Central Park Leaves, photo by smalltowngirl
It’s not just New York that I miss, but then again, it’s probably never place, separate from the rest of life, that anyone misses. For the last two days, I’ve missed New York City with an aching, depressing, loneliness that only hits at the end of the day, when my guard is down, my mind is resting, and my heart takes control.
It’s not just the cold, windy streets of New York in November that I miss. It’s not just the feeling of the air on the day when a light jacket is no longer enough. It’s not just the weeks when the leaves disappear from the trees and orange leaves turn to brown that eventually becomes covered by snow. It’s not just the smell of the subway or the sound of my cowboy boots clunking against the concrete.
I miss more than that.
It’s not even just my yoga classes in the tiny, musty old basement of the YMCA in Greenpoint, even though those yoga classes brought me so much peace and clarity. It’s not just the long ride on the G train from Fort Greene to Long Island City to see the man who held me so close for so many months. And it’s not just the hot tea he’d fix me on cold winter nights when I arrived at his apartment, cheeks and nose reddened from the cold. It’s not just the two-eggs-and-cheese-on-a-kaiser-roll-and-a-coffee-with-cream-no-sugar that was my Friday morning street vendor breakfast tradition.
I miss more than that, too.
It’s not just the long walks on Sunday mornings, when Brooklyn was relatively still. It’s not just the dodgeball league I played on or my studio of piano students in Bensonhurst or my coworkers at the Garden. It’s not just the shortcuts I learned to take or the feeling of accomplishment that came from doing even basic things like laundry or grocery shopping in such a massive city. It’s not just the craftsman in Union Square or the dozens of great little shops in SoHo or the amazing wine bar in Fort Greene.
I miss everything about New York and what it represented in my life.
I miss that time when I was fresh back in the United States after twelve months studying Chinese and working and traveling in Asia. Nothing was too gritty, too real, too raw for me then. I miss my New York City love life and the man who loved me. I miss my tiny bedroom with my big window in my fourth story walk-up on my Cosby Show block in Brooklyn.
I miss the way I felt when I lived there; like the entire world was at my fingertips, and I could do anything. It felt like I was at the front edge of the world; of fashion, of finance, of the Arts…of pretty nearly everything.
So tonight I admit that for as much as I’m trying to love Missouri and seek out what’s beautiful and interesting and gritty and inspiring about this state, I miss New York City. I still believe that the move back to Missouri was the right decision, but I miss New York with an aching throbbing loneliness that I don’t even know how to begin to address.
