I'm moving to an invisible city

On moving from Columbus to New York City, and the novel Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Background art by Karina Puente

Have you ever read a story that you didn’t understand at the time, only to have its meaning revealed to you several months after putting it down? Such has been my experience reading Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.

As I’ve prepared to move from Columbus, Ohio– the city I’ve lived these past seven years, and the state these last 25– to New York City, the meaning of the book has slowly revealed itself to me.

I first picked up the book after enjoying reading the first half of another novel of the author’s, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. The book’s narrative devices are dense and difficult to comprehend at times, which is to say it was right up my alley. I love a story that rewards deep thought, study, and concentration. The more it holds back its meaning, the better.

Some of my friends from high school had started a book club that I’ve been somewhat preoccupied to join in on (sorry guys). Prolonged worktrips make it difficult to schedule anything regularly. So, I thought this one-hundred-something page book would be one I could knock out in a day or two and then pick my friends’ brains about.

I was able to garner interest from the books conceit alone. The book is no more than a novel than it is a collection of short prose poems. The story’s structure is built around a series of conversations between the famous Silk Road merchant, Marco Polo, and the Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan. Kublai asks the well traveled merchant to describe the cities he holds in his empire.

Each chapter begins and ends with a brief exchange of dialogue between Polo and Kublai, with a series of descriptions of cities sandwiched between them. Polo shares brief descriptions of every city, no cities, the same city, different cities, real cities, and/or fake cities. A thematic tag is attributed to each city, typically mirroring the theme in each city’s description. Themes such as memory, names, the sky, the dead, and more. You can find the complete matrix of cities here.

This was the exact sort of complexity I wanted to sink my teeth into, I thought. Plus, I figured it’d be a nice temperature check to see how willing my friends would be to read something like this. But by the end of my read of Invisible Cities I was dismayed to find I was completely lost upon finishing my read. I couldn’t put together any thoughts as to what the book was actually trying to tell me. Nor did I have even the slightest inkling as to what others might conjecture. I was so confused, that I suggested the club not bother meeting to discuss. No one objected.

A few months went by and my plans to move to New York became more solid. The more I meandered through Columbus, I started to feel the inevitability of the move. Soon, the places I once frequented would no longer be accessible to me. It was a terrifying cocktail of emotions that I didn’t know how to handle. So much has happened to me in this place and the thought of moving felt herculean. More than this, I felt there was nothing I could do to describe all the emotions I felt about this town of mine. Columbus feels so much more than a dot on a map to me. There were so many different aspects of the city that made trying to identify them and honor them justly near impossible.

Then, I passed Invisible Cities lying on my desk. I picked it up and read through some of the chapters and passages I left notes next to.

Cities & Memories 3 — Zaira

The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past: the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurper’s swaying feet; the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen’s nuptial procession; the height of that railing and the leap of the adulterer who climbs over it at dawn; the title of a guttering and a cat’s progress along it as it slips into the same window; the firing range of a gunboat which has suddenly appeared beyond the cape and the bomb that destroys the guttering; the rips in fishnets and the three old men seated on the dock mending nets and telling each other for the hundredth time the story of the gunboat of the usurper, who some say was the queen’s illegitimate son, abandoned in his swaddling clothes there on the dock.

With the knowledge that my time in the city is numbered, I’ve began to notice the spaces of the city that I know well and those I do not. I sense the familiarity or unfamiliarity of the routes, distances, and space between locations I’ve driven to. There were the routes I’ve taken hundreds of times and those not at all.

There are the roads to apartment buildings I used to visit every day but now avoid. Even though some of these roads are in perfect condition, the route feels in disrepair in my mind.

I drive by the back alleys I’d walk to get from my old apartment to campus. I remember how the city’s boundaries expanded past my college campus after graduation.

I recognize the liminality of my exit off of 670 East. No matter what had happened to me on a given day, the exit remained the same. Whether it was past midnight or high noon, it always acted as the threshold between my “neck of the woods” and the greater world.

