New York doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s a cat not a dog. It doesn’t give you unconditional love, it tolerates you. It lets you stroke it twice, but then it’s had enough and snaps at you. It demands you feed it because it’s its due. When it gets used to you, though, and you to it, a bond forms. That bond never breaks.
Your first paragraph was a mic drop for me. And then to read on, I was immersed by your beautiful writing and open heart of acknowledging a new environment thrust upon you and yours.Yeah, it ain’t Kansas or Amelia, but your visionary optimism and story telling brings joy. Smells, Goliath structures, in a bastion of mixed cultures of humanity, coalescing, I’m very much intrigued how you paint with your new palette. 🥰
You're still an observer just as you were in Italy. It's just that most everyone in New York speaks English, but it's still a foreign land to most Americans. It's an amazing place, one I can never get enough of, but one I also fear getting too much of- and, no, I can't quite explain that. I remember walking across the Brooklyn bridge into DUMBO and thinking what an intoxicating and overwhelming place New York is. And I've only seen a very small part of it.
I'm looking forward to experiencing it through your perspective. I've read a lot of the history of the city, and that's informed my perspective, but I'm fascinated by how others experience it.
Take away for me, Stacey, is that your neural pathways are constructed so you can adapt pdq to whatever befalls you but also to enable you to derive as much good from whatever circumstances you find yourself in as is possible to be had. Writing is the way to put the fight or flight responses into some kind of weird equilibrium. And good for you. You're my kind of people. New York, fabulous. Italian village like Amelia, fabulous. Cincinnati, well, if life put you there, also fabulous.
"I wasn’t returning to the United States. I was coming to New York City." -- That's a good line.
The "three cities" remark From Mr. Houpert: I lived in San Francisco for some years while working for a tech firm located in Boston. (I was the remote fixer, for sites in the Western US that required the laying on of hands.) This one time they sent someone out to travel with me to various customer sites. I mentioned that, anywhere you went outside of The City, they called the place by its name: Oakland, Alameda, San Jose. Even as far away as Sacramento (for those who don't know, the Capital of California), 80 miles away, it was still "Sacramento." But The City was "The City." He laughed when I told him this. But we were across the bay at a customer locale in San Leandro, and as the day wore down our contact there asked us if we were staying in San Leandro or going back to The City. I didn't say anything, but I made sure my coworker saw me giving him the eye.
So, I could do something obvious like Liza and New York, New York, but this is better:
I'm glad to hear that it seems your landing here in NYC was a positive one! I live in Astoria, which I love, but I miss the buzziness of living in Manhattan. Astoria is much quieter by comparison.
Walking through Central Park today, I was in tears, missing it already (after 20 years, I'm moving back home to Ohio for family reasons by year's end). I always say that Ohio is my heart; Italy is my soul; New York is my choice. I will miss it deeply - there is no place like it on earth.
Holler if you would like to connect - you have my contact info.
Since I was born in the Bronx back in 1937 when my neighborhood was all Swedish-speaking immigrants from Finland, I feel it's my natal ground. Every time I go back, and I went often when I was in college in Philadelphia, I find myself there. The old neighborhood is now Dominicans, the characters in The Heights, warm and welcoming fifteen years ago when I took my grandson there for a week. I haven't tried to write about it and I'm glad you have and will keep on writing about NYC in your future posts. Seeing and feeling the City through your words inspire me to consider its effect on my early formation.
I am hook, line and sinker in love with Paris. However, I am jealous of your move to NYC. If I could choose anywhere in North America to live, that would be it. I want to be inside that energy. I'll hopefully get to make some trips there in the coming years to wander the streets and museums.
Stacey, has anyone told you about the Strand? That's a better bookstore than Barnes and Noble by a mile. (But I do understand Books In English, for sure.)
The Strand is an experience. It's on Broadway at 12th Street a couple of blocks south of Union Square. Sophie's wonderful grandparents lived on 10th, between Broadway and university Place back in the day.
Also, once you can receive mail, I will find a copy of my former mother in law's literary history of Gramercy Park. Carole Klein put her heart into that book, and I think you would enjoy it.
Everything else is foreign to me, and I've never lived in The City (but jeezlouise, born in Tarrytown and Dad took the train to 135 W 50th, the Ginn Publishing Building. Same diff.)
I love your fresh eyes. I hope you starve less in this place. I still have a few cousins-in-law who can feed you in Nutley NJ, if it gets that bad. And honestly, their food will transport you to your lamented Amelia.
(à Tenneessee Williams) "There are three cities in America: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland...".
