For Moa

How many years have passed since that bright spring morning at the end of March, at the end of innocence. When eggs fell from the sky and your laugh would echo in the corridor. I always thought I would never forget your laugh. I try now, but I cannot hear it. But I remember your turqoise sweater and your post-Asia tan. I remember seeing in you the future upon which I was to embark. I saw in you the hope I had not dared wish for myself.

I rode the tram past your house the day you died. I looked out at your neighborhood and thought I should text you to see how you were. I got busy anticipating my arrival and never sent it, but you wouldn't have seen it anyway. I still have your number in my phone, but I try to skip it quickly when I pass through the Ms.

On our way to the funeral, we were laughing and joking and everything was unreal. We stopped at a gas station to change into formal attire; it was a long drive. I don't remember anyone saying anything on the way home. I cried for you the entire time; I cried until there was nothing left, and I could barely stand. I saw your parents and thought, they will always have lost you. I suspect I cried more for myself than anything else. Such is Life, when you are forced to consider it.

We would still talk about you from time to time. And I think we got closer because of it; we looked out for each other like we were all frail baby chicks. But everyone grieves differently, and Time does what it will with our wounds.

It was an awfully high building. I am afraid of heights. You jumped, you soared, I suppose you hoped for weightlessness and freedom. You taught me that I already had that right here.

That summer, a dear friend said Something is different. You look happy. I thought of you then, and I thanked you.

Coming True

Here it is, right here on the left, the red house. Having navigated the Greenwich Village streets, the cab stopped. Upended the heavy suitcases, the sprouts of a whole new life, on the sidewalk. We dragged the bags upstairs, fiddled with unknown locks, and went inside. Welcome home, I said, and we giggled like school girls.

A short inspection round later, we sat on the fire escape drinking rosé bubbly from large margarita glasses, toasting to all sorts of things. Charles street looked like a movie set, the sky so surreal, the rain, the street light, the silence. But then, the whole thing was surreal. Here she was, with her dream job, in her dream home, living this unreachable life because she'd reached it. I say it takes perseverance. She says it's important not to forget that it is possible.

She is right of course. Too easily, we forget that our dreams are, in fact, within our reach. That they are not impossible visions in the distance, but possible futures, should we fight for them. I was immensely proud of her then. I walked home in the drizzle, Morton street mere minutes away. We did good, I think.

In the Quietest Waters

Another Monday with New York State flood warnings. We have fallen into routine, apparently. I eat left over Sunday dinner and write lists, to evoke some semblance of productivity. Still, a Cuban cafe con leche lingers in my blood stream, a speakeasy IPA, and I am content, taping packages, checking bank statements, scouring airline websites. Ignoring FAQs about pneumonia, I swallow ephedrine cold pills to dampen the symptoms, but all that happens is that adrenaline rushes through my systems, making my eyes perk up. Who needs antidepressants.

Maybe it's just spring. Maybe it's just my hibernated self bubbling back into the nerves. Why would I fight that?

Last night, at my stop on the one, two young men got stabbed to death in a subway car. After all my orating about the safeties of the village, about never feeling scared, a Saturday night out got a gruesome ending right here, right underneath my feet. Suddenly, my comforting womb of underground tunnels appears a death trap out of which there is no escape, no apology, until the next stop is called and the doors can open to let you out.

Life is treacherous. Navigate best you can, lock your doors. Just don't forget to dance, too.

Slam Baby. Stay Mad.

Wind so cold but we turned a corner to jump and scream and dance, our minds already racing with decorations and potted plants and warm spring days spent in that courtyard, while the official stance was that nothing is set until you hold those keys in your hand. The lunch consisted mostly of bubbly flutes and It really is the best neighborhood, after all. The waiters thought their place was too nice for just anybody and were very pleased when the Big Name chose them for his sandwich needs.

A long way east and it's poetry slam night on the Alphabet Avenues. We sit at the bar; I stare intently at the worn wood to see the poets' words dance along it. Some parts are shiny, some parts are dull. Tips amass along it; the bartender stacks it, or not, according to some system no one understands, perhaps not even himself. The words echo through the high ceilings, forever repeated in the brick wall, sometimes forgotten, and I hope you brought your mojo tonight. Bobbing to the beat.

We have different ways of getting where we're going. The important thing is to get on your feet. The zippers on my shoes clink clink all the way down Morton. My fiery lungs and I go to sleep, but only on paper.