These distances are much more than routes, however. Each measurement holds its own story. And the version of myself that walked or drove them are wildly different. Retreading my paths around my dorm from the time I was a freshman, a senior, and a graduate feel completely different. These roads, sidewalks, and fields of grass can never just be that. They are forever inseparable from the person who occupied them and the actions they contained.

This, I thought. This is what Columbus is.

Chapter 1 Epilogue

As the seasons passed and his missions continued, Marco mastered the Tartar language and the national idioms and tribal dialects. Now his accounts were the most precise and detailed that the Great Khan could wish and there was no question or curiosity which they did not satisfy. And yet each piece of information about a place recalled to the emperor’s mind that first gesture or object with which Marco had designated the palace. The new fact received a meaning from that emblem and also added to the emblem a new meaning. Perhaps, Kublai though, the empire is nothing but a zodiac of the mind’s phantasms.

When I first moved to Columbus, I was eighteen. I had just gotten over a horrible stomach bug that led to me losing twenty or so pounds. I had also just gotten my haircut as well. So, when I showed up for an early move in, all the other eighteen year olds knew this as my base state. I had to explain to them that this was not who I am. And with time, they would come to know what I “truly” looked like.

So was my experience with Columbus. When I first arrived, I looked over at the four corners of my college campus on a map and said “this is Columbus.” Going east of high street took you to the houses, apartments, and horribly intimidating fraternities. At that time, it was a lawless part of town, full of debauchery and fun. In contrast, if you took a bus to the Short North, you were going out for a fancy and refined part of town.

Then I moved off campus to that lawless wasteland and realized Columbus had more to offer than what was just adjacent to OSU’s campus. How naive I was. The scope of the city grew as I interfaced with it more as an individual as opposed to a student.

Then covid came around and completely reshaped the landscape of the city. So too were its people redefined. My apartment sat on the busiest intersection off of campus. Every weekend, I’d look out of my window at all the students who ignored the lock down orders to continue their benders. How naive.

Then I moved out to Blacklick to live with my Baba. Here I learned what true peace and quiet was like. And I came to know the cost of driving a half-hour to access any part of the city. And the price of gas. And the connection with my grandmother that I had taken for granted and neglected while living only a short 30-minute drive away. How naive.

Slowly, the truth of the city unraveled itself to me. I realized that it was my own unwillingness to discover more about Columbus that defined its scope for me. As soon as I limited its boundaries, I’d have an experience that exposed my biased gerrymandering.

Perhaps it is the physical boundaries I define around the city that makes Columbus.

Trading Cities 4 - Ersila

In Ersila, to establish the relationships that sustain the city’s life, the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of houses, white or black or gray or balck-and-white according to whether they mark a relationship of blood, of trade, authority, agency. When the strings become so numerous that you can no longer pass amongst them, the inhabitants leave: the houses are dismantled; only the strings and their supports remain.

When you walk around your neighborhood or drive through your city, do you feel a pull from certain places? Or a push?

I’ve began to think that if I had strings leading from my chest to different locations– just as Ersila has– what my network of webbing would look like. And how this web may have changed over time.

Before I resided out here, many of my classmates and friends would’ve seen my white lines cast far to the east towards Blacklick. And as I’ve joined families while in different relationships, people would have seen many other white strings tangled around that heavy-duty easterly rope.

Now, many of these strings lie limp– cut and disconnected– over the strongest of these ropes. But even that rope now threatens to break.

I see black strings form pentagrams around my favorite coffee shops in Columbus, places that have been my respite to read, write, and relax for some time. It feels strange to know that I will have to soon let them go. I wonder if there is somewhere I could secure them after I leave as to not let them fall into complete disrepair. Some of them I’m certain never will (Cup O’ Joe in Clintonville and any of the Stauf’s locations, if you must know).

