Archive – Day 9
Sunday, April 18, 1993
Looking Back...
The last day in New York is my farewell love letter to the city. Never mind that I only fleetingly mention the things that we actually did and saw. I’m telling you I liked it, and that should be good enough. Right?
I now realize that after spending a week in New York that I don’t want to leave! Even the draw of Disney World is not enough to hamper my reluctance to step on that train tomorrow. Perhaps it may be the usual country boy lured in by the big lights, but I really don’t think so. I have visited other cities, and I have no desire to stay. I have lived in Southern California, and I don’t want to go back. But New York seems different. It seems like a city I could really be comfortable in. It must be the New York blood in me. I am even considering moving here for a summer, living with Maureen and Cosmo and perhaps getting a job at one of the Wendy’s in Manhattan. It would be a nice change, spending three months in this atmosphere, taking the subway every day, knowing all the local eateries, and just being a New Yorker. I think that would be a great thing for me to do, in perhaps two or three years. We’ll see!
But more about today. The Village was not at all what I had expected, so all my conceptions of that are shot to hell. But, we spent an interesting stretch of time wandering around Chinatown and Little Italy. In Little Italy (which is exactly what the name implies) I purchased a new chapeau (note the French), one which will be brought out only on special occasions. It was a bit of an impulse, and I am rather proud of it.
And also today we did, as a group, something rather spontaneous yet impressive. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. A week ago I was in Denver. Never then did I guess that I would walk across one of the most famous and oft-photographed bridges in America. The only feat comparable to this would be transversing the Golden Gate Bridge. To see the Brooklyn Bridge in person was impressive enough, but walking it — words escape me to describe it.
But the most enthralling part of New York is that fact that I feel at home here. Even here, at Tony’s apartment, I feel as comfortable and settled as I do in my own room. (There was something in my eye just now, so I took a brief pause. Where was I?) I guess I’m just a traveler. I feel most at home away from home. But also it might have to do with New York’s basic appeal to me. I always need something to do, and in New York there’s always something to do. They don’t call it the city that never sleeps for nothing.
Also it just occurred to me that I may be attracted to New York because of how different it was from what I expected. I still have my fantasy New York, the one I created from all my various sources of what New York is like. And I find its difference from the real thing to be shocking. But it is (for once) the real thing I am in love with, and not the fantasy image.
But, regardless of what I may say, I am still too much rooted in the forests to be able to survive in New York for long stretches of time. Spending the summer here would be all I could take; any more and permanent damage might be suffered. But, more importantly, I don’t think I could stay happy here for longer than that. And a loss of happiness always denotes a need for a change. So, two months at a time I could be a New Yorker. But not much more than that.
I just noticed again how much of a contest it is here, and everywhere, to pay for food. Sometimes the competition to pick up the check almost turns into a fistfight. Every meal that we have been to with someone else here has developed into an argument when the time came to pay. Whoever had the fastest reflexes, or was the most agile, or had the stars in their favor got the check first, and the other went off in a huff. The underlying forces behind that I understand, but cannot fully explain.
I finally get time to write and I can find nothing to write about. Odd.
I can’t help but think how disappointing and empty life back home will be after this vacation. I’m gone from it a week and I miss nothing of it. It’s surprising to find that no matter how sentimental and attached I seem to be to certain things, I can leave my home and my life, all my problems, all that matters to me, my interests, my desires, all of it I can leave behind effortlessly and completely, based only on the faith that I will return in three weeks. Perhaps my vagabond instincts are greater than I ever knew.
Well, the next few days seem as though they will be a time of rest, what with the train and all. It could be considered insurance and protection against burn-out, although I feel like I could go on like this forever. But a little rest will be much appreciated, and I think I will begin now. Good night.
