Probably the only thing one can really learn, the only technique to learn, is the capacity to be able to change.
–Phillip Guston
My dear readers, I owe you an apology for my brief hiatus from writing. I am sure that over the past few weeks you have suffered many sleepless nights wondering, “When will Allison return to grace us once more with her charming observations of the world? How can I go on not knowing how, exactly, she has been preoccupying herself? Is she alright?” Fear not, loyal readers, for I am fine. I have merely been caught up in the flurry of traveling home for the holidays, reconnecting with my family and friends, and then traveling to Belgium for a little New Year’s trip.
I now find myself back in Ireland a week into a brand new year, both excited and nervous by the unknowns that lay ahead of me in 2024. Yet before I speculate too far about what is to come, I want to take a moment to acknowledge what has happened. They say you shouldn’t look back, but sometimes I am not too sure about this advice. To constantly move forward leaves no time to acknowledge and cherish the fleeting moments that have contributed to the here and now: the good, the bad, the neutral. These are the encounters that help us change—the experiences that cause us to learn by adapting new shapes and forms, overcoming weaknesses or perhaps failing certain challenges, conquering certain goals and reconsidering new paths forward.
So here I offer a list of 23 chronological moments from 2023—some monumental and some small—that changed me.
1. I visited the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee
My graduate school friends and I visited Nashville (our Romanian friend wanted a proper American cultural experience. A relaxing long weekend in Florida was vetoed). Naturally, being the art historians we all are, we decided to visit the full scale replica of the Parthenon built for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897. As the antiquities specialist of our posse walked us through the reconstructed temple, I felt immense gratitude for what I study and the passionate people I study with.
2. I realized I like martinis
Gin with a twist, to be exact. Conquering my fear of olives remains on the to do list for 2024.
3. I went on a mission
On a Saturday in late February, my dear friend Amy, my boyfriend James, and my siblings decided to take the Metro North to my parents’ home in Connecticut for the weekend. We all needed a break from the city. That night, my stepsister proposed a “mission.” We had to reach the beach, about a mile away, and dip our toes in the water without being seen by any cars or pedestrians. Up for the challenge, we all dressed up in black gear (except for me, who only had a bright red puffer on hand), grabbed walkie talkies, decided on our code names (for me: TallGiraffe101), and sprinted down the street. We rolled down the hills of the golf course nearby, blanketed by the pitch black evening, and leapt into bushes to avoid the piercing headlights of passing cars. By the time I finally reached the rocky shore of Long Island Sound, I was flushed from warm laughter against the chilly air. I stripped off my sneakers and socks to feel the icy cold water against my toes. I felt like a child again, free to be uninhibited in my playfulness while surrounded by some of the people who knew me best. I turned on my walkie talkie to report that the mission was complete.
4. I got a colonoscopy
This certainly changed me in some form or another.
5. I ate gyros in Astoria after an MRI scan
I last minute found myself on crutches and in need of an MRI. The only place with availability was a radiology lab in Astoria, Queens. James took me to the far borough, and then took me out for cheap gyros afterwards. As I munched on the pita at what was notably an early hour for Greek food, I was overwhelmed with love for my partner.
6. I went to a live performance by artist Kevin Beasley
After spending over a year researching Kevin Beasley’s use of sound as an artistic medium for my MA thesis, I went to a sonic performance by the artist that celebrated the publication of his monograph, A View of a Landscape. As I sat in the performance space in the East Village, listening to the all at once beautiful and harrowing soundscapes, I felt literally connected to my fellow audience members by the sounds and narratives that flowed through all of us. That evening, my year’s worth of intensive research on the activating power of sonic art felt real and tangible. My ideas as an art historian were alive.
7. I was awarded a Fulbright
On April 14th, I sat in NYU’s downtown library, putting the final touches on my thesis when I got the email. I stood up abruptly, in a silent room of long tables and anxious undergrads, and gasped loudly. I ran outside and immediately FaceTimed my dad and stepmom. Everything felt different when I went back into the library to put my thesis aside, pack up my belongings, and walk home.
