I flew to NY one spring to get an
abortion. It was a child I wanted but could not keep. Ambulance sirens are to
NY what the sound of running water is to a river: constant and inevitable. But
this one was coming for me, the child having decided to leave on his (or her)
own terms, and thinking she might take me with her. The dirty streets of the
lower east side, with their chick boutiques and the overwhelming smell of left
over food from the previous night’s dinners, will for ever be intertwined with
that ambulance and the events that followed.
Whenever I return to New York the first thing I recognize
is the thick humid air. Not the hot
dogs from the vendor stands. Not the pretzels. Not event the bright yellow
taxis sliding through the fog. Just the air, so thick and wet it has it’s own smell.
New York and I have a history.
Some of it I was too young to remember, but I have proof in the shape of aged
photographs of myself posing in front of landmarks like the oversized number
nine on West
57th Street, or on top of the empire state building, with a foggy Manhattan acting as backdrop.
This was the first big move. The first time my world was turned upside
down and sideways. The first time I was old enough to know I was being uprooted
and to feel the cold air on my
exposed roots. While my siblings were old enough to hang out in Washington
Square Park trying to look like Sid Vicious, I was still too young, and that backdrop
remained a mystery filled with secrets. NY was but a stepping stone, and
we left before I could get to know it.
I came back years later to
train for my first job. I lived with a group of strangers brought together by a
large corporate firm. The bubble was shiny and those populating Wall Street
still felt like semi-gods. Long walks on warm summer nights through crowded
streets, the thick humid air
embracing us and the sounds of heavy traffic together. We ate from the salad
bar at corner stores, with plastic
white forks that would inevitably break in our hands. Finally we had our own
money, so weekends were spent in SOHO shops wondering if our butt looked big,
or buying perfumes at Macys. Cheap and readily available taxis could take us
anywhere. All we had to do was
raise our hand and the world was ours. It was but a whisper and soon I’d fly away,
certain that I would return.
Which I did, briefly, to that
downtown hospital.
Still some years later, and
straight from the Rift Valley, I returned to the concrete jungle. This time I
came as a wife, a dreamer and an aid worker. I lived in the East Village
surrounded by shops with names and foods from Eastern Europe I could barely
pronounce. Every morning I took the bus up second avenue to the UN buildings. I
relished my Cheese cake at Veniero’s and spent lazy afternoons having coffee at
Mud, before it became a motorized franchise. We danced under the open sky on an
old ship at Chelsea piers. Late at night came the Cosmopolitans at Simones.
The night was young and so were we.
Another hospital, this time in mid town, gave me my first child. I
welcomed a loud and demanding baby in the arms of this city. It was spring. I
had planted tulips in the hope that they would bloom for her birth, which they
did. The heavy air embraced her under the shade of
overgrown trees that muffled the street noise for her slumber. And when she
couldn’t sleep, like the city, we
walked the streets surrounded by students from NYU or Parsons, eager to taste
the forbidden fruit. Soon after we left.
We’ve been back for seven months
now. The same humid air hits me as
spring draws near, and with it all the memories. There are tulips in my garden, their bulbs undecided about
their new home, or maybe they’re just waiting for her birthday. We live in
Brooklyn now. The streets are wider and quieter. I work from home and can see
from my desk the bulbs, the stray cats we took in for the winter, and my
children hanging from the monkey bars. Going into the city sometimes it strikes
me how far away it feels from this new piece of NY we are in the process of
discovering. Strolling down the cobbled Meatpacking district feels like I’m walking
in a distant memory.
I’m a mother now and my personal
compass searches for parks to have picnics and water fountains to cool us off
when the sun burns bright. A good Sunday afternoon includes a walk to the
butcher on Smith street and falafel on the Corner of Atlantic. Inevitably ice
cream. I go to yoga by donation and have traded my Starbucks for a soya latte. And then there is jazz. Music which I learned to love here, and
can only love here.
We are now searching for a house we can call our own. Where I will no longer have to dig up the bulbs up when we migrate. It’s only
right that it should finally happen in this city.
other posts on NY"
'does NY make my butt look big?'
'first impressions:NY & Brooklyn' photo post