Feel Brand New

Frenetically talking up lost time at 60 miles an hour, as though no time had passed, or no geography, and as though spending time together in a yellow cab were commonplace. But then there it was, around the bend, the Manhattan skyline towering in the windshield and presenting itself as if for the first time. She paused, she stared, and I laughed at the glitter in her eyes.

By the time we emerged from the Midtown tunnel, my eyes saw the City as brand new, too. Boring, boorish 34th street suddenly a giggle, rainy Chelsea gleaming in the late night lights. I stared out the window as our conversation began to drift. There was too much to say anyways. What would become of this mad adventure, and I can't believe I am really here now.

But once I had dropped her off at the landmark hotel and began trudging the drizzly streets home, my City returned to me. This place that is not new. This place that is not unknown.

This place that is home.

Why do we still live in this repulsive town
all our friends are in New York.

Sprung

Warm musty New York spring evening and suddenly we are all alive and maybe even well. The smells of the street are back, concrete, garbage, perfumes drift by as I navigate narrow, crooked West Village sidewalk mazes. Croci grow around barren, waking trees, and from the west, a late sunset trickles through the streets. My steps are quick, long, straight, bouncing, and when I look people in the eye, I remember what it is to be alive. Hibernation sneaks up on me like a dark silent storm each year, but spring springs with song and dance and colored confetti, dependably.

I return to Morton after viewing an apartment on Charles Street, beautiful, dreamy, tree-lined Charles Street with its magnolia courtyards and date-night-kissed stoops. It wasn't even for me but for my dear friend arriving with the late flight from Paris; no matter, the feeling is the same. The potential. Walking this street I have stepped on so many times before, this time doing so in a new light, like Could I live here, and what would that feel like? I was completely satisfied with the answer.

The truth is, tonight there is nowhere I would rather live. This beautiful city of water towers and taxicabs, of hopes and sweat and tears, my New York. April approaches, life approaches, and unending potential lies in the margins. I take my notebook and I get on the A train. At JFK waits a newbie, and, like a junkie, I long to see the city through her eyes; a dream come true, a life in the making, bright, shiny, and unexplored. How could it not blow us all away?

Equinox

The night holds no power over the day now. There is more light than there is dark. If only the same were true for the corners of the soul.

Still, every day I look out my window, and the magnolia tree in the courtyard is a little more alive. The buds grow, expand, burst into pink jewels on the barren tree.

It's a tricky balancing act, this.

Sun Stroke

It is difficult now to remember how it was. It is difficult to remember Saturday night, running down the steps of the Met in the pouring rain, pulling our thick winter jackets closer and, frozen to the core, stopping for dinner, drinks, drying out, along the way home. It is difficult to remember winter, unending, dead, winter, chilling me to the core and dulling the gloss in my eyes. Pink and green buds explode one by one, and the air smells soft and pure. The evening so light, how was I ever not alive?

Track 12 at Penn Station and a week ended so quickly. All sped up, I stopped past the office on 42nd street and had the super fix a window that would not close. Although, in the warm breeze, it seemed a shame to close it at all.

I walked out onto the bustling street, my back straight, my eyes open, my heart smiling. I looked at the Chrysler building, glistening at the other end of the island, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

White Horses

The city was all green, but I wanted nothing more than to stare into the sun. We meandered through the Park, giggling at the passers-by, chatting up the horses. Every pebble another adventure. If I looked closely, I could see the buds exploding. Spring washed over me and I was nothing if not willing to be swept away.

Rosy cheeks walked through the heart of the village to drink its beers. Eventually squeezing into the Tavern where Dylan wrote his words, where Jack sat, where legacy is carved into the wood bar. So close to home we forgot to turn on Morton Street, and this is my life. Turning the lights out in a room where nothing else fits once the air mattress has been inflated. (Whoever needs to get up first sleeps on the floor; it's easier that way.)

Kiss me, I'm Irish, he said. But I was far too busy, making eyes at the world.

Spring Forward.

Long evening sunsets on the high line. Tired feet and giggling hearts. Time has changed and it makes all the difference.

Late at night, carefully stepping down dark stairs, opening heavy doors, behind which lay young dreams of song and hopes of if we can make it there. Reminded again of the Rightness of letting passion drive you, how worthwhile it is. Always these steps down, always the life of the city taking place in dark cellars underground.

