Goodbye to Some of That
By the time you read this it will be nearly a month since I left New York City. Such an event is meant to be an incredible exigence, one that will spark the most wonderful rhetorical invention. Joan Didion most famously did this in her essay that has a similar title to this post. This post will not come close to the Didion experience. I do like recognizing being adjacent to a similar exigence, but I would like to choose perhaps different stasis points than she did.
Leaving New York City isn’t a very big deal unless you were born there, lived there during your formative years, or it’s some sort of holy place to you. I strike out swinging on these three pitches. Plus I’m not really leaving. I’m commuting now. Twice a week (or perhaps more if my contract says I have to, putting this in to cover my ass) I will be driving to Queens to fulfill my teaching obligations at the University. So many people asked if I was also leaving St. John’s which I frustratingly said, “No, just the city.” It would be nice to have the full reset, but I think the next time that happens for me will be retirement, somewhere after the next 18 years.
Leaving New York City has been kind of nice. The best time of my life so far was when I lived in upstate New York. If you are from the City, you are thinking, “How nice, he lived in New Paltz or Poughkeepsie.” The upstate I lived in was not so close – Rochester and Syracuse, much closer to Canada than to the city limits. Most people do imagine New York as one massive paved plane, where the only distinguishing geographic feature is the height of the skyscrapers from region to region. I left Rochester, sadly, and began my doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh, where my romantic partner at the time never let an hour go by without reminding me of the terrible city I had placed us. Long diatribes about the horrific nature of cities, on principle, were a daily ritual. When an offer came to teach in New York, I dismissed it immediately. Surprisingly, and against our better judgement, she told me to take it. I thought this was a terrible idea, remembering the daily diatribes. However, I took the job and we moved, proving once again that people do not really know what they want but secretly do. The relationship ended pretty soon after that.
New York City, from day one and before, has been the most frustrating and difficult place to live that I experienced. Everything is expensive and everything takes forever to accomplish. There’s never any quiet; there’s nowhere to really hang out that doesn’t cost at least a hundred dollars. You want to have friends and hang out; you’d like to get out of your tiny, expensive apartment full of stuff so you call your friend up. You can’t just go chill at your friend’s place because they also live in a tiny, expensive apartment full of stuff. So bar, restaurant, café – that’s really it. A park if the weather is nice, but you should probably get coffee.
New York City has an admission and use fee. It’s really not that high. The rents are ridiculous, the price of shampoo and toothpaste is beyond crazy, but you have access to the best art ever made in the history of humanity, the finest ballet, the most well-trained and beautiful singers in the world at the Metropolitan Opera, and you have the best quality food of any cuisine available to purchase. You have incredible information through the public library system. Digital books, research databases, the works are all there if you just sign up for a card. The daily life frustration and cost of New York City is the equivalent of paying for high-speed home internet, which opens a world of amazing information and entertainment to you. That monthly fee quickly fades into the background after you start enjoying what it brings you.
Time is always limited in New York City. Everything takes more time than you think it would, even if you plan for it to take extra time. There’s no time to just hang out. There’s a train to catch; the next one won’t come for 45 minutes. This place is crowded, let’s try to stand near the bar. If we go to another one we might find a table, we might! Oh, it worked out. But the music is too loud to hear one another. Let’s get the check; I’ll Venmo you $80. This was great, see you soon I hope. Oh I know we are busy. But we should do this more often; why don’t we do this more often? Mass transit is great but mass transit takes time. A lot of time. Sometimes, it just stops working. Sometimes it stops in the middle of the trip. You never know. You could take 20 minutes to get somewhere, it could take an hour. It really is just up to people who apply public funding in a somewhat arbitrary way to the system.
When we first started discussing a move out to Long Island, I thought it was a great idea. My current partner suggested we think about it for a while. She said from her point of view, my life was in the city and it would be a big deal to leave it. I hadn’t thought about it this way. I did like the museums; I loved having easy access to the Public Library on 6th avenue. I wondered if moving so far away – at least 2 hours by public transit and car – was a good idea. Would it upend my oh so important life in New York?
As if God was listening, the next day friends from out of town appeared in a surprise visit. I agreed to hang with them through the city, visiting site after site. After about 45 minutes, I realized I was done with the city. What was the purpose of being so close to something that only has incredible value when you visit it, and visit it rarely? The joy in New York City is the uniqueness of all the sights, all the tastes, all the amazing things to see. It’s not worth the subscription price as that only diminishes the intensity of the experience when you encounter it. I figured that living relatively close, close enough to where going into the city was a planned effort not something you could do on a whim would be great for me. And sure enough, it really is. My reading and writing has massively increased. I am able to parse out the day much better. I have space and time to think. And when I do go to the city, it’s a special release as opposed to something to do when I am bored.
Being close to New York City is hardly leaving it. Farewell to some of that. Everyday in New York City is not great. The vacation trip once every few years is also not great. The occasional New York City is fantastic. Then again, I only lived there for about 16 years, give or take. I don’t want to make it sound like I hate New York City, I really don’t. I never wanted to live there, and I really didn’t even choose to live there. It just kind of happened. Moving to Long Island is the same sort of thing – it’s because of a good thing that I am here, not because of the geography. People who move to New York City because it is New York City have a whole different perspective which is not mine – probably the opposite. People born and raised there have a third perspective. I’m sure the lifelong New York City resident can and should compose an excellent rebuttal to what I’ve said here. There is (more than) a style to living in New York City and I am glad my days of practicing that style have ended.