what i’ll miss about NYC

Revels

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Good morning, people.

I just finished a book which ended in a little bit of Shakespeare:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors
… were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air …
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples …  dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on.

–The Tempest

Stupid Prospero.

Maybe it was just one big party, these past seven years. Stuck on an island,  the world isolated from everything else. And not all parties are glitz and glam, but at times they actually are; they’re fun but then  sometimes even  quite messy and sometimes tense until somebody comes through and breaks things up, but I definitely got to meet a lot of new people and make some really good friends. Those people I’ll always keep close and hold dear, never to forget. Everything else fades, dissolves into the conscious present.

Party’s over. It’s time to wake up and get real.

I hate Shakespeare.

Plain Truths

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I have good friends here in Florida. It’s nice seeing familiar faces and being able to catch up and resume our conversations from years ago.

My family is here. I’m grateful to see them and we spend time together quite regularly, which not everybody gets to do.

My heart, I left it in New York City. I can’t let it go. I knew I’d miss it, but I had no idea it would be so hard.

That is all.

Not Final

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Dear New York,

I love you.

You hardly noticed me, if at all.

Jersey gave me no warning. My heart fluttered when I saw your skyline nearly seven years ago. The snowy February spectacle proved more a winning distraction than to the tunnel and even the traffic. I don’t remember the other two very well or at all, and I’m pretty certain we passed through the Holland Tunnel, and I definitely know traffic teemed that mid-afternoon.

You welcomed me by leaving me to discover and explore by myself. You somehow sensed my curiosity, and you let me have free reign. How else are you supposed to control 8,000,000 people in such a small area? Everyone fends for themselves. They either find a way to thrive or they wither away. They become stronger and more confident or falter and fade.

It wasn’t a steady climb, dear beautiful City. I stumbled a few times, as you may recall, but you knew it had to be up to me to pick myself up and brush myself off. In some relationships, that might be negligent, but here, with you, it is wise and as loving as you can possibly be. You made like you didn’t care whenever I did something stupid or collapsed into bed after a long night.

Perhaps you didn’t care. It was difficult to tell.

It’s not like I needed the coddling.

You’re gruff. Dirty. Unsympathetic. Ever taller buildings eaving the sky I was so used to being open and wide.

You’re exciting. Your seas of people course vitality through your veins, with all these buildings like buttresses providing support and harnessing energy like a living, hydroelectric dam.

I can see from a mile away how unpredictable you are.

You seemed to mock me those times when I woke up after only three hours of “sleep,” giggly, hive-ridden, pathetic. Were you disappointed? You didn’t show it. You’d probably let me keep behaving like that until I destroyed myself. Population control.

You made me miss my family. You made me long for old friends and familiarity. You invited me to join you, and I hesistated at your frigid darkness and semiannual allergens; your extended winters and sloggy summers; your hipster neighborhoods and shadowed alleys; your people, everywhere, all the time; your strangers with furrowed brows and vapid stares, to and from work, the daily grind; your inclusion singled me out.

That aloneness, City? Best thing you did for me.

I fell in love with writing – look at this blog!

I lived for the weekends – Saturdays – if only to have the entire day to have you all to myself. A different attitude inhabits the city throughout the week. Not that isn’t fascinating, not that I couldn’t find inspiration, not that it’s any less beautiful or taxing or oppressive, because you’re the same thing all the time: ebbing and flowing; bringing in driftwood or a fresh tide; washing away dregs or rose petals.

Still, by some grand, understated miracle, I made some of the best friends of my life here. Though initially our common bonds were what we knew to be constant and secure, we also bonded through your uncertainty and change. My friends and I explored your streets together. We uncovered little treasures everywhere. We celebrated your seasons; we found fun ways to push through the winter: concerts, museums, bad made-for-tv movies at home with popcorn and cookies.

Once we got to spring, summer, and the first of fall, you couldn’t stop us. Nothing could. We walked and walked. We ate to our hearts’ content. We got wet in the river and at the beach. We roadtripped. We talked into the early morning. (But that also happened when it was cold.) We played hard on the weekends. Your street fairs, your protests, your smells, your music. The long hill on the west side of Harlem, leading up to Washington Heights.  The near-quarter-mile it is from 5th to 6th Avenue around Midtown. Your free hugs and headbands at Union Square. I got to know a lot of the little things about you, and maybe that’s why I love you.

You are one of the best friends of my life.

Almost seven years, City. I can’t believe it’s time to go.

I found a way to thrive. It wasn’t survival of the fittest where one king of the hill reigns. A lot of strangers still roam. I won’t get to know their names, but I discovered how to speak to them, regardless. I learned to look them in the eye and in that split second we understood how we are in the same moment, in the same place on this island stacked with concrete and masses of wandering bodies.

