Two-Term Resident

Today I woke up early, and I started my day productive but bleary, and so it took me a while to realize it’s the 21st of August. On this date, 8 years ago, I got on a plane in Arizona, with my cat. We had a layover in Kansas City, with my parents. There was an eclipse (not my doing). I landed at LaGuardia and took a car all the way to Crown Heights (ridiculous, but I booked the plane ticket before the lodging). Dottie and I lived in Crown Heights, in a 14-unit Air BnB, for less than 2 weeks. Then, we moved to Astoria. Then, we moved to Manhattan. Here we are still.

I’ve now lived in New York for twice as long as I lived in Phoenix, but not quite half as long as I lived in Missouri. August 21st happens every year. I never really plan to write about this Big Day. I never get through the day without writing something about it.

Here are 8 small thoughts about 8 years in New York.

I got married this summer. The wedding was everything I wanted and more; so far, marriage is too.

New York predates all of it. I was visiting for a comedy festival in 2016 when I fell in love with New York. I kind of felt…ashamed? It was so cliché, so expected. I was sitting on a Williamsburg stoop crying because I wanted what I couldn’t have, or couldn’t have yet. I was 1.25 semesters from graduation, and I wanted to ditch it all, quit life and go to New York. I hadn’t even had a particularly nice time in New York! A pigeon hit me in the face at Newark airport.

Crying, outside a random person’s front door, in Brooklyn on a weeknight. I’m sure one street over they were filming the series finale of Girls. And then—like all great New York love stories, but especially like When Harry Met Sally…—we found each other again and now New York knows I’ll never leave.

This is my longest romance so far. It will always be neck-and-neck with my marriage. Luckily, though, we are on equal footing; my husband loved New York before I set foot here.

Speaking of marriage, our honeymoon covered all the country’s miracles, natural and unnatural. Old Faithful, the SPAM museum, the Grand Canyon, the World’s Largest Bronze Wildlife Statue, Mackinac Island. We came home from Niagara Falls, so we took our “usual” route into the city, across the George Washington Bridge. Nothing makes my chest crack open in ecstasy like that view. The Hudson River and the city just sitting there, lounging in the sun like a cat or a lizard. I love loving a place that is so recognizable, and that feels like the whole world at once.

Everybody loves compartmentalizing. This is nobody’s fault! It’s how our brains work. I like that, over the course of a day in New York, I can easily be all of the versions of myself. Right after work, I ran over to Poets House to see an exhibit; on the train, I wrote sketches for a comedy show I’m in; on my way home I snapped a photo of a new karaoke place I want to try; I waved “hi” to a neighbor who I see all the time and who has no idea who I am, just where I exist in our shared hall. I could be all these things anywhere, but I can be them all easily in New York. I can also easily be nothing. It’s so easy to be unimportant and invisible here. Sometimes, I need to feel externally anonymous to protect my internal privacy. Weirdly, I find the most comfortable version of that feeling in a crowd.

The 8-year mark feels significant. My brother was born just before I turned 8. That means I was a lonely, only child for 8 years, and then I met my best friend and have had no problems since. The “twice as long as Phoenix” thing seems important too. I’ve entered uncharted territory twice over. I’m beginning the thriceness. I’m safely past the 7-year itch and I have no signs of histamine deployment. One of my thinking-habits is touching my thumb to each of my fingertips, left hand first, then right hand, counting up to eight. It’s a big round infinity turned right-side-up. I remember being 8 years old, in my bed, and suddenly feeling so shocked, realizing that soon I’d be in double-digit ages. On the other hand, though, haven’t I been in New York for 10,000 years?

Man. Your brain works best when you’re schlepping a forty-pound purse of unnecessaries to an RSVP you regret. Inevitably you have the best night of your life, and on the walk you have the best idea you’ve ever had. Bring a notebook! Your notes app is fine, texting it to yourself is fine, but you only understand what you write down (the exception to this is dreams; dream-journal notes are 3am oblivion manifested in ink). Earlier this week I had to go do an errand at 103rd Street, and I got off the train at 110th because I was a little depressed, and, relatedly, stupid. So I forced myself to walk.

Walking lifted my mood despite myself. It cleared away whatever chemical cobwebs had stuck in my brain. Walking is the opposite of showering. I cannot explain, exactly, what this means, but: when I’m walking the thoughts move forward, and when I’m showering they circle the drain. You really take walking for granted until you go somewhere with little-to-no walking. I went to Los Angeles for ~10 days earlier this year, and it was fun, but boy, you have to have a different kind of brain to be there.

On that day earlier this week, when I was walking for Errands but also for Mood, I passed two girls, sisters, one big and one little. The little one was proposing something. As I got within earshot, the big one said, “I think you’ll probably forget about it by the time we get there, so okay!” and they shook hands.

Recently in the park, in the flower bed, there was a single baby carrot nestled in the dry dirt. It was perfectly clean and moist—it didn’t seem like it had been dropped or rolled. It looked like someone had reached down and gently placed it there. There was no evidence, anywhere in the park, that anyone had eaten baby carrots that day. Hmm!

I was sitting on the train next to a guy. Next to the guy was a gal with a dog. The dog was VERY interested in the man, and the lady tried to contain him, but the guy finally said “Oh, I love dogs. He can say hi all he wants.” Then the dog LICKED this man’s face, and the man was TOTALLY INTO IT. Everyone was saying “Oh my God!” and “Yeah, yes! Yeah!” and taking photos. The lady and the dog got off the train, and the guy, who had not spoken a word to anyone but the dog/lady, turned to me and said, “I can’t believe that happened. That completely turned my week around. That was incredible”

I’m becoming increasingly militant on this topic. Magic is real. Sometimes, a dog licks your entire face, right when you need it. You run into your friends on the street in a city of millions. Or, you get coffee with someone you haven’t seen in 12 years, and the first thing she says is “I already ran into someone who knows you.” If you dedicate yourself to making things, to generating new ideas and new ways of living, eventually they find a foundation.

Magic is real. And if anything proves it, New York proves it, because New York is A Test and you have to be stupid to pass. I think this is the key to magic, miracles, God, divinity, kismet, destiny, all the real Elizabeth Gilberty shit. You have to humble yourself. You have to admit that you don’t know if/how it works, and you have to try ridiculous things to make it happen in proximity to you. You cannot outsmart magic. You can accept it and that’s it. I also think that everyone has a place where they feel more magic-y than elsewhere; for me it’s New York, so I’m at my most miraculous when I’m doing lots of stuff out in the world of the city.

My friend Sari took this photo of me in my Arizona apartment building, when I was selling all my furniture to move. I sold her my grey click-clack couch, which I often didn’t bother unfolding before I used it as my bed. I’m not blonde anymore, but I have those glasses (and a backup pair too). I still have that shirt—I found it while putting together donations for a clothing swap, and I kept it, because I still love and wear it. I got it from my mom, who wore it to an event early in my college career—maybe my orientation or move-in?—and then gave it to me. It’s still comfy! It’s still pretty, cute and good. I am still smiling sleepily in round glasses. I am still selling my furniture. I know better than to make my expectations too firm. Like that hand-written sign says, everything is negotiable. I am still excited for what New York might have in store for me, and I still don’t know what it could be

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