Alone Time

by Stephanie Rosenbloom

  attempt proved fatal: S.L. Kotar and J.E. Gessler, Ballooning: A History, 1782–1900 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011).

  skirting Victorian convention: Alexandra Lapierre and Christel Mouchard, Women Travelers: A Century of Trailblazing Adventures, 1850–1950, trans. Deke Dusinberre (Paris: Flammarion, 2007).

  she was forty: Marianne North, Recollections of a Happy Life, Being the Autobiography of Marianne North (New York: Macmillan, 1894).

  Window-Licking

  “stroll is Parisian”: Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, trans. Isabel F. Hapgood (Project Gutenberg, 2008; originally published 1887).

  in the 1960s: “France May Lose Theater-in-Round,” New York Times, September 7, 1964.

  more passionate name: Penelope Green, “BOOKS OF STYLE; Good to the Last Shop,” New York Times, November 23, 2003.

  as Balzac wrote: Honoré de Balzac, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley, La Comédie Humaine d’Honoré de Balzac, vol. 12 (Boston: Hardy, Pratt & Company, 1900).

  told InStyle magazine: Jennifer Merritt, “Lena Dunham on Being a Loner: ‘When People Cancel on Me, I Feel Like I Found $1,000,’” InStyle, June 18, 2016.

  Harvard Business School, wrote: Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013).

  gives life meaning: Storr, Solitude.

  have described it: Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci, “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions,” Contemporary Educational Psychology 25, no. 1 (2000): 54–67.

  sparked by perambulating: Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz, “Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 40, no. 4 (2014): 1142–52.

  Renoir, and Moreau: Victor Hugo, The Memoirs of Victor Hugo (Project Gutenberg, 2009; originally published 1899). Musée d’Orsay website, musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire_id/paul-leclercq-10682.html. Jean Renoir, Renoir: My Father (New York: New York Review of Books Classics, 1958). Stephan Wolohojian, ed., with Anna Tahinci, “A Private Passion: Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2003.

  University of California, Riverside: Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness.

  an ideal shared space: The Project for Public Spaces website, https://www.pps.org/article/grplacefeat.

  “to stroll is to live”: Honoré de Balzac, The Works of Honoré de Balzac, vol. 36 (New York: McKinlay, Stone and MacKenzie, 1915).

  The Human Comedy: Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Honoré de Balzac,” https://www.britannica.com/biography/Honore-de-Balzac.

  all his works: Honoré de Balzac, Letters to Madame Hanska, born Countess Rzewuska, Afterwards Madame Honoré de Balzac, 1833–1846, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley (Boston: Hardy, Pratt & Company, 1900).

  copious amounts of coffee: Mary Blume and the International Herald Tribune (Paris edition), “Saga of a Statue: The Struggles of Rodin’s Balzac,” New York Times, August 15, 1998.

  Üsküdar

  “breathless even, for adventure”: Eartha Kitt with Tonya Bolden, Rejuvenate! (It’s Never Too Late) (New York: Scribner, 2001).

  every apartment window: Hilary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely, Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City (London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2014).

  Brooklyn and Üsküdar: “New York’s Brooklyn Signs Sister City Protocol with Istanbul’s Üsküdar,” BGNNews, Istanbul, August 12, 2015.

  “bridges of the soul”: Mehmet Çelik, “Brooklyn-Üsküdar: Istanbul and New York’s Iconic Districts Join Forces,” Daily Sabah, August 12, 2015.

  early in her career: Adrian Jack, “Obituary: Eartha Kitt,” Guardian (U.S. edition), December 28, 2008.

  Strolling Through Istanbul: Sumner-Boyd and Freely, Strolling Through Istanbul.

  attest to its effectiveness: Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Timothy D. Wilson, “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right,” Journal of Consumer Psychology 21, no. 2 (2011): 115–25.

  ten-foot tiger shark: Stephanie Rosenbloom, “What a Great Trip! And I’m Not Even There Yet,” New York Times, May 7, 2014.

  and “rosy retrospection”: Terence R. Mitchell, Leigh Thompson, Erika Peterson, and Randy Cronk, “Temporal Adjustments in the Evaluation of Events: The ‘Rosy View,’” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 33, no. 4 (July 1997): 421–48.

