Tuesday, January 5, 2010
You come to know people as places. The places they live, the lives they cultivate, the way they make the city come alive and how the city makes them come alive in turn. I guess for me, more so than any other place, New York has become that for me. I can't tell you how many people called me or texted me or left me comments asking how my city was, wishing me well and everything I'd hoped.
The romance of that city bewitches me every time I set foot in the streets, they way the buildings crowd around me and keep me close. The way the warmth from the restaurants invites you inside when you can't feel your fingertips or the way the snow in the park charms you enough to sit down on a bench and feed the squirrels who call the few trees near the playground home. How a day starts out with a .50 banana from the deli and ends with curling up in the softest blankets, the city still breathing around you. Where the boys in the pubs call you darlin' and you come to know the city better than any other you've known, because you're a New Yorker, through and through. Where you tear up when you land at the airport and can breathe easier when you leave because you'll be back soon and the gorgeous, glittering lights bid you farewell but even they know you'll be back too.
This time I ran around the streets by myself, up through the Theatre district to Gramercy and Murray Hill. I ate yogurt in Koreatown, spent an afternoon in Madison Square Park, and saw the ball drop in Times Square. I ate at my favorite restaurant, went to NYU and SoHo for the afternoon, and ended up all the way in the East Village. I found my marker, found my place, felt so at home.
