CHAPTERS: Julia Harrison

Every (life) chapter has at least one memorable moment, sentence, or story.

and

Nov 19, 2024

Every (life) chapter has at least one memorable moment, sentence, or story. What are yours? In Chapters, I ask creative people to reflect on the stories of their lives and respond to any of the below prompts (in whatever way they wish).

In the latest installment, we hear from

Julia Harrison

—a commerce writer at Architectural Digest and the founder of

saloon

—who shares personal reflections and literary favorites.

Julia’s Chapters

I. Slow Story

The slowest story of my life so far has really been finding the right people. I’d never considered what a journey that would be and never encountered anything that had prepared me for how many times we misunderstand and miscalculate how to be loved. Still, I do it. I didn’t expect that finding people to feel settled, and honest, and supported around would take 30 years. It has, nearly. It’s still happening.

My closest friends in the world now—besides my siblings—are people I just started loving and knowing in the last three years. That’s confusing when you see others coming engaged out of college and living with their high school best friends. For some of us, it takes a long time to be loved, I think. We make a lot of mistakes in the attempt.

II. Love Story

My favorite love story isn’t really a story; it’s just a letter about love. I feel it goes viral every three years or so, but it’s Steinbeck’s letter to his son. In it, he writes some of the best advice I’ve ever come across, especially in such close companionship, but the part I really think of all the time is when he says about love, “Don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.” It brings me such peace to think that nothing good gets away and that which got away wasn’t, in the end, good.

III. Scary Story

The one I think about most is the first story from Annie Proulx’s Wyoming Stories, “The Blood Bay.” In it, three “cowpunchers,” as she calls them, come across a frozen body on the west bank of the Wyoming territory. (I’ll spoil this part for you because you’ll still want to read it—it’s only four pages long.) One of the cowpunchers eyes the dead body and realizes “that can a corn beef’s wearin my size boots.” The cowpuncher tries to pull the boots off the body, but they’re frozen on, so he saws the boots off at the shin and packs them in his saddle bag—socked feet still in them, and I suppose the blood too frozen to drip anywhere—and thaws them overnight. In the morning, he “threw the bare Montana feet and his old boots in the corner near the dish cupboard, slipped out like a falling feather, saddled his horse and rode away.” I don’t remember if there’s even any other point to the story, but I think about that imagery all the time.

IV. Old Story

I will get murdered for my inability to cease talking about this book—and I don’t mean to be so Western with my picks right now; that’s embarrassing—but the latest Old Story I read was Lonesome Dove. It’s actually written in 1985—which threw me for an absolute loop—but it takes place in the 1870s, when a bunch of ranchers decide to settle Montana from Lonesome Dove, Texas. I don’t often go in for huge books like that, but I thought I’d try it. I sobbed, I hurt, I went hermit mode. I’ve not cried at any other books but Patti Smith’s Just Kids. It’s not even such a sad book as it is profoundly moving and unforgettable. You fall for these totally complex characters, and it’s written so well that you’re parched, exhausted, bruised by hail, and soaked by sudden rain, frostbite, and dust-cut alongside these characters (named things like Woodrow Call, Jake Spoon, Newt, Lorena Wood) that are traveling a thousand miles on horseback, all loving each other so deeply without saying so. It could be bro-y, except that it has a dark emotional depth and closeness that makes it not that at all. It’s my absolute favorite.

V. Travel Story

I was living in Melbourne on my gap year and needed to take the SAT again (my first time I forgot a calculator) to get into school for my eventual return to the US. There were, of course, only a few places that were offering the SAT in Australia. I forget where the train was even supposed to take me to the SAT, but I fell asleep on it and woke up at the very last stop, which happened to be Ararat. In the bible, Ararat is where Noah’s ark washed up after the flood. Australia’s Ararat is in the middle of nowhere in Victoria. It reminded me a bit of Ruckersville, Virginia, but more abandoned and way worse.

I got off the train around 11:30 pm, everything was closed, two very scary men were mumbling on benches outside the train station, and I had no cell service. I wandered into town until I finally got ahold of my sister through a WhatsApp call, and she gave me instructions over the phone on how to walk to the closest motel, as I couldn’t load Google Maps. I had to rap on the window until someone came and was sobbing at this point, and she offered me a room for half price. By then, I hadn’t eaten in about eight hours, so I ordered what was available, which was Domino’s pizza. I love Domino’s, actually, but it’s some of the worst pizza in Australia. Obviously, at that point, I didn’t care at all. While looking for the TV remote, I pulled out the Ararat brochure of attractions, and as it turns out, there’s only one, and it’s an abandoned insane asylum. I watched Die Hard for the first time, ate that whole pizza, never took the SAT again, and applied to test-optional schools.

VI. True Story

I guess it can’t really be a true story if it’s about a fictionalized character, but an alarming number of people seem not to realize that Stuart Little was born from a woman. I haven’t seen the movie, but I understand it fibs that part, as if he’s adopted. But in E.B. White’s version, the mother goes into labor and a mouse is what comes out.

VII. Funny Story

A story that always makes me laugh is when the lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, Grace Slick, was invited to a tea party at the White House in 1969, bringing an anarchist as her date with the intention of spiking President Nixon’s tea with 600 micrograms of LSD. Anyway, her date got booted before they even got inside for being a man—it was a ladies-only alumnae event—but I love the idea and open delusion of someone being like maybe I’ll go to the White House and spike the president’s tea. After her date was denied admission, she peaced out too, but not before they hung a black flag with a multi-colored marijuana leaf on the White House gate.

Thank you, Julia!

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