  “anywhere in the world”: Andrew Finkel, The Interior Design of Zeynep Fadillioğlu: Bosphorus and Beyond (Istanbul: MF Turistik Tesisleri, 2010).

  The Hamam

  “as much as possible”: Hussein Chalayan, “Hussein Chalayan on Fitting in,” The School of Life lecture series, Vimeo, February 2013, https://vimeo.com/60544453.

  The Innocents Abroad: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), The Innocents Abroad (Project Gutenberg, 2006; originally published 1869).

  “as best I can”: Edmondo De Amicis, Constantinople (Richmond, UK: Alma Classics, 2013).

  industry behemoth TripAdvisor: Jennifer Polland, “Here’s Why Istanbul Is the Most Popular Travel Destination in the World,” Business Insider, April 8, 2014.

  “party capital of Europe”: Andrew Finkel, “Istanbul Thrives as the New Party Capital of Europe,” Guardian (U.S. edition), January 1, 2011.

  are curious people: Robert Biswas-Diener and Todd B. Kashdan, “What Happy People Do Differently,” Psychology Today, July 2, 2013.

  scientific pursuits, or innovation: Todd B. Kashdan and Paul J. Silvia, “Curiosity and Interest: The Benefits of Thriving on Novelty and Challenge,” in The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, eds. Shane J. Lopez and C.R. Snyder (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 367–75.

  need not be major: Sonja Lyubomirsky, The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t; What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Does (New York: Penguin Press, 2013), 226–27.

  a Turkish bath: Antoine Remise, Gizem Unsalan, and Santiago Brusadin, “The Do’s and Dont’s of Visiting Istanbul in Summer,” TimeOut Istanbul, August 8, 2015.

  “locker rooms of men”: Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983).

  than new things: Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich, “To Do or to Have? That Is the Question,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 6 (2003): 1193–1202. Aaron C. Weidman and Elizabeth W. Dunn, “The Unsung Benefits of Material Things,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 7, no. 4 (2015): 390–99.

  “undermined as much”: Van Boven and Gilovich, “To Do or to Have?”

  confidence and self-esteem: “Outward Bound 2016 Fact Sheet,” OutwardBound, https://www.outwardbound.org/about-outward-bound/media.

  Call to Prayer

  “bore an invitation”: Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, A Mind at Peace, trans. Erdag Goknar (Brooklyn: Archipelago Books, 1949; English translation, 2008).

  “return to ourselves”: Hanh, Peace Is Every Step.

  magazine in 1928: “The Story of Greta Garbo,” as told by her to Ruth Biery, Photoplay, 1928.

  boatman of the Styx: Théophile Gautier, Constantinople of To-day, trans. Robert Howe Gould (London: David Bogue, 1854).

  (to behead her): Edith Hamilton, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (New York: A Mentor Book from New American Library, 1969).

  “than the model”: Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, trans. William Weaver (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1986).

  The Rainbow Stairs of Beyoğlu

  “here and now”: Orhan Pamuk, The Innocence of Objects, trans. Ekin Oklap (New York: Abrams, 2012).

  “act of guerrilla beautification”: Sebnem Arsu and Robert Mackey, “With a Burst of Color, Turkey’s Public Walkways Become a Fo
cus of Quiet Protest,” New York Times, September 3, 2013.

  “a thousand eyes see you”: Edmondo De Amicis, Constantinople (Richmond, UK: Alma Classics, 2013).

  “bellowing of foghorns”: Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers (Point Reyes, CA: Imperfect Publishing, 1994 and 2008).

  A Mind at Peace: Tanpinar, A Mind at Peace.

  “past its prime”: Orhan Pamuk, trans. Maureen Freely, Istanbul (New York: Knopf, 2004 and 2006).

  sign that warned: Orhan Pamuk, The Innocence of Objects, trans. Ekin Oklap (New York: Abrams, 2012).

  Before It’s Gone

  “before / it’s gone”: Rumi, The Essential Rumi: New Expanded Edition, trans. Coleman Barks (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).

  monastery in California: Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (New York: TED Books, Simon & Schuster, 2014).

  once put it: Chalayan, School of Life lecture series.

  dozen were wounded: Ceylan Yeginsu and Tim Arango, “Istanbul Explosion Kills 10 Tourists, and ISIS Is Blamed,” New York Times, January 12, 2016.

