I can understand that after so many years in New York there suddenly comes a point where you no longer want to wake up to the sound of traffic outside your window anymore, when you prefer birds chirping to car horns. I can understand, that after so many years of living beyond your means, always being pushed up against strangers in subways and elevators, always rushing to the next big thing - that there comes a time when there’s nothing left to do, but leave.
I’m not there yet. Most of the time I don’t think I ever will be, because at this point there’s no other place I’d rather go (despite frequent outbursts to friends that I’m going to move to Tulsa where I’m convinced everything is somehow much easier). There’s no other city in the world where you can experience the amount of culture that’s available to you on a daily basis, which is reason enough to stay. However I understand (the longer I’m here), how important it is to find meaning despite the number of museums and galleries and theatres and French-Brazilian fusion restaurants that are available to you. In the end what’s important to you is what’s important, and if you can’t find it here, you have to find it somewhere else.
That’s why I went to Brooklyn for a going-away party of sorts (downtown 6 to 14th street, 14th street to the L, the L to Lorimer, Lorimer to the G - am I there yet?!) for a friend who is skipping town next week in search of something more. By the time I got to Clinton/Washington Ave I was about ready to leave New York myself (surely it shouldn’t be this difficult just to get somewhere on a Sunday night?), and as I sat there in the small plastic chairs in the pebble-strewn backyard of this bar that touts its own grill (you bring the meat) drinking more than I anticipated (can you ever really anticipate?), I started to think about this city and what makes us stay.
We’re all drawn here for our own reasons, we make the conscious decision that this is the place that’s going to shape the rest of our lives. It will give us the opportunities we need, help us meet the people we want, enable us to become something we hope and dream to be. But thing I was realizing sitting there with the large colored lights strung upon the fence to illuminate my thoughts - was what do you do when you come to the point when this city is no longer enough? And (much more to the point), is that even be possible?
Well of course it is. Like anything else in life things change, and the idea of what you want and who you are and what’s important to you can shift, seemingly behind your back. It’s easier than you think to find yourself in the middle of a foreign street in Brooklyn far from home wondering how you got there. So at the end of the night when people were all heading home, (I was the only soul to venture back to Manhattan) this time (walking four extra blocks to the A, the A to Fulton, Fulton to the uptown 6...) I had a lot of time to assess that tricky and ever-changing question: what do I want?
In the time it took me to get home I'd found my answer, and the answers is really quite simple. It’s like in Annie Hall when she calls Alvy over to her apartment in a panic just to kill the huge spider in her tub. I hate spiders (always have) and have a terrible time working up the courage to dispose of them, but after a few years here I know that I have people I could call in the very instance that there was a spider the size of a Buick in my bathroom.
So yes, life and what we want changes all the time and it’s a good idea to keep asking yourself that question in the middle of such a busy and fast-paced place where it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. But for me, what I want is just to be here (no matter how long it takes from Brooklyn) with people I can count on. So unless and until I no longer have someone in New York who I can call in the middle of the night to kill a spider in my tub - I figure I’ll stick around.
May 20, 2008
morning solitaire.
In the morning just before dawn, the streets of Manhattan take on another feel. There’s nothing like it, the calm before the storm of the day, before people are out on sidewalks and cars are out in streets all rushing to get from one place to somewhere else. There’s nothing like New York in the morning, (nothing like life in the morning!) before everything has a chance to get in the way and change it, change the stillness of the air, of your heart, of your mind.
In the morning just before dawn First avenue of Manhattan on 72nd street is quiet, the street lamps seem to flicker and change in a soft slow beat: Green. Orange. Red. Then everyone stops and I open the front door of my apartment and go downstairs (mind still quiet, still half asleep) and push out into the cold morning air. It’s like opening the door to a still and foreign world that is familiar yet altered.
The street is quiet but isn’t usually, however I have long since forgotten what the loud voices of its patrons sound like. They (like the city) have become second nature to me, have incorporated themselves into my life like anything else. They are automatic, constantly in the background of most of my waking evening hours (and sometimes early morning) and I’ve come to take a comfort in them in the same way I have knowing that this city is outside my front door.