Strings woven with both black and white fibers are the ones I hold onto most tightly. As my time as a student, these were abundant. Hell, there were more than I knew what to do with. And with each new friendship or new job opportunity, three more black-and-white strings would pop up. They’re all anchored to those places where relationship to people and to places are inseparable. When I talk of Columbus to people who have never been, these are the gems I speak about. I talk about Friday night karaoke at Ledo’s. Or just across the road at Ace of Cups, where I’ve danced my heart out to several dozen ABBA tracks. That two or three blocks of High Street has known several drunken songs and dances. Halloweens, birthdays, you name it. There has never not been a reason to celebrate.

And the food joints. Most of them greasy and low-end, they contented my stomach more than any other fancy date spot ever could.

However, I’m starting to notice how difficult it is to walk through the street with all this slack string getting tied around my ankles and catching around the axles of my car. The thick web of connections that used to rise high above my head now mostly lies slack on the ground. The difficulty of wading through these strings makes it difficult for me to leave the house sometimes.

Cities & The Dead 2 – Adelma

I thought: “You reach a moment in life when, among the people you have known, the dead outnumber the living. And the mind refuses to accept more faces, more expressions: on every new face you encounter, it prints the old forms, for each one it finds the most suitable mask.”

Although I continue to find new anchors to attach new strings, the remains of the dead ties to people and places now outnumber those of the living. It makes looking for new connections all the more difficult. I heave thousands of pounds of cut strings– the effort of years of development– wherever I go in the city. The weight can be unbearable. And I can only hold them for so long.

Cities & Names 5 – Irene

For those who pass it without entering, the city is one thing; it is another for those who are trapped by it and never leave. There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city in which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene.

And to ignore their weight or existence would be a disservice to both myself and the city. The last few I have remain here are pulled as tightly as they can and threaten to snap at any moment. Then, I will have only a few wayward strings to keep my tied here. None that I want to discard, but again, the weight of those lost is smothering.

So then, what am I to do if the things I call Columbus– strings, distances, the symbols– are more obstacles than doorways? Will I come to resent those that still tie me here? Will I become like the others who spite anywhere outside the city and without ever experiencing life outside of it?

Is this what makes Columbus? The ball of yarn I spin from all that I’ve lost or disconnected from?

Chapter 5 Epilogue

Marco Polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.

“But which is the stone that supports the bridge?” Kublai Khan asks.

“The bridge is not supported by one stone or another,” Marco answers, “but by the line of the arch that they form.”

Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: “Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me.”

Polo answers: “Without stones there is no arch.”

I think all of these experiences, places, and people are what make up a city. Or at least my city. My Columbus is different than your Columbus. If you are a native, perhaps it is your home. Or maybe, more sinisterly, a prison. Have you ever been? Or even to Ohio? It might only be the basis of Gen Z memes that have popularized Ohio as being a nothing state. Maybe we work together and you only know of it as I’ve fiercely defended it as being an incredible state and Columbus as an incredible city.

Columbus’ arch can not stand alone on any one of the elements I’ve previously described. And the city will continue to add stones even after I have left. I’ll hear news of the football team and other things that will continue to change it in my mind. I think about how Columbus still lives for my grandparents. They lived there long ago but haven’t been in several years. But, their grandson who went to college and lived there for sometime comes home every other month to tell them a story about his classes or new friends. Even without first hand experiences, their old stones laid dormant are complemented by what they hear of it, ever giving new shape to the arch in their minds.

So too can I not isolate the definition of my Columbus’ arch to any specific memory or aspect.

College Columbus, pre and post covid Columbus, dorm versus Baba’s house Columbus.

None can stand on its own. It is their adjacency that gives them strength. On their own, they would simply be a pile of stones.

Chapter 6 Prologue

“Memory’s images, once they are fixed in words, are erased,” Polo said. “Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.”

I feel like it is my time to leave Columbus. But I’m scared.

What I’ve been doing throughout this whole essay– defining Columbus– sets it in stone. Instead of an amorphous ball of emotions, it becomes something more rigid. I mold it into something that has meaning. Then when I move, I’ll put it on a pedestal and leave it. I’ll set it down and shine a light on it. Every so often, I’ll find myself in a dingy dive in Brooklyn and will have to pull it out when someone asks me where I’m from. In my cartoonishly large trench coat, I’ll open it and allow someone to gaze upon my wares.