Sometimes, City, those connections last. And that’s what kept me going.

I used to thank my seminary students for “precipitating.” It’s going to rain tomorrow, my beloved. That’s got to be a coincidence, right? It can’t bring to full-circle the snowstorm that welcomed me. Your snow couldn’t keep me away, and now that I’ve been here a while and shown you what I’m made of, maybe you’re a little sad to see me go. I’m definitely not leaving as I came.

Thank you.

I hope you’re proud of me. It’s hard to tell.

I’ll come back, and we won’t do this again. I know my way around; I know what you’re about: I expect you to change. I’ll just pick up where I left off, both of us happy as can be. It won’t even feel like I was gone. I won’t forget the way you raised me, dear City. You absorbed me. I am yours.

I love you.

May

The Gun Show

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She arrived at my apartment building Monday around 11am, all set to move the last of what I’d be putting in storage. I told her what boxes to move and where to move them. The boxes weren’t very light, and some of the items were awkward to carry, but she shifted them around with ease, like one of those Mensa puzzles, except for the very strong. When she flexes her biceps, I get scared.

I pretty much just sat around and watched.

Her help cut the time to about a third of what it would have taken if I did the job by myself. I wonder if I could contract her to other parts of the country whenever I need help moving.

She came to Becky’s apartment one evening at the beginning of this year. This is my first memory of interacting with her. I didn’t know much about her, except that she was friends with someone whom I was just getting to know, but I instantly liked her, and I knew I’d be seeing her more; making a new friend. She said as she left that night that it was good meeting me, and that I made her laugh.

She was there later that winter, the night of our church singles speed dating activity, when I decided, in a deli/bakery on the Upper East Side, to spill my feelings and experience about my biological father. She offered to hug me, but I declined and told her a hug would only make me cry. I think I was surprised or scared at how much trust I was giving. I definitely was amazed at how attentive and sympathetic those girls were.

It was fun listening to her sing a song she’d written for a friend’s birthday.

It was an honor to take part in a secret birthday scheme for her.

We went to Wicked once. It was the day I lost my job, and a friend won two tickets at the lottery and gave one of them to me. I knew of her personality and passion and pure and refined talent, and I knew I’d get to know more, and it was nice to have someone nearby while Elphaba and Glenda distracted me that night.

We also went running in Central Park. We got tired after a mile or so, then we wandered through the Ramble and some lady who’d already passed us twice gave us a thumbs up as she passed us again, then we sprinted the last 100 yards and a couple of guys complimented us on our strong finish. We high-fived each other’s awesomeness.

She translated a week’s worth of scripture lesson plans for Girls Camp into Spanish for me. It was probably in world-record time.

She’s quick to serve.

She has a strong sense of justice.

She’s always offering hugs, and she’s generous with her time. It has meant a lot to me.

She sometimes makes jokes that takes a while for people to get.

She’s righteous, but she can also drop it like it’s hot.

She’s all over the place. She’s perfect that way.

If she weren’t training for a marathon and didn’t know how to box, maybe I could kick her butt. Maybe.

Also? Jazz. This girl is a wonder on the trumpet. You don’t even know.

Get her started on politics or capitalism or international affairs.

Ask her about the man she loves.

I said goodbye to her this morning. I hugged her with all the gratitude and love in my heart. I took her friendship, her listening, her loyalty and dedication to goodness, her humor, everything that is beautiful and true about her with the hugs she gave me. Hugs I could not decline.

So what if I cry?

Hardly Homeless

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What I’ll miss: Living out of a box
It was green. It was cardboard. It sat on a shelf that was somewhere below the shelf with all the Harry Potter books. It held some of my pajamas for initially-spontaneous-then-turned-regular-which-actually-means-almost-nightly sleepovers.

Behind the middle medicine cabinet door in this apartment my tootbrush leaned inside a ceramic cup. I also kept a small tube of toothpaste with it.

Above the towel rack behind the bathroom door my green bath towel hung on a small towel hook. 

A bottle of shampoo rested on a bar in the shower.

A lot of my food was in the fridge.

I didn’t necessarily live there, but the actual tenants made room for me.

Because I wanted to be near them, as much as possible. My dearest friends.

Because we knew I’d be moving.

I miss them.

What I won’t miss: Paying rents when I have no income
It’s hard and expensive enough living in New York City: harsh, merciless, unsympathetic. When I lost my job, it became a little more difficult. I won’t miss how quickly my savings dwindled with every rent check, but I kind of fell in love with the struggle to survive, and even thrive here. I came to the city with no job, and I’ll leave the city the same way. People took care of me nearly seven years ago until I got back on my feet, and people were able to soften my fall over five months ago, even with as tough as I’ve become, up through now, as I depart.