  Arrows and Angels

  “stilled and quieted”: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Project Gutenberg, 2008).

  “itself seemed scanty”: Henry James, Italian Hours (Project Gutenberg, 2004; originally published 1909).

  The Stones of Florence: Mary McCarthy, The Stones of Florence (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 1963).

  its creator, Filippo Brunelleschi: Ross King, Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture (New York: Bloomsbury, 2000).

  found it in the Arno: Eve Borsook, The Companion Guide to Florence (Suffolk, UK: Companion Guides, 1997).

  designed by Michelangelo: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana website, https://www.bmlonline.it/en/settore-monumentale.

  siege of 1529: Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, vol. 1, trans. George Bull (New York: Penguin Books, 1965).

  biographer, tells us: Ascanio Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, 2nd ed., trans. Alice Sedgwick Wohl, ed. Hellmut Wohl (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999).

  did get engaged: John Keats, Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends, ed. Sidney Colvin (Project Gutenberg, 2011; originally published 1891).

  “means most to me”: Amelia Earhart, letter of February 7, 1931, Noank, CT, to GPP: Amelia Earhart Papers (George Palmer Putnam Collection), Purdue University Libraries, e-Archives.

  during the siege: Vasari, Lives of the Artists.

  the “Stendhal Syndrome”: Clyde Haberman, “Florence’s Art Makes Some Go to Pieces,” Special to the New York Times, May 15, 1989.

  Metropolis M magazine: Maria Barnas, “Confrontations,” Metropolis M, 2008.

  easy to overlook: “Gary Snyder,” biography by the Poetry Foundation, 2009, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gary-snyder.

  “where to go next”: Magda Lipka Falck, Anywhere Travel Guide: 75 Cards for Discovering the Unexpected, Wherever Your Journey Leads (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2014).

  went into a private space: “Willoughby Sharp Videoviews Vito Acconci (1973),” http://www.ubu.com/film/acconci_sharp.html.

  “decided to follow him”: Sophie Calle and Jean Baudrillard, Suite venitienne/Please follow me., trans. Dany Barash and Danny Hatfield (Seattle: Bay Press, 1988).

  “Don’t Be Afraid to Travel Alone”: Ruth Orkin, American Girl in Italy, Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/271216.

  Alone with Venus

  “seem to vanish . . . ”: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations and Fragments, vol. 2, ed. Mary Shelley (London: Edward Moxon, 1840).

  come to his aid: Vasari, Lives of the Artists.

  “the diligent hunter-with-a-camera”: Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: RosettaBooks, 2005).

  since March 2014: Hemank Lamba, Varun Bharadhwaj, Mayank Vachher et al., Me, Myself and My Killfie: Characterizing and Preventing Selfie Deaths (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Library, 2016).

  in Hartford, Connecticut: Catalogue: Patti Smith Camera Solo (New Haven, CT: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2011).

  “where you are”: Fran Lebowitz, Documentary: “Public Speaking,” directed by Martin Scorsese, HBO, 2010.

  times a day: Michelle Klein (Facebook’s head of marketing for North America), Lecture at the TimesCenter during Social Media Week in New York, February 24, 2016.

  education minister, stated: Hugh Schofield, “The Plan to Ban Work Emails Out of Hours,” BBC News, Paris, May 11, 2016.

  Apollo and Artemis: Hamilton, Mythology.

  The Secret Corridor

  “that over yourself”: Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Complete, trans. Jean Paul Richter (Project Gutenberg, 2004; originally published 1888).

  (did not survive): Niccolo Machiavelli, History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy from the Earliest Times to the Death of Lorenzo the Magnificent (Project Gutenberg, 2006; originally published 1901).

  Francia a fool: Vasari, Lives of the Artists.

  “to be restored”: Paula Deitz, “After the Florence Flood: Saving Vasari’s ‘Last Supper,’” New York Times, November 3, 2016.

  “day you die”: Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness.

  Csikszentmihalyi called “flow”: Martin E. P. Seligman, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being (New York: Free Press, 2011). Csikszentmihalyi, Flow.

  Flow involves that: Ibid.

  “always would be”: Jan Swafford, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014).