New York doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s a cat not a dog. It doesn’t give you unconditional love, it tolerates you. It lets you stroke it twice, but then it’s had enough and snaps at you. It demands you feed it because it’s its due. When it gets used to you, though, and you to it, a bond forms. That bond never breaks.
Your first paragraph was a mic drop for me. And then to read on, I was immersed by your beautiful writing and open heart of acknowledging a new environment thrust upon you and yours.Yeah, it ain’t Kansas or Amelia, but your visionary optimism and story telling brings joy. Smells, Goliath structures, in a bastion of mixed cultures of humanity, coalescing, I’m very much intrigued how you paint with your new palette. 🥰
You're still an observer just as you were in Italy. It's just that most everyone in New York speaks English, but it's still a foreign land to most Americans. It's an amazing place, one I can never get enough of, but one I also fear getting too much of- and, no, I can't quite explain that. I remember walking across the Brooklyn bridge into DUMBO and thinking what an intoxicating and overwhelming place New York is. And I've only seen a very small part of it.
I'm looking forward to experiencing it through your perspective. I've read a lot of the history of the city, and that's informed my perspective, but I'm fascinated by how others experience it.
You got this, gurl.❤️
I smiled all the way through this one.
😁❤️
Take away for me, Stacey, is that your neural pathways are constructed so you can adapt pdq to whatever befalls you but also to enable you to derive as much good from whatever circumstances you find yourself in as is possible to be had. Writing is the way to put the fight or flight responses into some kind of weird equilibrium. And good for you. You're my kind of people. New York, fabulous. Italian village like Amelia, fabulous. Cincinnati, well, if life put you there, also fabulous.
"I wasn’t returning to the United States. I was coming to New York City." -- That's a good line.
The "three cities" remark From Mr. Houpert: I lived in San Francisco for some years while working for a tech firm located in Boston. (I was the remote fixer, for sites in the Western US that required the laying on of hands.) This one time they sent someone out to travel with me to various customer sites. I mentioned that, anywhere you went outside of The City, they called the place by its name: Oakland, Alameda, San Jose. Even as far away as Sacramento (for those who don't know, the Capital of California), 80 miles away, it was still "Sacramento." But The City was "The City." He laughed when I told him this. But we were across the bay at a customer locale in San Leandro, and as the day wore down our contact there asked us if we were staying in San Leandro or going back to The City. I didn't say anything, but I made sure my coworker saw me giving him the eye.
So, I could do something obvious like Liza and New York, New York, but this is better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv-0mmVnxPA
I'm glad to hear that it seems your landing here in NYC was a positive one! I live in Astoria, which I love, but I miss the buzziness of living in Manhattan. Astoria is much quieter by comparison.
Walking through Central Park today, I was in tears, missing it already (after 20 years, I'm moving back home to Ohio for family reasons by year's end). I always say that Ohio is my heart; Italy is my soul; New York is my choice. I will miss it deeply - there is no place like it on earth.
Holler if you would like to connect - you have my contact info.
Since I was born in the Bronx back in 1937 when my neighborhood was all Swedish-speaking immigrants from Finland, I feel it's my natal ground. Every time I go back, and I went often when I was in college in Philadelphia, I find myself there. The old neighborhood is now Dominicans, the characters in The Heights, warm and welcoming fifteen years ago when I took my grandson there for a week. I haven't tried to write about it and I'm glad you have and will keep on writing about NYC in your future posts. Seeing and feeling the City through your words inspire me to consider its effect on my early formation.
I am hook, line and sinker in love with Paris. However, I am jealous of your move to NYC. If I could choose anywhere in North America to live, that would be it. I want to be inside that energy. I'll hopefully get to make some trips there in the coming years to wander the streets and museums.
Stacey, has anyone told you about the Strand? That's a better bookstore than Barnes and Noble by a mile. (But I do understand Books In English, for sure.)
The Strand is an experience. It's on Broadway at 12th Street a couple of blocks south of Union Square. Sophie's wonderful grandparents lived on 10th, between Broadway and university Place back in the day.
Also, once you can receive mail, I will find a copy of my former mother in law's literary history of Gramercy Park. Carole Klein put her heart into that book, and I think you would enjoy it.
Best of luck, blessings from Caroline
Everything else is foreign to me, and I've never lived in The City (but jeezlouise, born in Tarrytown and Dad took the train to 135 W 50th, the Ginn Publishing Building. Same diff.)
I love your fresh eyes. I hope you starve less in this place. I still have a few cousins-in-law who can feed you in Nutley NJ, if it gets that bad. And honestly, their food will transport you to your lamented Amelia.