five years

brooklyn, ny

it was five years ago today that i got off a plane at laguardia, caught a bus to grand central, took the 6 down to 23rd street, and walked to my first apartment in new york city. i did not pass through ellis island, but my story is no less than a more comfortable twenty-first equivalent of starry-eyed big city immigration. something inside me saw the restless streets and soaring steel as an invitation, a challenge to test my mettle. it need not be said that new york city is not for everyone. some people like their open spaces too much. some would never sacrifice the comfort of wonderful homes nor the feeling of knowing one's neighbors. for those that do move here i will not attempt to be the representative voice, partially because i know that i still cannot fully articulate my own. all i know is that there was a feeling that i had to move here. i did not know fully what i expected out of the city, just that i had to try it. i would have told you that i wanted to write my first novel and get my master's degree. i got the latter a year and the former should be done in weeks. aside from these feats, there was nothing about the past five years that has gone according to how it was envisioned. it has been everything i would have ever wanted.

had i thought it through more thoroughly, i would have moved with at least twice the financial cushion. i had roughly $3000 to my name, the promise of a month on the couch of a friend of a friend, and exactly zero connections to employment. i knew a handful of people, but i could only call one of them a friend. i was serendipitously fortunate to land a meaningful job within two weeks of arriving. nevermind that i was going to be a white colorado kid teaching science to students who left traditional school in the bronx. i would be able to remain under shelter and keep food in my belly and that was enough. the fact that i could be proud of my work was a very delectable icing.

and five years later i wake up and it's thursday. i have to teach in the evening, some emails to send in the morning, and then a couple other quotidian chores that i have already forgotten. while it is no more than any other day, it still feels special. riding the train, i decided spontaneously that i was hungry so i stopped in chinatown to buy dumplings and eat beside a soccer game off chrystie street. there was still time before work, so i took a long walk to washington square park and paid a man named 'cornbread' to give me a thorough whipping at chess. i sat across from orthodox jews on the long a train ride to my last class of this session where i am thanked profusely by twenty dominicans who are about to take their citizenship test. this was my day. my thursday. i realized that it was special, but also that it was so normal. tomorrow i will forget all about it because i will be confronted by an entire new tsunami of urban absurdity. i cannot think of any other place where the mundane events of the day are still so awe-inspiring. still so fresh. because it is a milestone anniversary of sorts, i suppose it right that i speak those words. that i shed a man's fear of intimacy and just come clean.

new york, even after all these years, i love you. we all know the t-shirt. i heart new york. tourists wear it and get their picture taken in times square and next to the statue of liberty and on the brooklyn bridge with grand piano smiles on their faces. but the shirt is a joke. it is like the radio station that overplays a good song. because i love new york.

love is not just that other person when they're funny or when they do that one cute thing or when you stare into each others candlelit eyes on the honeymoon; love is standing beside hospital beds and tolerating weird bodily noises and putting up with that old friend of theirs who you'd rather stab with a blunt object. all the same, loving new york is not just grimaldi's pizza or the statue of liberty or brushing elbows with the beautiful people at some gawdy club in the meatpacking district. loving new york is looking back fondly on that time you were dumped on the street. loving new york is walking past the aroma of the world's best restaurants and knowing you have to settle for the peanut butter sandwich in your pocket because you're still looking for work. loving new york is spending your weekend on the subway and walking around to a dozen apartments that you found on craigslist hoping that anyone, just one person, will offer you shelter. loving new york is waiting drunk and tired on a subway platform in the dead hours of morning and screaming expletives when the first light that comes is that of the garbage train. loving new york is stepping in a curbside february puddle and walking miles of city streets in wet socks. lovng new york is losing a nights sleep to a party in the apartment above or the incessant traffic outside your window. loving new york is seeing a rat in a restaurant you're eating at and laughing. loving new york is getting your bike stolen and immediately searching for another.

but loving new york is also having the best night in years on a friends stoop. it's having a bad day and then being serenaded by a mariachi band on the n train home. it's beginning a day grading papers alone and ending it with high-fives to a group of people you just met at a lively concert you never planned on going to. it's walking up to washington square park and seeing obama speak. it's falling in love. it's watching a west indian cricket game in prospect park. it's finding that hole in the wall jamaican restaurant that serves food so good you'd swear you were about to be executed. it's meeting and befriending people so goddamn wonderful you dare not pinch yourself lest you wake up elsewhere.

go through that, and a million things more, and then wear the t-shirt. not that i'm picking on tourists, just that i'm a little disappointed that those four little words are diluted to the form of catch phrase. because i love new york. i don't know how long i'll stay, could honestly be the rest of my life or only the rest of the year. i do know that every single place i go or live hereafter will immediately be compared to new york. i'm sure that most comparisons may not be favorable. it would be impossible for me to leave tomorrow and not have this city pop up in my conscious at least once per day forty years from now. tell me that's not love.

so, new york, you rat-infested money-loving dirty bike-stealing man-breaking stress-inducing terrorist-targeted unjust unkempt vomit-splattered foul-mouthed pickpocketing urine-soaked sould-crushing blood-spilling violent heartless hellhole: i love you. i love you. i love you.