Green. Orange. Red. I take off in the direction of the Park because the air this morning is cold and makes me think that the wind on the East River will be unbearable. I try to keep my mind quiet in the early morning hours, in the calm before the storm when I can feel - over Second, Third, Lexington - like this city is meant just for me. When else are the streets so bare that it’s easy to think that this great stretch of concrete is my home and mine alone? As I pass - over Park, Madison, 5th - I look up at the buildings with curtains drawn over windows and picture the people all still asleep, eyes closed in their warm beds still dreaming in their own quiet worlds unwilling to face the day.
I picture big Park Avenue beds with couples far away from each other on opposite sides. I picture small third avenue beds with couples entwined, with feet hanging over the side, arms flung over heads and warm slow breaths hitting someone else’s ear, the side of their face, their hair. What do they dream when they dream? What do they think of their lives when they’re awake?
Inevitably I’ll seen them all later. I’ll sit next to them on the subway and walk with them on the sidewalk, and sit in the office next to them. I’ll be a part of their lives (and they a part of mine) in the next few hours, and here I am out in the cold checking my watch and wanting the day to begin because I can’t help but think that I may never quite be that couple on Park Avenue or Third.
At 5th Avenue I take one last long look down that vast and open stretch of road that takes everyone everywhere, from so many places to so many other places all the time. To things they never expect, to people they never thought they’d meet, to distant future days that hold surprises and difficulties and all sorts of bad luck (I wonder: would we take certain roads if we knew in the end where they’d end up?). But for now everyone is asleep in their beds still unaware of what’s to come, still protected from the unknown.
Green. Orange. Red. I cross over 5th and pass over into Central Park. Picking up my pace I can hear, through the intermittent sounds of cabs whirring by - whoosh! - the faint patters of my feet hitting the pavement more quickly, moving me forward.
In the morning just before dawn, the streets of Manhattan take on another feel. It’s the same thing every day, it’s the same journey with different sets of thoughts through different sets of lights, but at the end of it I’m still the same person I was when I started out. Almost an hour later when I finally reach 5th again I walk back - Madison, Park, Lexington -and pass by windows with curtains now pulled open, (eyes wide awake), until I get closer to home.
In the morning just before dawn First avenue of Manhattan on 72nd street is quiet, the street lamps seem to flicker and change in a soft slow beat: Green. Orange. Red. Then everyone stops and I open the front door of my apartment and go downstairs (mind still quiet, still half asleep) and push out into the cold morning air. It’s like opening the door to a still and foreign world that is familiar yet altered.
The street is quiet but isn’t usually, however I have long since forgotten what the loud voices of its patrons sound like. They (like the city) have become second nature to me, have incorporated themselves into my life like anything else. They are automatic, constantly in the background of most of my waking evening hours (and sometimes early morning) and I’ve come to take a comfort in them in the same way I have knowing that this city is outside my front door.
Green. Orange. Red. I take off in the direction of the Park because the air this morning is cold and makes me think that the wind on the East River will be unbearable. I try to keep my mind quiet in the early morning hours, in the calm before the storm when I can feel - over Second, Third, Lexington - like this city is meant just for me. When else are the streets so bare that it’s easy to think that this great stretch of concrete is my home and mine alone? As I pass - over Park, Madison, 5th - I look up at the buildings with curtains drawn over windows and picture the people all still asleep, eyes closed in their warm beds still dreaming in their own quiet worlds unwilling to face the day.
I picture big Park Avenue beds with couples far away from each other on opposite sides. I picture small third avenue beds with couples entwined, with feet hanging over the side, arms flung over heads and warm slow breaths hitting someone else’s ear, the side of their face, their hair. What do they dream when they dream? What do they think of their lives when they’re awake?
Inevitably I’ll seen them all later. I’ll sit next to them on the subway and walk with them on the sidewalk, and sit in the office next to them. I’ll be a part of their lives (and they a part of mine) in the next few hours, and here I am out in the cold checking my watch and wanting the day to begin because I can’t help but think that I may never quite be that couple on Park Avenue or Third.
At 5th Avenue I take one last long look down that vast and open stretch of road that takes everyone everywhere, from so many places to so many other places all the time. To things they never expect, to people they never thought they’d meet, to distant future days that hold surprises and difficulties and all sorts of bad luck (I wonder: would we take certain roads if we knew in the end where they’d end up?). But for now everyone is asleep in their beds still unaware of what’s to come, still protected from the unknown.
