RITUALS OF SELF DISCOVERY - THE GLOSSY MAGS

As I sit here on Labor Day weekend, double hopped HopWTR in hand, with a few weeks of the free glossies stacked up, thumbing through and tearing out little squares of color and texture, like I’ve done for at least 20 years — I’m reflecting on this ritual, what it really means to me, and how I now see myself as part of this strange place we call the Hamptons. My relationship to our glossy magazines seems to be a microcosm of my relationship to the East End on a grander scale. An evolving, complex, love-hate fascination, deeply rooted in my very existence. I didn’t always have this perspective, though — it’s definitely changed over the years.

There’s an Eleanor Roosevelt quote “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” This is exactly how the evolution plays out, but in reverse.

THE EARLY YEARS - PEOPLE

Back in the 80s and 90s, Hamptons Magazine was relatively young — weren’t we all, though. Dan’s was the local rag — we read it for the funny police blotter, to see which of our delinquent friends got in trouble that week. But Hamptons, that’s who started the glossy phenomenon out here — and that subsequent deep feeling of not measuring up for so many of us. I didn’t realize back then that this place I grew up in, where my family lived for centuries, wasn’t exactly ‘normal’, but I did know the people in those magazines weren’t like us. We cleaned their summer houses, waited on them in gourmet shops, served them in restaurants, but they were different. Hamptons Magazine gave us a direct channel into these mysterious people, with their popped collars, feathered hair, loafers, and crested blazers, dripping in gold and jewels. The early days of flipping the pages were steeped in envy, criticism, and resentment. I’d read ‘the list’ and wonder who they were and how they came up with it. I cared about these things because they felt directly connected to my value, or lack thereof, in relation to them. Back then, I still thought that they were better than me because of what they had, or more importantly, what I didn’t have. I also thought their lives were easy, just because they had so much, which turned out to be entirely untrue — all of it did. 

THE MID YEARS - EVENTS

In the early 2000s I was going through a partying phase, and the glossies (we had more than one of them by then) were smattered with Tinsley Mortimer, Paris Hilton, and Lizzie Grubman, at swanky events, being so rich and fun and carefree. My friends and I would shop at second-hand and discount stores, finding pieces that looked like what everyone was wearing in the glossies, expensive enough so that we could ‘pass’ as wealthy and make our way into these places. Looking through the glossies during this time period was less about who they were, and more about where they were — and how we could work our way into those circles to get some of what they had. All the while, oddly enough, openly disliking everything about the culture as a whole (it’s easy to have an identity crisis in this type of environment). We were looking for something missing within ourselves, but didn’t realize that at the time. We’d make half-assed attempts at getting into clubs with guest lists, or trying out the new trendy spots, but after one or two ridiculously expensive drinks, we always got the ick and ended up back at the Talkhouse, McKendry’s, or Wolfies — places that were our Cheers, where everybody knew our names, we were all Norm at the end of the night. Which felt a little bit like defeat, and a little bit like home.

THE FINAL YEARS - IDEAS

After a few years of hard partying and identity crises, in the late 2000s, I settled back down and started a practice that I still do to this day. I flip through the glossies and tear out the pieces that I do connect to. It might be a beautiful photo of a ripe peach, a vintage bike, or an English garden heavy with blooms, but more often than not, it was snippets of architecture, not in a ‘coveting’ kind of way, more just being moved by the sharp angles of a Bates Masi structure in the rolling dunes. Or real estate aerials that captured gradients of blue water, and undulating, vibrant green marshlands, with little white lines symbolizing the ownership of nature (a topic for pondering another day). Over the years, focusing more on color and shape, I’d tear out pieces that would translate well into abstract paintings, for whenever I would get around to that project (I still haven’t). I’d glue these little squares into big sketchbooks and draw and write all around them as an exercise in self-discovery. I needed to dig deep to figure out who I was and what things I actually like, completely separated from what I thought others expected of me. But more importantly, I needed to figure out how I fit into this specific world, and the glossies gave me a window into that process of self-discovery. 

I’m still on that hunt for my authentic self and a true sense of place today, but I don’t think it ever really ends. Especially for those of us who grew up in tumultuous homes, or in a place like this, without a sense of safety or belonging (or both). This is just who some of us are, misfits in an endless cycle of self-discovery. I even moved around the country, thinking that I’d find a place where I fit in better, but we take that sense of not belonging with us — it lives inside us, not outside us. But in the end, no place has ever felt more like home than this one. This is where I belong, even though half the time I feel like I don’t. That’s why it makes sense though — the endless searching lends us complexity, resilience, and depth — exactly as it should.

Does any of this resonate? Let me know in the comments.