59th Street Bridge

New Yorkers relocate. 13 years in Chelsea and now somewhere new, entirely. I don't like these streets. I don't think we belong here. When you are tired and want to go home, you remember that there is no such place. It has been packed up and transported. In the old house, history in the chimneys. Here, a clean slate.

Outside the window, the Roosevelt Island tram gathers strays and sends them across the water. The sun sets, and the bridge disappears into a steady stream of Saturday evening traffic. We drink our beers and fill cupboards with plates and bags of flour. The baby is restless, confused. She expresses so well what her parents can only sense in the back of their hearts.

Exhausted, I walk to the subway along fancy streets of closed furniture stores, while Bloomingdales sparkles in the night. How quiet this neighborhood, sterile. When I emerge from the W 4th stop and see the streets milling with people, hear the sounds of my New York trickling down the Greenwich Village fire escapes, I smile. This is home.

What a good day for curing a hangover. Metaphorically, too.