In the bright sunlight, we share giggles with one to whom the world is new and every stone needs turning, every face needs smiling at. How refreshing to remember simple joys, no less profound by being uncomplicated, and people are so easily charmed. We look on, we follow in the games, and we let the sunlight seep back into our pale skin and tired hearts.

The city wins me over, again. The mattress so soft beneath me; I sleep, instantly.

On Love

I have been here before, I have been in love with this City over and over. In my mind, in my youth, there was a dream, and a crush. On that first arrival night, as I saw the City loom ahead of the shuttle, I experienced the dream with my rose colored glasses and it could do no wrong. I walked the streets and was happy, was floating, was infatuated. This time around, I have been allowed more time, more ups, more downs. I have seen the Mundane Mondays and powered through the moments when it didn't seem to matter if I was here or not.

Sometimes it helps just to have someone else here to show the city, to show it off. To realize how much there is here that I take for granted, because I am secured enough to be able to do so. That no matter the downs, it is my City and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Such delicious cocktails at the well-kept secret. Such treacherous stairs into dark cellar corners, but another world hiding where jazz is live and rules are for gentlemen of old. Where quiet, idyllic Morton street is just around the corner, and deep conversation can take its time because the ice in the glass is a glacier.

I fell in love with New York long ago. But I am only recently beginning to realize that now, I love it. Come rain or come shine (or, lately, torrential downpour), it is my City. I stand by it, as it stands by me. Love, is a long time in the making.

The Last One That You Keep

And here we were in this quiet corner of the Village. A fancy drink, a simple beer. The dearest old friend, the sparkling new friend, the fancy cocktail lemon twist. I stood under a street lamp and smoked, tiny droplets misting their way around me but all I could think was How bright is New York in the dark. It makes me feel at home, that the night is never black.

From the window of the bar I could see our Morton Street courtyard. Our stories were of old days, nearly forgotten. Of madness on 28th and Lex. Of the first day we met, how long ago that was. Of the life that is now, adventures and adulthood, and how simple it is after even a year, because friendship is friendship, regardless. I signed the tab, we ran across the streets.

Exhausted, I lay my head on my pillow. I remember 24 and a city all brand new. All these years later and love still in my heart. You take care of me, New York, and I'll take care of you.

Sinking into Sweet Uncertainty

Another cup of coffee, and another. All day, so tired, so apathetic, so unable to fill the empty sheet with the words that would pay the bills, would appease the Very Important Person on the other end.

Patience, said a voice within. Trust that it will return.

And then there it was. The tickled rush through my synapses, the insatiable hunger for loud music in my ears, the complete disregard for anything going on around me. How much easier when the rest of the world grows dark and silent, to spread out one's ideas and energies on the floor and begin to piece them together again. Hours pass, without food or break or weariness as the deadline adrenaline writes its story, as it will. Years of this, and I never learn. Not to do differently, but to accept the process.

There is, at the end of such a night, a feeling more delicious than any other. The free soul, the tired body. The quiet room while my mind races to wind down. I enjoy this bit the most.

I chose the right life for myself, it seems.

If I Could Come Home

I rode the train with the suits, as usual, but then I switched to an uptown local to a stop I barely recognized, amazed how every train carries a different population. Here in this undiscovered part of town, lay an apartment that maybe, maybe would be the first New York home of my dear friend and fellow immigrant. I had promised to look at it, even though who was I to judge whether such a place could be hers.

We have lists of requirements, or requests, or even wild fantasies of our dream home. We walk through endless apartments, we open cupboards and imagine ourselves sitting in the window sill. We hmmm and we oooh, all the while jotting down pros and cons and checking off the dreams, or not.

Is there something better out there? Could this be good enough? If I pass this up, will anything at all be waiting around the bend? You walk back down the four flights of stairs and try to know if this was the place, and how much you are willing to fight for it. You hear a creak in the step and wonder if that is the dealbreaker.

But then, there they are, the moments when you walk into an apartment and your heart smiles, when you see your list and toss it out the window, when there is no flaw you are not ready to love entirely. The feeling in your very core that says that whatever may come up, you will accept it and make it work, because this is your home, and this is where you belong.

How much finding that apartment is like falling in love. How much love, is like coming home.

The White Box

I was late, I was exhausted, I walked right past it. I needed to be working, I needed to eat dinner, I needed so many things that were not what I was doing.

