Native New Yawka
Happy anniversary to me and New York City! Ten years have come and gone. The traditional gift for a ten year anniversary is listed to be “tin or aluminum,” which feels like the perfect level of garbage for a New York milestone such as this. They say reaching ten years makes you a New Yorker, and I selfishly agree with this, however there are definitely people who reach this time stamp who don’t deserve the title. Below is a brief Lebowitz-ee listicle of things I think you need to have experienced or to embody for this badge to be properly earned:
If it’s three trains or a 30 minute walk and one train, you pick the latter
You know your way in and out of a lease like a real estate Houdini
The size of a home is absolutely foreign and wild to you. So many rooms and for what? So your relatives can stay in your house when they come to visit? Nuh-uh.
You’ve spent real, meaningful time in all the boroughs, except Staten Island. Bonus points if you’ve lived in them for any amount of time
You might not always order your coffee black but you can drink it that way, and you like it
You arrived straight and are now gay
You’ve watched people arrive and leave
You’ve watched businesses open and close
Looking at the skyline brings on a wave of restrospection and bittersweetness
Alt. side means something to you
This list is catered to me, of course, but this is a self indulgent piece of writing to celebrate me. For the purpose of marking this momentous milestone, I opened the vault of New York memories and chapters and will proceed to lay a few of them out for you, but really for me.
Ten years ago, my parents and I embarked upon the saddest, most silent road trip to ever happen in the history of the automobile. I say this having been one of the 9th graders to actually read the summer assigned selection: Grapes of Wrath, all the way to the breast feeding at the end. Our jalopy, Ford Edge, was packed to the brim with some clothes I would never be caught in today, some basic school supplies, and a smattering of trumpets. After two days and twenty-two hours on the road, we pulled onto East 10th Street, and moved my belongings into my new home away from home. My parents finessed a meeting with my new roommates and their parents, very much reminiscent of when my mom would escort me to pre-school and write my name in bubble letters at the top of a coloring sheet before excusing herself and leaving me to my own devices. In this case, leaving me to the entire Big Apple.
As I casually mentioned above, I arrived in New York City with multiple trumpets and the dream of playing music for the great, white way: Broadway. Is that still its little nickname? Feels like time for a software update on that one. During this first chapter of mine, I was able to eat, sleep, and breathe music in a very cool way. I had the opportunity to play with so many amazingly talented musicians who were way better than me and made me better. I played iconic classical pieces like “The Rite of Spring” and Mahler 5, as well as immersive productions of off-off-off broadway musicals like a gender-swapped rendition of “Cabaret” and a production of “The Wizard of Oz,” where I played flugelhorn as well as a munchkin. I was living da dream! It may go without saying, but I really had no party priority at the time and was a little bit poor. This led to me spending my “date nights,” watching other people’s children and eating 2 for $5 pints of ice cream for dinner. This era of babysitting must have been during the time of at least PayPal? But I was largely paid in cash, which I hid under my mattress and muled back to the United Missouri Bank over holiday breaks. My Junior year, I studied for a semester in Paris where I got to jam with jazz musicians in literal Paris?! I also gained a level of weight that showed up in my youthful cheeks due to a 300% increase in bread consumption and probably being drunk for the first couple times in my life. But #worthit! I can say that now that I have a mature, positive relationship with my body. This college era of New York City was really full of the energy of “not enough hours in the day, not enough days in my life to see and do everything in New York City.”
I keep a pretty consistent journal and have since I was quite little. Little enough for my early entries to address desires like wanting to get braces because they looked cool and emotional passages like, “Worst day ever: Grandma died! Anyway, Math test tomorrow. I’m kind of loving long division.” The overall take away from my college years is that I really was stressed about fitting everything in: “One of the hard things about getting older is that I don’t feel like I have enough time to chase my dreams;” “I want to get to the point where I am not afraid to fail.” Aww, girl! My journal is full of recounting shows I had seen, heroes I had met, all mixed up with the regular drama of being 19. There are stories from Lincoln Center and City Center, where I volunteered, largely to see stuff for free. Which I did, but mostly, I hung out with some of the most amazingly accomplished old people with the most divine New York accents and stories. I tell of my times sitting in Broadway pit orchestras and taking improv classes. The girl was out and about! This first nearly half of my New York years was a formative and sleepless time where I was still very much trying to shake my midwestern expectations. It was also a time full of incredibly cliché, pinch me New York moments that I savored, because how was I to know I would still be here?
After college, I started to transition into post-college, working-girl, pre-Covid days, living in a teeny apartment in East Harlem with roommates, being silly young people, out during the in-between hours which is that span where it’s dark out but the Empire State building lights have shuttered for the night. A very specific couple of hours that really give “Wow, New York City in my 20s!” This chapter was slightly interrupted when Covid came tearing through. Heard of it? I look forward to quizzing my nieces and nephews for their middle school history tests about this period and learning more about what actually the heck happened. I must admit, I blacked out a little bit during it and not just because I was busy “supporting local businesses,” by drinking pouches of mystery juice on the sidewalk. This was a time obviously of crisis and scary things, but I kind of feel like it was a time where New York City was hosting the exact right number of people. Only the real ones stuck around, which created a genuine sense of camaraderie as we all went on walks that lasted hours and put too much pressure on our “pods,” to fulfill all of our needs. I remember walking through Times Square and it was me and one other person. Amazing.
Eventually, the dots spaced six feet apart outside CVS faded and with that signal, all the people returned! New York City post-Covid definitely ushered in a more adult version of myself. Things got a little tidier and grown up. The feeling of, “I must do something at all times,” softened. I fell in love in a really big way on the gorgeous streets of Brooklyn. I made and saved a little more money. I lived on my own for the first time - though, I was hemoraging money to achieve this. I wrote some fun scripts and songs I liked. I helped talented people with original music and films. I made some important, meaningful new friends. I corresponded with some heroes for actual work purposes. I started liking red wine? Acquired taste feels like such an adult thing. New York City really started to feel like home. Slowly, I was becoming a little bit more like Meg Ryan carrying pumpkins and emailing strangers around town. This chapter is the one I feel I am in now, as I hit my ten year mark.
New York City is a very fast and high achieving place that often gives a “shit or get off the pot,” impression: something I was clearly incredibly sensitive to. This can be a stressful, but also incredibly invigorating driving force. If you can click into that gear, it can lead to living ten lives in the time of one. In other words, if you can get up to speed with the pace of a New Yorker, you’ll certainly be able to cover more ground. And that was poetic of me to say! I’m sitting here on a little patio on the Upper West Side, attached to an apartment I share with the woman I’m going to literally marry. (Before you automatically assume we have rich parents, let me just caveat quickly that Brooklyn is so expensive and didn’t want us and the landlord of our building somehow lives in the past in the best way but also thought “two girls, one bedroom, no problem.” Love you, Rocco.) I have friends doing incredibly cool things and I ran in Central Park this morning. Not so bad! New York City finally feels normal to me. It is my home. It is where I say I am from when I am on a food tour in a foreign place. I think New York is the greatest and I wrote this essay to prove it! Though, that in itself probably disqualifies me from earning the title of Native New Yawka. Happy ten years!