Friday, February 6, 2009

In A New York State of Mind

I’ve just arrived at LaGuardia Airport for my flight to Charleston, and I feel like I’m going home, home because home is where the heart is and my heart is always with Landon. I long to feel the rhythm of my new life in the South, a rhythm that is so closely tied to the patterns of the land.

And yet, and yet…the lure of the city beckons. I can’t get over my love affair with New York. I can remember when I was a kid, standing in front of the clock in Grand Central, waiting for my dad, and telling myself then that I knew I wanted to live in New York. And, live there I did. For 23 years.

New York City is one of the most ethnically diverse places in the world, with Brooklyn boasting more than 160 ethnicities and Jackson Heights even more. I love the city’s harmonious diversity.

When sitting on the subway, I marvel at the faces I see across from me – from Mexico, Gambia, Serbia, Korea, Croatia, China, Vietnam, Poland, along with the Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish, Catholic and WASPs – all mingling together, a smorgasbord of nationalities, religions, languages and dialects in one place. It’s fantastic.

Why do they come? Why are people attracted to New York? For the vibrancy, the energy, the creativity, the possibility, the opportunities. The dream. “If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere,” sings Frankie and we all try to make it here. Some do and some don’t, but most of us try. Us. Hmmmm. I still see myself as part of it. The aspirational motivation that defines New York.

New York is a walking city. I used to walk everywhere to get around – to the subway, to the park, to work, from work, to the store, to restaurants, to my friends’ places, to parties, to museums, to ice skating, to coffee shops, to bookstores. It’s all about walking. Because you never know what you’ll see or what you’ll stumble upon.

The singular thing that most tourists miss about the city is that New York is a city of neighborhoods. I have lived in several different ones. When I first came to the city, I lived in the West Village which was local and full of artisans and merchants and less trendy than it is now; up to Spanish Harlem where our local Cuban wine merchant closed at 6 pm on Fridays so that we could try his new bottles; to all over the Upper West Side, from 73rd to 89th and always between Central Park West and Broadway. At one point, I was moving every nine months.

In my last West Side apartment, I lived with my college roommate, Karen. We had an incredible place – with two bedrooms, two baths, a fireplace and most of all, an outside garden which Karen took care to plant because even though she was an investment banker, she had studied to be a landscape architect. I was subletting from her roommate who had just gotten married. Unfortunately, she decided that she wanted to have a toe-hold in the city and that I would have to move. And, that’s when it happened. I had to move to the East Side.

There is a HUGE rivalry between the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the Upper East Side, a divide which few overcome. There is a kind of unwritten understanding that if you live on the West Side, you would never consider living on the East Side (even though it’s just across the park). Moving from one “Side” to the other is like switching your loyalty from the NY Yankees to the Boston Red Sox. It just isn’t done.

Initially, I was devastated. But, eventually, I learned to like the East Side, and even decided that I preferred to live there. There were more dry cleaners, supermarkets…it was just easier to live day-to-day. Once I got there, I never left. Until now.

So, now I’m living in the South. It’s strange because the Lowcountry, while gorgeous and inviting, doesn’t feel like home. It feels like a pretty place where I live, and the people are kind, but it lacks the kind of deep resonance with my soul. Or, who knows? I’m writing this on the plane as it takes me from my city to the country. Perhaps, as Billy Joel writes, I’m just in “a New York state of mind.”

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