It’s always rather a jolt getting back to Gotham after a long absence. Autumn is, as the old song reminds us, a fine time to be in New York, but I must say the adjustment was especially jarring this time around, and today the place seemed noisier, dirtier, and more chaotic than ever. Sirens wailed. Rats scurried. Construction workers dropped a great load of sheet-metal on the sidewalk directly behind me, with a deafening crash that nearly stopped my heart. Indigent muck-scutcheons bickered on the street. Strap-hangers jostled and sweated. When I finally found a seat on the subway, it was next to a deranged woman who glared at me and ranted incoherently.
I’ve been living here since 1978, when I moved from a 145-acre farm near New Hope to a tiny studio apartment on the Upper West Side, and I still think this is the greatest city in the world. But maybe, after 32 years here, I’m starting to have had enough of cities altogether: that amazing New York energy that I used to feed on so voraciously now seems a little less digestible, and I find myself more deeply nourished these days by the sea, the sky, the stars, and silence.
Speaking of indigestion: when I eventually managed to find enough room in the subway car to open my morning paper, it was only to discover a wily and unctuous Op-Ed piece by that Imam Feisal Rauf on the subject of his Ground Zero victory mosque — and when I got home, there he was again, being interviewed on CNN. I have a thing or two to say about both essay and interview (in particular that Mr. Rauf’s purported rationale for not moving the project amounts to little more than blackmail) but I think I’ll leave it for later. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I have a one-track mind, and anyway, tonight I’m still trying to un-harsh my mellow.
7 Comments
Time to move to Northern California.
I do like Northern California, but New England’s still my first choice.
New England is great, although my preference would be for redwoods, palm trees, and temperate winters. In either place, however, you don’t have the day-to-day hassles that come with living in New York.
DON’T COME TO MINNESOTA, WHERE THERE ARE 6 MONTHS OF UNBEARABLE COLD.
(Nothing personal. It’s just the unofficial policy of MN residents to broadcast this message to keep the riff-raff out.)
Not to worry, Bob. I know MN is beautiful, but the distal end of Cape Cod suits me just fine.
No! No! Minnesota is not beautiful. It’s bone chillingly cold for half the year, without even the austere beauty of a true arctic landscape to compensate.
Umm, I’ve been to Minnesota, Bob. Very nice, I thought. Pretty lakes.
I think all those people I’ve been sharing the F train with might like it very much… not like Wellfleet, which, now that you’ve got me thinking about it in the right way, is really kind of a dump. Full of sand and yucky fish.