8. I got really tipsy at my friend’s grandmother’s apartment on the Upper East Side
On a whim, my friend from graduate school and her French fiancé invited James and me to have a wine and charcuterie night at her home, which happens to also be her grandmother’s lush apartment. Once we sat down, we didn’t get up for hours—except to grab more cheese and more wine. Our other friend from graduate school and her husband joined us at some ungodly hour, rolling in with a mostly-eaten bag of Ruffles and a half-eaten tub of onion dip as their offering. Her artist husband sketched my girlfriends and me as the French fiancé and James passionately discussed European politics. This was my modern day salon—a perfectly chaotic grouping of distinct personalities that, when together, just made sense.
9. I ate a stale NYC hotdog
In the morning I graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. My family took me to my ceremony, I ate dinner and drank too many martinis at my very favorite restaurant that evening, and I ended the night with a mediocre hotdog from a street vendor. I did the damn thing, I thought to myself, as I abandoned the stale bun in a nearby garbage can and munched on the wiener solo.
10. I ate arancini and drank cappuccinos at a strange Sicilian bodega
Amy and I went to Sicily together at the beginning of the summer. She was a month out from beginning medical school across the country in Washington. I was a few months out from moving to Dublin. After a hike into the hillsides behind Taormina, we stumbled upon a strange café/ bodega run by a non-english speaking grandma who fed us cappuccinos and fried balls of risotto shaped like mountains at 10am, all of which we devoured while looking over the actual mountains. In a few months, Amy and I would be living an eight hour time difference apart. But in this moment, we were together.
11. I was reminded of the fragility of life
My close friend was diagnosed with cancer. A few days after she shocked me with the news, my 31 year-old cousin passed away abruptly. Stunned by it all, I sat in a park in Carroll Gardens and cried tears of mourning, loss, frustration, anger, hope, gratitude, helplessness, and love.
12. I cried in the bush of South Africa
My father took my sister and me to South Africa at the end of the summer. This entire trip changed me in many ways, but one moment stands out in particular. My father, our safari guide, and I found ourselves alone on an evening game drive in Kruger Park—a notable change of pace from the usually full jeep. In the middle of nature, surrounded by awe-inspiring wildlife in its pure form and context, we all opened up about difficult moments of our past: how these experiences shaped us, what we learned, and how we sought to move forward. We all shed tears. The elephants moseyed by, undisturbed.
13. I went on a walk with my sister
Back from South Africa with only a week before my move to a country I had never been to, I started spiraling while alone on a walk. I texted my sister, and within fifteen minutes she was by my side. Over the past year, my relationship with my little sister took on new forms alongside her move into New York City— often as we simply walked down West Side Highway. She continues to be the one rushing by my side to walk beside me, even when we are an ocean apart.
14. I moved out of my New York apartment of three years
Saying goodbye to my roommate and the home we built was hard— but that was anticipated. Plus, I knew it wasn’t really goodbye. Saying goodbye to my doormen was unexpectedly heart-breaking. José cried. Gilbert now sends me voice memos on major holidays and my birthday.
15. I found solace in Dublin’s IKEA
After moving to Dublin the first stop for me and my personal mover (James) was IKEA. Watching James run around the store grabbing various pots and lamps and shelves and bedding, I was filled with similar feelings I experienced in the gyro shop in Astoria, Queens. Although I was embarking on a year alone in a new country, I was not really alone at all.
16. I jumped in the Irish Sea
The morning after James left Ireland, my new roommate, Kate, suggested an activity favored by the locals: jumping into the frigid Irish Sea. I agreed, and we took the rail to the best spot to do so, 45 minutes down the coast. Nervous by the fact that I had never done a cold plunge, but comforted by the fact that my partner had, we jumped into the water. The same feeling of Long Island Sound against my toes on the aforementioned “mission” overtook my whole body. It was thrilling. Another mission was now complete— this one on the opposite side of the ocean where the first ended.
17. I drove on the left side of the road
For thirty minutes. I plan to do more in 2024.