Green. Orange. Red. I cross over 5th and pass over into Central Park. Picking up my pace I can hear, through the intermittent sounds of cabs whirring by - whoosh! - the faint patters of my feet hitting the pavement more quickly, moving me forward.
In the morning just before dawn, the streets of Manhattan take on another feel. It’s the same thing every day, it’s the same journey with different sets of thoughts through different sets of lights, but at the end of it I’m still the same person I was when I started out. Almost an hour later when I finally reach 5th again I walk back - Madison, Park, Lexington -and pass by windows with curtains now pulled open, (eyes wide awake), until I get closer to home.
May 18, 2008
Backyard BBQ
"Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?"
She said as we got off the wrong stop on the L
heading to a friends place I’d already been to before.
I’m the exception to the only-men-never-stop-for-directions rule.
*
It’s inevitable that on a stretch of concrete patio
in Williamsburg, that I will meet someone who lived
down the street from me when I lived in Boston, and
now lives two blocks away from me in New York.
*
Why is it that grown men always stand over the grill
and stare down at the flames in an almost-trance,
each one of them always acting like they know best?
It’s done. Give it 5 more minutes. Someone hand me the spatula!
*
Afternoons always pass much faster than they should
when the sun is out and you’ve had more beers than
you were ever planning when you started.
*
He didn’t say much and didn’t have the slightest clue
as to what I was talking about, so I just kept right on talking.
Most of the time when we go out looking for it,
it finds us and we hardly know the difference.
*
After all this time in New York, nothing surprises me anymore.
I think I could stand for a change.
She said as we got off the wrong stop on the L
heading to a friends place I’d already been to before.
I’m the exception to the only-men-never-stop-for-directions rule.
*
It’s inevitable that on a stretch of concrete patio
in Williamsburg, that I will meet someone who lived
down the street from me when I lived in Boston, and
now lives two blocks away from me in New York.
*
Why is it that grown men always stand over the grill
and stare down at the flames in an almost-trance,
each one of them always acting like they know best?
It’s done. Give it 5 more minutes. Someone hand me the spatula!
*
Afternoons always pass much faster than they should
when the sun is out and you’ve had more beers than
you were ever planning when you started.
*
He didn’t say much and didn’t have the slightest clue
as to what I was talking about, so I just kept right on talking.
Most of the time when we go out looking for it,
it finds us and we hardly know the difference.
*
After all this time in New York, nothing surprises me anymore.
I think I could stand for a change.
May 11, 2008
I've lost, therefore I am.
It’s funny how much you can realize who you aren’t the more you lose things. You know you aren’t someone who is in a relationship when you lose a boyfriend or girlfriend. You know you aren’t someone who is going on vacation when you lose your entire paycheck to rent. You know you aren’t someone who is getting into your apartment when you lose your keys on the bus (pls. see previous post). And you know you aren’t someone who is going to fall in love any time soon when you’ve lost your propensity to trust.
So somehow, the more you lose the more you realize the person are not, (and perhaps even the person you once were and no longer are). We lose things like years and chances and people and love (and keys) all the time, and these loses are constantly defining and re-defining our lives. But I wonder (daily, painfully, eagerly...) how much do we really have to end up losing along the way in order to find out who we are?
It’s amazing sometimes to think of the things you can never get back to. You can, at the end of the day, always take the subway home and get back to the place where you can rest your head and let yourself dream - but sometimes it’s those very dreams that you can’t help but lose over time. They too get lost and fade away along with the ideas you had about who you wanted to become.
So somehow, the more you lose the more you realize the person are not, (and perhaps even the person you once were and no longer are). We lose things like years and chances and people and love (and keys) all the time, and these loses are constantly defining and re-defining our lives. But I wonder (daily, painfully, eagerly...) how much do we really have to end up losing along the way in order to find out who we are?
It’s amazing sometimes to think of the things you can never get back to. You can, at the end of the day, always take the subway home and get back to the place where you can rest your head and let yourself dream - but sometimes it’s those very dreams that you can’t help but lose over time. They too get lost and fade away along with the ideas you had about who you wanted to become.
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