  “would you do?”: Travel Leaders Group, “Survey: ‘Travel Etiquette: Americans Answer “What Would You Do?,”’” 2017.

  “sabbath of stillness”: Mary McCarthy, The Stones of Florence (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 1963).

  The City

  skipping town whenever possible: “The Most Visited Cities in the US,” WorldAtlas, accessed March 8, 2017, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-most-visited-cities-in-the-us.html.

  play called Sex: “Mae West Jailed with Two Producers,” New York Times, April 20, 1927.

  described creative living: Storr, Solitude.

  a clipper ship: Jan Morris, Manhattan ’45 (Boston and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).

  “when you’re alone”: Chuck Smith and Sono Kuwayama, interview with Agnes Martin at her studio in Taos, New Mexico, November 1997, https://vimeo.com/ondemand/agnesmartin.

  arriving from far-flung places: New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, “Coenties Slip,” https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/coenties-slip.

  “one another as well”: Holland Carter, “Where City History Was Made, a 50’s Group Made Art History,” New York Times, January 5, 1993.

  skylights of his studio: Whitney Museum of American Art, Downtown Branch, Nine Artists/Coenties Slip, January 10–February 14, 1974, https://archive.org/details/nineartistscoent18whit.

  down to the river: George Washington, “Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation,” University of Virginia, the Washington Papers, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/about/.

  Sanctuaries and Strangers

  “on a / Saturday”: Charles Bukowski, “My Secret Life, ” in Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems (New York: HarperCollins, 2008).

  what I do: Merriam-Webster, “Planet,” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/planet.

  SoraNews24 translated it: Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (San Diego: Harcourt 1989).

  nests to check in: Winifred Gallagher, House Think: A Room-by-Room Look at How We Live (New York: HarperCollins, 2006).

  sym
ptoms like headaches: Judith Heerwagen, “Smart Space: Thinking Outside the Cube,” 2004, https://www.creativityatwork.com/2004/09/10/does-your-office-feel-like-a-zoo/.

  his “sky parlor”: “Nathaniel Hawthorne,” National Park Service, Minute Man National Historic Park, May 24, 2016, https://www.nps.gov/mima/learn/historyculture/thewaysidenathanielhawthorne.htm.

  “water and tree room”: Aeronwy Thomas, My Father’s Places: A Memoir by Dylan Thomas’s Daughter (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2009).

  “opportunities for solitude”: Wilderness Act, Public Law 88-577 (16 U.S.C. 1131–1136), 88th Congress, 2nd Session, September 3, 1964.

  who seem like extroverts: “The Rest Test: A Hubbub Collaboration with BBC Radio 4,” 2015, https://wellcomecollection.org/what-we-do/hubbub.

  Lower Back Tattoo: Amy Schumer, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo (New York: Gallery Books, 2016).

  Lenny Bruce checked in: C.J. Hughes, “Hopes for a Street Resistant to Rebirth,” New York Times, October 1, 2013. James Sullivan, “Lenny Bruce Legacy Reexamined,” Rolling Stone, March 10, 2012.

  took their order: Gillian M. Sandstrom and Elizabeth W. Dunn, “Is Efficiency Overrated? Minimal Social Interactions Lead to Belonging and Positive Affect,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 5, no. 4 (May 2014): 437–42.

  talk to strangers: Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, “Mistakenly Seeking Solitude,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143, no. 5 (2014): 1980–99.

  “way of achieving privacy”: Westin, Privacy and Freedom.

  make us happy are wrong: Epley and Schroeder, “Mistakenly Seeking Solitude.”

  perspectives and connections: Kio Stark, “Why You Should Talk to Strangers,” TED2016, February 2016, https://www.ted.com/talks/kio_stark_why_you_should_talk_to_strangers.

  attachment to our communities: The Project for Public Spaces, https://www.pps.org/article/grplacefeat/.

  essay “The Stranger”: Georg Simmel, “The Stranger,” in The Sociology of Georg Simmel, trans. Kurt Wolff (New York: Free Press, 1950).

  “you kidding me”: Jen Kirkman, “Just Keep Livin’?,” Netflix, 2017.

  traveling without men: Kate Schneider, “Murdered Backpackers Maria Coni and Marina Menegazzo Facebook Post Goes Viral,” news.com.au, March 14, 2016.