18. I missed my train to Limerick
Kate and I decided to venture out to Limerick for a day. However, the Dublin marathon forced our bus driver take an unexpected turn on the way to the train station (when we frantically asked him his new route he replied “I have no fecking idea! I am winging it!”). Once we reached the station (by foot), we had an hour to kill before the next train. I was worried that starting the adventure on this note may damper the mood of the whole day. Instead, it had the opposite effect. Kate and I entertained ourselves in the station as she played a public piano, we chased pigeons, and we later had a photoshoot in the passport photo booth. We laughed hard, and continued laughing for the rest of the day as we explored a new part of Ireland. I felt incredibly lucky to have moved in with a random roommate in a new country, and for this to be the outcome.
19. Children were stabbed next to my workplace
Later on the day the stabbings occurred— which happened to be Thanksgiving— riots broke out in Dublin. I reconciled with the fact that my American upbringing has conditioned me to undermine such events when they happen. I later noticed how unconsciously safe I had felt in Dublin compared to my home city. I further recognized how divisions inherent to constructed notions of race and citizenship are pervasive across borders.
20. I stood by my oldest friend’s side as she stuffed a turkey
I went to London for a Friendsgiving dinner and was reminded that I have close friends a short trip away. I stood next to my 4’11 friend as she stood on a step stool to reach the counter, offering her moral support as she stuck her fist deep into a turkey— just as she has stood by my side offering me moral support (for less gruesome but equally distressing/ formative experiences) for over ten years.
21. I borrowed my colleague’s hand mixer
In that small gesture to help make my own Friendsgiving meal come to life, I felt the support of my co-worker. Another colleague with family in the Southern U.S. dropped biscuit mix and creole seasoning at my desk when he overheard I was planning a proper American feast. This overwhelming sense of genuine support and community within my workplace has been a consistent theme since my move.
22. I went home and felt an intense sense of community
I expected a relaxing ten days at home for the holidays. Instead, my schedule was overflowing with friends and family: dinner with graduate school friends, coffee catch-ups, hellos to old co-workers, brunch with my college girlfriends, celebrations with my family and significant others, a visit from Amy—who I had not seen since her move to Washington, breakfast with my high school friends at our favorite hometown diner, a lunch with my friend who moved to Texas and was in the area for a few days, and so on. I ran out of time to see others I love and miss. As my father drove me back to JFK after a whirlwind of a trip, my cup was overflowing with a deep appreciation for my people and my home. Although everything changed, nothing changed too.
23. I saw the Ghent altarpiece
On New Years Eve, after a train tide from Bruges to Ghent, James and I visited the Ghent Altarpiece by the van Dyck brothers. Beforehand, as James booked us tickets online, I told him that I really didn’t think we had to do the virtual reality tour they were pushing on their website. “For sure,” he promised. Three hours later, I found myself being strapped up to a headset to begin our VR experience.
I’ll admit it, virtual Bishop Antonius was actually pretty informative as he walked us around the cathedral’s crypt and explained to us the many lives of the 15th century altarpiece. By the time we finally removed our headsets and encountered the real altarpiece in all its glory, I had a pretty good understanding of the object that I was looking at. Beyond the vibrant colors and incredible, oil painted details gracing the monumental altarpiece, what shocked me the most was the many lives the work had lived. The respective panels had undergone severities including multiple wars and conflicts, precarious (sometimes faulty) alterations, a robbery (one panel was never recovered), a rescuing from the Altaussee salt mines (a secret Nazi stolen art storage facility), and a handful of sales. Yet here the piece was, in its near entirety, on display nearly 600 years following its conception.
In this moment, before the year ended, I looked at an object for which so much of its life revolved around change—changes in its meaning, its purpose, its location, its knowledge, its story, and so on. And yet, its true essence remained steady and pertinent.
For me, this is what I related to as 2023 came to an end.
P.S. This was originally going to be a list of 10 moments, but too much happened for me to justify only 10. Any number other than 23 felt too arbitrary. My new year’s resolutions include the goal of making some posts shorter.
Love this for so many reasons. Sounds like 2023 was precious, adventurous, hilarious, and growth inspiring.
What an amazing year of parallel discoveries on the excitement of and adventure of your outer world, and the blissful comfort and security of your inner world.