On Time Travelling During A Pandemic, or Airbnb Reviews I Never Wrote

I was going through some old work notebooks today and found this journal entry from 2020 that I completely forgot having written. I'm going to include it in full here, augmented with photos from then and from 2026. What a difference 6 years makes! I think I supressed a lot of what happened during that time (shocker!), but it's a nice reminder to look at it now and feel that what felt so accute at the time can dissipate and change with the passage of time. Not being in the midst of a global pandemic also helps. Without further ado, here's what I wrote in my notebook way back in October 2020.

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One of the many things this year has totally fucked up is my sense of time. Without the usual events and signposts to mark its pasasge, every day feels almost indistinguishable from the last. The start of the pandemic left me and so many others feeling unmoored. But six months in I was starting to feel a little too moored.

With no end in sight , and with the window closing on chances to gather "comfortably" outdoors, I booked a ticket to fly back east from L.A. to see my family. They live in Philly, but I grew up in a tiny town called Carversville, Pennsylvania and we booked separate airbnb's near there with the idea that it would be more relaxing.

From the start of the pandemic, one of the few things that calmed me was thinking back to childhood memories of Carversville and the surrounding farms, fields, and woods. Every time something in the news spiked my anxiety (so, every week pretty much) I would look at photos of Carversville on Instagram and it calmed me down. I started to look for rental houses there with the idea that it would be nice to work from a beautiful small town as long as my job wasn't physically tied to L.A.

me and Miles in our WFH era

It seemed like I wasn't the only one with that idea as I saw loads of rich New Yorkers popping up there, even the Hadid sisters had relocated to a farm near by and allegedly Bradley Cooper moved there too!

But what I was really fantasizing about was a time machine, or a space shuttle, something to break away from Covid anxiety, rage, and despair and replace it with the calm, quiet certainty of my childhood. I doubt that I actually felt that lack of anxiety as a kid but most of my memories from that time are good, and being an adult is hard. Especially now.

So I suited up for my space shuttle time machine, also known as Alaska flight 512 to Newark, and made it to the east coast.

lol

I've lived in Los Angeles for 15 years but at this point I accept that it will never fully feel like home to me. I'm one of those people who actually likes to fly, and take geotagged photos out the window then see where they are on the map once I land.

this geotag said Larchmont Village, but I don't think that's correct

Flying with the mask and shield was a little annoying, and it was weird to be in an indoors-ish public place for the first time in six months, but it went fine.

I landed on planet New Jersey, secured my rental car from U.S.S. Enterprise, and drove through Dunkin' Donuts on the way to my airbnb near New Hope, on the Delaware River.

the mighty Delaware

It was a dark one bedroom, basement unit in the middle of the woods. And whatever adaptations I had as a kid for living in the country have vanished after nearly three decades of living in cities. New hope? More like old dread! If it were appropriate to leave a detailed review of your existential crisis as an airbnb review, that's what I would have posted.

The difference between Instagram-stalking my hometown and actually being there was stark. I felt strong emotional attachments to intersections that I used to drive past, and brought back by smells and places that I hadn't experienced in many years. It fluctuated between calming and overwhelming. And at night, there alone with my thoughts in the middle of the woods, the anxiety and dread really kicked in.

At the onset of the pandemic it took about 10 days for these adrenaline spikes to subside, ofen with the help of Xanax (affectionately known in my family as Dr. X). It had been months, so I forgot how uncomfortable and viscerally the anxiety had hit me.

I'm not sure exactly why it kicked in again, but I think it was a combo of feeling far away from my wife in case a disaster struck while I was gone (not that unreasonable considering the year we've had) and also the fear of passing the virus along to my parents. I took all necessary precautions but I couldn't settle the catastrophizing voice in my head.

Even pre-Covid it has been a little bittersweet visiting with my parents. We are very close, but they are aging and it puts some pressure on each visit that makes me less present than I'd like to be. I don't know if it would feel different if I lived within driving distance of them, maybe? Regardless, I like spending time with them but on this trip would cry in the rental car after seeing them. My mom said I am pre-mourning them, another quality I'd like to change about myself. There will be plenty of time for actual grief once they're gone, why do I have to detract from these visits while they're still around?

my purple haired mother, standing in the Delaware River, with a mask telling us to VOTE. I am a fortunate son.

Wendy, David, and Selma out for a socially distant stroll

There were really great moments though, I don't want that to get lost. Watching the river from the deck of my parents' airbnb, going to Dilly's, the ice cream stand I used to go to after my little league games, visiting the orchard where I had a job picking blueberries one summer alongside my bff Shelby.

Solebury Orchards, where little Shelby and Abe used to work

I love this pic. This guy was definitely doing Covid right.

And there was one part of the visit where I found myself totally grounded and present. We visited a non-profit farm called the Carversville Farm Foundation. Something about being on this land that felt familiar, combined with the mission of the place to feed those in need felt very calming. I had been looking at photos of it for months, but the actual place was beautiful and the operation was incredibly impressive. Maybe I was meant to be a farmer. I mean, I know I wasn't (the whole blueberry picking thing) but being there felt great.

The old sheep farm on Cutalossa Road

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Now back to 2026 me. I thought I had journaled about how my anxiety immediately lessened once I moved from the New Hope airbnb into an airbnb apartment in South Philly, near where my sister and my niblings lived at the time, but maybe I removed those pages?

Again, I don't even remember writing any of this at all so who knows. But I do remember being struck by how much more comfortable I felt being in Philadelphia rather than remote Bucks County. I guess it's true, you really can't go home again!

the good Airbnb

But I'm happy to report that we did have a much less fraught family visit to the Carversville Farm Foundation last month, and were joined by my cousin Finn who grew up in L.A. It felt nice to show him a little bit of my hometown, the general store where I worked (i'm aware it sounds like i grew up in the 1890's), and we had an incredible tour of the farm which has only grown more impressive in the six years since I first visited.

Here are some of my favorite pics from that recent visit:

this is the spot where I used to man the cash register for the general store. now the Carversville post office, zip code 18913

Finn at the Carversville Store, which closed down during the pandemic but happy to see that it's back

a giant carrot carved from a tree stump

A little light reading on the farm

I loved driving this Rolls Royce of golf carts around the farm

And finally, back in Philly, my dad wearing his Carversville Farm Foundation hat on his 79th bday ❤️