Geographic History
I was born on Long Island. My mother, a Brooklynite, and my father, from the Bronx, left a little apartment on Staten Island to find a suburban home with full amenities for my sister, two brothers and I. A yard, a swing set, better schools, a red and yellow tulip-lined driveway, etc.
Putting aside their good intentions, whatever it is I saw or experienced on Long Island in my youth lead me to sneak off to Manhattan as soon as I could. To me, Manhattan was a sacred place. It validated my contempt for sheltered suburban life and all of its accompanying pitfalls. It’s vibrant motion both consumed me and sustained me. Often I would call my mother from the Jamaica train station (I LIRRed it to Jamaica and took the subway from there to save some money) and ask her to call me in sick at school. In exchange for this I would hide the Stern’s credit card bill before my father got home to see it. I spent my Burger King paycheck on really expensive t-shirts at Patricia Fields and X-girl, vinyl at Kim’s and Second Coming and falafel off Thompkins Square Park, rejoicing in the availabililty of food, fashion and music that I found appealing.
These trips to “the city” were an escape, just as sometimes driving east would be as I collected a would-be portfolio of isolated landscapes in eastern Long Island (The parts the strip malls hadn’t reached yet.), just as funneling my emotional energy into various unworthy vessels served to inject a bit of romance in the monotony of my life. But sooner than later these excursions and vessels proved to be not enough. I needed to leave the Island for good. Why? Ask anyone else who scaled its walls to freedom. Or ask anyone who choses to stay there. There is often a world of difference between these two individuals. So I wound up 3,000 miles away in Seattle, Washington (Ok, White Center) armed with not more then the under-developed social skills of my past alienation. Considering this, I didn’t last too long out west. I also missed New York like an old friend, kind of how I miss Seattle now like an acquaintance I never had the chance to really know.
Where am I going with all this? I don’t know. Christina inspired me with her blog about returning home to Texas. I guess I realize now that wherever you go, there you are. The same old you. So my loving NYC is more a love for who I am now. But damn, I love me some of them big soft pretzels.