But spring is back, and my resistance crumbles quickly. So I went to the opening at the hole in the wall on Broome and tripped along the Lower East Side streets to dinner and drinks and silly giggles until work was further from my mind than a Mad Hatter. On my way home, my high heels kept the beat to the music in my ears; I knew I looked too happy for these cynical streets, and I didn't care.

Perhaps I'll pay for it tomorrow when the deadline bites at my heels. But it turns out that there is more to life than deadlines.

And Central park in a carpet of croci and snowdrops is magic.

There's no competing with that.

The Blind Side

Like a beaten puppy, I hesitantly crawled out of the dark, musty room and stared unbelieving into the sun. Here it was, how simple it seemed now. A million people were already lining the pier; how could they have no doubt in their hearts? I followed the throngs, hesitantly, reluctant to share this space which all winter was mine. The Hudson lay like tin foil; I could feel my pale skin sizzle. A short breath to fill my lungs, and I had to go.

But then, against moody Grey Dog brick, I could feel the change. Like little ants of adrenaline, marching through my body, igniting flames so long extinguished. My hands telling a hundred tales, my breath quick, my eyes lit. The first spark of madness, so long awaited, so dearly missed.

Words spring back into my awakening heart. I know there is more, much more, to come, when sticky green buds speckle the view from my bedroom window. But this moment, too, is priceless, when I remember what light is, what life is. Tomorrow, I face the blank sheet of paper, and I remember why I came.

They Build Buildings So Tall These Days

Houston Street Subway stop and never any trains stopping on my track. Express trains rumble past, my heart vibrates in my chest. Too much time to stand still and think; why did I not bring a book? As though I got caught in this brief but unending wait, and I have nowhere left to run.

We are not safe anywhere. We cannot escape ourselves.

Just a few steps upstairs, the spring sun is warming the hearts of New Yorkers and concrete without discrimination. I could feel my back straightening, my steps getting longer as my legs stretched in the mild, still air. Yesterday, I turned on 62nd street and everything was quiet, save the birds. I thought it is here. Today, I remembered how bright sunlight reveals the dust in my kitchen, exposes every last hidden flaw.

In my dream last night, we were hanging off the edge of an impossibly tall building. I said Can you believe some people let go? The height was making my toes tingle, but before I knew it, we were in the subway car. Safe, grounded.

I had forgotten how sad spring can be, just at that moment when it stops being an impossibly bright and beautiful future and becomes the same Reality it always was. We cannot escape ourselves. The local train came, stopped, let me on, took me to Brooklyn. It didn't have the answer, either. But it didn't pretend to.

Aqua Vitae

We needed to meet up on Columbus Circle anyway, how convenient that the little Scandinavian place lay tucked away just at the edge of it. Is Swedish food scary? she said. Who cares? The waiters are hot, we replied, and so the matter was settled.

I haven't been to IKEA in months. I haven't walked past Scandinavia house and sighed longingly or complained about American superficialities. I filled my coffee stores while I was home over Christmas, and I have been satisfied.

But there was something in the light wood of the floors, something in the spaciousness and newspapers hanging for patrons' morning reads. Something in the simple quiet of the room that felt like home. Like pain francais near our therapy supervisor, where we'd go after supervision, share a large pot of coffee and a pastry, and while away many hours of laughter and camaraderie.

The softness of the birch tree, the smell of the pine, will forever sift through the blood that runs in my veins. I would not have it, any other way.

Sutton Place Park

How bright was the sun this morning! How warm, how convincing. I fall head over heels and without reservation, while giant piles of snow reduce to steam on the sidewalks. It's trash day, you're out. Spending my day with that smiling face on 59th street. I tell her it's a new day, a new life. I beam at her; she informs me that she has a mind of her own, but she seems content enough in her convictions.

We take a walk around her new hood and are soon made aware it's a whole other world. Dirty, scraggly Chelsea backalleys wobble in comparison to New York Old Money. People who have nothing to prove do it anyway, simply by pairing their Monday Morning sneakers with opulent fur coats. We sit at a park on Sutton Place. I am grateful that the River is public property, the air, the sun. I look up at the imposing townhouses, and see my worth in money. It doesn't amount to much.

As she sleeps soundly in the fresh, free air, I read about Hunter S. and his romping about in the West Village in the 50s.

I remember money is not what matters. Madness is.

We walk home again, both beaming now. It's a new day, it's a new life. I'm buying the ticket. I am taking the ride.