Why New York Does (n’t do) It For Me

Thoughts on my (Team Indyish) trip to New York.

There are many New Yorks for me.

First, there is the New York of my childhood. As the daughter of an Ex New Yorker, New York is where most of my extended family still resides. The Big City was for me first a city of excessive Long Island Channukah parties, of Manhattan Restaurants that grown-ups paid for, of boring museums, of Everything-Bagels with Lox, of my grandpa’s prickly beard and my aunt’s endearingly loud voice.

Then there is the New York of my adolescence, when I would regularly take the greyhound down by myself, and stay with my Cool Older Cousin on the Upper West Side. That was the New York of wandering the city alone - triumphantly, gloriously alone - by day, and drinking margaritas (underage) with my cousin by night. New York was like adolescence itself: full of rage and joy, angsty, loud, uncensored. Always growing, always searching. It was the whole world, suddenly in colour. I would spend hours and hours roaming Manhattan’s nooks and crannies, taking black and white pictures on my old film SLR, relying on street meat and Broadway Bagels for cheap sustenance. I would haunt the museums, indulge myself to tears over Monet’s Water Lilies, muse wistfully at the Ancient Greek sculpture at the Met. I would write pages and pages in my purse-sized journal, often just about the sheer joy of being alone.

Then there is the New York of my early twenties. As I trepidatiously adjusted to living by myself, I started sentimentalizing those Everything-Bagels and endearingly loud voices. New York became a City of Refuge, a town I could run to for family affection, free food, and nostalgic margaritas.

Revisiting a place lets you measure how you’ve changed since the last time you were there. I spent a lot of time with relatives this past week in New York, which was wonderful, but exhausting. In a lot of ways, I missed the actual city. This past week in New York, I realized that perhaps my Lonely Early Twenties phase is over. An intimate family circle is comforting, but so is, in a strange way, being alone in a big city.

New York, I learned, is not a place you want to feel safe. It’s a place where you want to feel alive. Perhaps I need to re-experience being a stranger in New York. So, like Tristan, I can discover what it’s like to be taken in.

(photo courtesy of Tristan)