But every time I expose Columbus to someone, I may find there is a corner that I think needs to be adjusted a bit. Or the light isn’t hitting it right. This isn’t right, I’ll think. Something's off.

There will be no way for me to expose each individual stone to this stranger. At most, they’ll only give a wayward glance to the arch of my Columbus. That won’t even account for all the preconceived notions about the city and state that they already have.

More than that, I fear how building a life elsewhere and collecting new stones will do to Columbus’. Everything will drawn in comparison to it, whether I want to or not. I fear that I may come to find that Columbus was not what I made it out to me. Perhaps even worse, I may find that New York will pale in comparison to Columbus.

After all, I too also have my own preconceived notions of that town.

Cities & the Sky 5 – Andria

As for the character of Andria’s inhabitants, two virtues are worth mentioning: self-confidence and prudence. Convinced that every innovation in the city influences the sky’s pattern, before taking any decision they calculate the risks and advantages for themselves and for the city and for all worlds.

The myths, stories, and dreams that surround New York City far outnumber Columbus. The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. A city full of creatives that I hope are willing to accept me. Trains that run below the city streets. Stories from people who have moved away, claiming the city is unsafe and suffocating. Not worth the price. And others who have lived their whole lives there and can’t imagine living anywhere else. Those that say you can make it there if you are smart with your cash.

Here in the midwest, we scoff at the self importance the people of New York City seem to carry themselves with. We chide the way they act as if their actions will ripple their way across the Appalachian mountains and change the direction of our lives.

Admittedly, I hold a reverence for this attitude of self importance. I envy it, in a way: to feel such conviction in what you do that the stakes seem to reach far beyond yourself. That your actions might be felt around the world.

Would you rather accept a life of meager insignificance? Or believe the lie that your choice of produce at the grocery store might change the world? I believe there might be a middle ground. Although we can struggle and rage against the blink of an eye we are afforded in the history of the known universe, we may be able to tip the future in a direction we feel is for the better. I just pray that our judgement of right and wrong are sound.

What someone from the Midwest won’t tell you, though, is that we have a similar attitude. We bear a self righteous badge of honor wherever we go. You see it in our pride for our universities. You see it in the basement “man-caves” of suburban homes dotted around the state. It is the altar we pray at. In the countless number of students who normally miss their 8am lectures but unfailingly never miss a 6am pregame.

It's Ohio against the world.

Cities & The Sky 4 – Perinthia

Perinthia’s astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong and their figures are unable to describe the heavens, or else they must reveal the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters.

Again, I have my healthy amount of skepticism about everything I’ve been told about New York. All of it could be something of a glamour. A charm placed upon people to lure them in. But the thing I’ve found is that I can’t ignore the draw it has, unfounded or not. And the only way for me to dispel it is to go.

Constantly, I’ve been told that New York is what you make of it. That it has everything anyone could want, you just have to know where to find it. I hope this is the case. Even if I do find it is a place run by monsters, there will only be one way for me to find out.

I am confident that I will throw all of myself into the city and pour all of myself into it. And I am excited to see what will return back to me.

Even if it is a city of monsters, Ohio isn’t going anywhere.

Final Chapter Epilogue

And Polo said: “The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering from it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”

I am lucky to already have some connections in the inferno. I have found that I am a man who can not persist towards some end with only my own confidence (because there is very little of it). Instead, I believe wholeheartedly in the judgement of those who I believe in. And to have so many people say they I will be able to make something of this move worthwhile instills my being with passion and fire.

I believe those who believe in me. They tell me I can make it. And that I will thrive. Therefore, I believe it to be so.

I, tarnished, will seek out those flames that burn most brightly in the city. I will seek those who I know continue to brave the inferno. It is through their faith and belief that I too will find the strength to brave it. I believe this was the foundation that my Columbus was built upon. And what my New York will be built upon, as well.

And I will build it, stone by stone.