Friends, thank you.

Behind the Curtain

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What I’ll miss: Voting
I know I’ll get to vote elsewhere, but my very first election experience was in New York City, for NYC officials. That won’t happen anywhere else. I mean, I’m blue (but more purple) and got to vote in a blue state; and maybe I’ll get to vote in a red state, and that would be cool, but I’ll miss those ancient machines and the musty smelling curtains, and the “ka-CHUNK!” when I pull the lever, and the awesomely diverse volunteers; and the possibility of getting an “I Voted!” sticker when I’m done, from a gay, non-Caucasian single mother. With no insurance.

What I won’t miss: Not voting
I didn’t like not being able to vote during such an exciting national election this last time. I guess this doesn’t apply only to New York, but it doesn’t mean I’ll miss it. At all. It could be fun to have people assume I’m another political party, though. Yay, democracy!

Reach

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What I’ll miss: The skyline
No other city in the world has one as cool.

It just keeps climbing
piercing the sky
hoping heaven bursts
and quenches
upon hot steel beams
and steaming cement

What I won’t miss: Not seeing the stars
I’ve rarely seen a full sky of stars in the past seven years.

Ascending 4000 feet
Then
the mountains
extend my reach
to the dark velvet expanse
and its scattered,
infinite diamonds.

Everything Church

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What I’ll miss: The church hodgepodge
1. Teaching early-morning seminary. One of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Those young people are extraordinary: smart, spiritual, hilarious. Also, I developed a couple of crushes on students and chose a few favorites, which I know I’m not supposed to do, but I couldn’t help it.

2. Teaching nursery. Kind of like teaching seminary, but with more snacks and less verbal skills.

3. Sheer talent. So maybe we have a few professional performers in my ward that like to sing extra slowly to the hymns or make up their own little obbligatos. I mean, it’s pretty, but it’s also hilarious. I mean, who needs Carnegie Hall when you have a professional trumpet quintet to accompany the ward choir? Or singers who sing for the Met at the church Christmas or Easter concert? Sometimes it’s excessive, but more often it’s quite moving. I’m spoiled.

4. Wacky sacrament meetings and awkward Sunday School moments. People say some crazy things at the pulpit sometimes. They burst into song or say that God rocks or talk about strip clubs or accidentally say orgasm instead of organism. Or they attribute their paying tithing to the fact they don’t have to pay alimony.

What I won’t miss: The church hodgepodge
1. Teaching early-morning seminary. When it was cold, and dark; and if the kids seemed resistant to being taught any particular morning, or if no one showed up, those were rough mornings.

2. Teaching nursery. I know I unnecessarily caught respiratory diseases from handling snotty children, as cute as they were. And they were SO cute. Insufferably so. Except that sometimes I suffered, with a cold, or bronchitis.

3. Sheer talent. You’re with the congregation, people. I know you sound amazing. Stop with the excessiveness. Stop performing already.

4. Wacky sacrament meetings and awkward Sunday School moments. When false doctrine starts spewing from people’s mouths to make the room uncomfortable or to stir doubt, that’s annoying. It seems to happen at a higher incidence here than anywhere I’ve been. We’ll see what Provo’s like.

On the Streets

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What I’ll miss: Zipcar
Pretty cool car-sharing company. Gas and insurance are included. Convenient. Allowed for many roadtrips and moving between apartments. I’ll always associate Zipcar with New York City.

My first real Zipcar experience was a second roadtrip to Maine. Here’s the travelog.

What I won’t miss: Driving where I’m really unfamiliar
I’ve had too many close calls and scared too many friends. I’m somewhat used to driving in the city, but when I’m in the outskirts, I’m downright reckless: rolling stops, illegal u-turns, occupying two lanes, following too closely. Maybe my city driving experience is the problem. I need to keep my perfect driving record, please.

Costumes

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Last Surviving Helper Pic

What I’ll miss: My first Halloween in the city
Yes, those are my crossed legs. He used to have a round, red nose. And a small upward curve for a mouth. When I researched him for construction, I truly appreciated the fact that he only has four fingers. I liked being able to visualize something and have it materialize. He looks a little beat up here, but he’s still very recognizable. I miss him.

I won that ward costume contest, by the way: Friday, October 31, 2003; Manhattan 6th Ward.

What I won’t miss:  Lame Halloween Dances
Not all of them were lame. Just a couple. They’re not worth describing. They’re not worth reliving the misery. I can’t subject myself or you to that.