Trying to Float (16 page)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

AS A CHILD,
I would return home each afternoon and lament to my parents about my tragedies: the malignant odor that emanated from the locker rooms, my daily social faux pas, and my deafening loneliness. Upon my arrival in middle school, my father, bored by my complaints, told me to “write it down,” which I did. As I wrote, I would ask my parents to tell me what I couldn't know. As we talked, my stories became richer, more amusing, less painful than what I experienced. Toward the end of eighth grade, I presented my English teacher with a bound-up copy of my journal as my end-of-year project. She asked me if I would read one of the stories at my graduation. My parents were shocked—not so much at the story as at the initiative it took to produce the journal, initiative being a trait which, as my father explained it, had skipped so many generations of his family that they hardly knew how to spell it. For the past three years, I have been working with my father to flesh out my stories. He has guided me, teaching me how to structure a story, weave together themes, and connect loose ends into a narrative. For this reason, the book is a unique effort between a father and a daughter. These stories have evolved with each year, expanding as I have, going back and forth between the two of us as we sat in cafés over the weekends. I know my teachers and classmates and others will not recognize some of the events that I recount, any more than they will recognize their names, which have been changed. Nor should they, because these are the stories of my life; stories that are remembered, imagined, passed down, and often a combination. They are as legitimate as my memories, which are fallible and mysterious, and as real as you care to believe.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

HERE ARE PEOPLE
who, despite my age (and lack of maturity), took me and this project seriously. For this, they have been punished by having to help with the book, and help they did:

I would like to thank my incredible editor, Liese Mayer, whose persistence and intuition turned this into something readable; my agents, Nicole Aragi and Duvall Osteen, whose dedication to this book has been both mystifying and wonderful; the entire marketing and publicity team at Scribner, who taught me more about the habits of my generation then I ever knew; and Nan Graham, whose powerful presence behind this book took it to publication.

Accolades go out to the readers and editors Alex Traub and Paulina Porizkova, who had the bad luck of being the first to get ahold of it, but whose insights made it so much more for everyone who read it after.

Thanks to my parents, without whose genetic material I would be sorely disadvantaged. Thank you, mom, for sticking up for me when I need it. Your ceaseless optimism, love, and graciousness is a lesson. As to my magical father, who spins words into worlds, I have been privileged to have grown up with him and been privy to his mind. Thank you for being my role model and teacher.

Thanks to my high school friends, who are a phenomenal support system. If I had known you guys in elementary school, this book would never have been written.

Lastly, I am eternally in debt to my middle school teacher Ms. Boyd, who read this back in its first stages and saw something that she encouraged, pushing me to make more of it. Thank you.

Ursula Bowling

Nicolaia Rips is a graduate of LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (class of 2016) in New York City. She has lived at the Chelsea Hotel for her entire life. In her spare time, she studies vocal music, participates in team sports, reads avidly, and tolerates her parents.
Trying to Float
is her first book.

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This book weaves together what the author experienced, what she was told, and what she imagined. Many names and identifying characteristics have been changed.

Copyright © 2016 by Nicolaia Rips

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Scribner hardcover edition July 2016

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Interior design by Jill Putorti
Jacket design by Jaya Miceli
Jacket photographs courtesy of the author

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rips, Nicolaia, author.
Title: Trying to float : coming of age in the Chelsea Hotel / Nicolaia Rips.
Description: First Scribner hardcover edition. | New York : Scribner, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016014365| ISBN 9781501132988 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501133008 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Rips, Nicolaia—Childhood and youth. | Coming of age—New York (State)—New York. | Girls—New York (State)—New York—Biography. | Teenage girls—New York (State)—New York—Biography. | Chelsea Hotel Biography. | New York (N.Y.)—Biography. | Bohemianism—New York (State) New York. | Eccentrics and eccentricities—New York (State)—New York. | New York (N.Y.)—Social life and customs. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTO­- BIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women.
Classification: LCC F128.57.R57 A3 2016 | DDC 974.7—dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016014365

ISBN 978-1-5011-3298-8

ISBN 978-1-5011-3300-8 (ebook)