New York, I Love You
It’s not an easy love, it never has been. Your putrid summer smells lurking around every corner south of 65th street laying relentless attack on the unsuspecting noses of the pavement pounding masses. Sticky smelly packed subways and strangers standing too close. Your never ending winters screaming hail at our faces and icing our sidewalks over rendering them perilous at every intersection. The abundance of promises you seldom kept, holding me on bated breath for days and weeks only to, yet again, strand me in disappointment. You told me to hope and work hard and protect myself and be vulnerable and make art and love and try again. Try again. For years you asked us to move. Faster, faster! Keep going! You’re almost there! One more thing! But one more thing always led to another and that exhale of stability never came. And every lost wallet, every bad date, every shitty landlord stepped us closer to becoming unfazed, beaten down, desensitized. The iconic New York Cynic.
So here we all are. On pause. Suspended in spacetime, we’ve slowed down. Adjusted to your pause. Taking the time to learn, and relearn, how to cook. To bake bread like our grandmothers and grandfathers before us. We’ve become urban farmers and craftsmen and builders of pillow forts. Being the parents we never had, present. Rekindling broken relationships with ourselves. Yoga, pilates. You have made us malleable in our years together, unable to fight your constant and harsh seasons, we surrendered. Every day is more of the same. Some days are long and hard and we have to fight not to cry out in rage and mourning. Some days we eat too much and drink gin tonics at noon. Then more of the same. We’re getting soft around the edges.
I thought my affection for you would fade. That, unable to be next to you, inside your warm cafes and bars we would grow apart. It has only drawn me nearer. I find myself, more often than not, teary eyed in longing thinking about what our reunion will feel like. Thinking about the good times, the “oh my God did Dustin Hoffman just lean into me and whisper ‘live your life’ and walk away?” times. The beautiful impossible. I think about sitting around an intimate table with friends sharing stories of “I stayed…”. I remember your warmth of strangers, that woman on the train who gave me a pack of Kleenex and sat down next to me while I cried uncontrollably after a fight with my sister that left us fractured for years. The woman just sat there next to me, using her body to say “I’m here, it’s ok”. I know over time you will lessen the distance between us. I know I will see your smiles and laughter again. Holding hands and stealing kisses from our lovers without fear. We will dine together. We will stand close and drink and dance the sun to us, intoxicating the air with our sweat and perfume and tequila breath. Even if it takes a year, we will wait. You taught us how to wait. How to be patient. How to hold out hope for something better. New York is in fact not a great love, but a great teacher. Confucius said “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop”. We remain vigilant in our daily tasks. Slow and steady. Alone together.
Love,
Us
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