Some folks like to get away,
Take a holiday from the neighborhood.
Hop a flight to Miami Beach or to Hollywood
But I’m takin’ a Greyhound on the Hudson River line.
I’m in a New York state of mind.
-Billy Joel
New York enchants me. Yet it ticks me the heck off. Living here is something no one would understand unless he were here. New York isn’t any one movie we watched in class, or any one play we read. It is a conglomerate of the experiences we have and share here, something that is unique to each individual. And here’s mine.
I’ve spent the majority of my last 12 years of life in New York City–the five boroughs of it, not just Manhattan–and I can honestly say that I see something new of it at least every week, if not every day. That’s what I find amazing and beautiful about it, that there’s just so much you can see, hear, smell, do, and you still would not have experienced it all. In a way, I still walk around like a tourist, taking pictures and doing “tourist-y” things like walking around Central Park and going to Times Square, because after so many years, this city still enchants me. There’s just something romantic and captivating about walking around Manhattan at night, about standing on an NYC rooftop and watching the sun set. I can’t explain that magic in words, it’s just something you have to experience. An Eden on planet Earth.
But it’s just so hard to be here. You can try your hardest to get used to living here, but nothing, nothing, makes the feeling of missing your family go away. I try not to think about it because the more I do, the sadder I get. But when it comes down to it, my highest priority in life is my family, and living without them has tinted my New York City experience: it makes it hard to love New York as much as I want to. I envy my little cousins in Israel who are best friends because they have grown up together since birth, and wish I could be a part of that. And a message to all: never, ever, take visiting your grandparents for granted, because to some it is such a limited opportunity.
New York City is the inferno that’s been holding me back from that, my family bonding. But then again, is it NYC’s fault? If I had been living in a different city in the U.S. would I still feel the same? Perhaps. How about another city in the world? Could be. But to me that’s irrelevant, because the fact is that I’m here.
Otherwise, New York is an inferno of a commute. You want a car? Pay for parking…everywhere–and double anything you’d pay anywhere. Miss your meter by a minute? Ticket. Highway? Traffic. Service road? Traffic. Perhaps I should take public transportation? Leave your house an hour early, bus only shows up a half hour later. Wait for the train, and be told belatedly that it isn’t running and you should take the alternative (the one that’s twice as long of course). Does New York City care that you have your first Arts in NYC class and that your professor requested that you be in class on time? Nope. Does NYC care that your friend’s been waiting for you an hour at the Met already? Nope. Isn’t it nice to have NYC commute to blame for it all? Sure. Does it change the fact that you’re in an inferno of a commute? Sure as heck, nope.
So New York is an appealing place for me to be living–there’s just so much that I want to take in, and I never feel that I’m lacking in things to take in. But it’s hard, and there are few people who can or will disagree with that. But hey, nobody said life would be easy. I just try to remember to take it easy, and to take it slow when I need to, even when the city is telling me otherwise. And when the going gets too tough, I escape. Escape the inferno enough to be able to calm down, and come back and see New York as my Eden again. Boston at night on a building rooftop with people you love, the Charles River water flowing through, it’s enough. Just take that deep breath, relax, and finally be able to come back to New York and see it as my Eden again.
View of the Charles River, Boston. Fall 2011
