completely without judgment — in fact I think it looks kind of fun. There is something I find genuinely appealing about the idea of having a destination that’s worth standing outside for.

A philosopher named Roberto Casati — and yes, someone asked a philosopher about this — said that “a social ritual is being created around the line.” That these moments become shareable, Instagrammable, more acceptable than waiting at the supermarket because they are, in some sense, chosen. You opted in. You picked this line. The line as participation in something.

Here is a partial list of things people in New York are currently waiting in line for:

• A pizza slice at L’industrie Pizzeria in the West Village, which has barriers outside it now, like it’s a concert! (the pizza was fab)

• the biggest line I’ve personally witnessed: Hey Tea just opened their first “tea bar” format outside of China on the Upper East Side. More than 30 beverages, real brewed teas, a whole category called “Teamix,” tea ice cream.

• All the frozen yogurt places listed here : I finally tried Mimi’s — the trick is off-hours, 2pm–4pm on weekdays. Australian, health-forward, looks like an Apple Store, toppings include fennel pollen and olive oil, and my favorite random addition: Maldon salt. You pay by weight so load up on that salt; the rest is pricey. Worth it, especially when there’s no line.

  

• Dot Cakes — small frosted cakes with multicolored sprinkles, $11 each, went viral, line stretches down the block

• PopUp Bagels, where a 40-minute wait is considered totally reasonable and possibly fast

• Hot chocolate at Glace, which became a sensation after a food influencer’s video got tens of millions of views in 2023 and the line has basically not moved since

• Katz’s Delicatessen, which has been generating lines since before any of us were born and does not appear to be stopping

• Bao’s Pastry, Mixue (the Chinese chain that came over last fall)

• KazuNori (just handrolls, been around a while — sure, pop off!)

• Knicks watch parties — which is a whole other world!

• St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village — Father Jonah Teller, a Dominican priest who started taking daily walks through the neighborhood to talk to anyone who wanted to talk to a priest. Gen Z showed up. Now there are lines out the door every Sunday. I say this without irony: it might be the most New York thing on this list. Check out my podcast with Father Jonah.

And here’s the actual hack: right across from Mimi’s is Hashi Market — a Japanese market with a soft serve counter inside. Matcha and black sesame soft serve. No line. Zero wait. The black sesame is genuinely one of the best things I’ve had.

Sometimes the answer is just across the street.

SO, if you are in the season of your own “I don’t know” you start with the small stuff and work your way up! I heard that a lot when I binged Off Season and I loved it!

The small stuff is: get in line. Go to the movies. Stroll with a friend. Go for a walk. Read a book. Stop trying to solve your entire life and go do something that reminds you you’re in it.

Speaking of reading —

Ann Patchett just published Whistler (she’s hinting it might be her last novel, which makes every page feel more urgent). It’s about connection and impermanence and a reunion at the Met. NPR described it as a book that makes space for optimism —

And Kathryn Stockett — the author of The Help — just published The Calamity Club, her first novel in 17 years. I love a writer who takes 17 years and comes back anyway.

“I don’t know” and “stay in line” are actually the same instruction. Both require you to resist forcing a resolution. Both require you to stay with something a little longer than you’d like. Maybe “I don’t know” isn’t a problem to solve. Maybe it’s an invitation.

Maybe when you don’t know what comes next, the answer isn’t to think harder. Maybe the answer is to go where people are.

I don’t know what I’m waiting for exactly. But at least I’m in line.

and GO KNICKS! KNICKS IN 4!

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