Close to the Bone
This is not the post I planned to write, and may still write yet, about how a whole mess of what I needed has been dumped on my head recently. Instead I’m feeling wistful about Brooklyn. I’ve already started to forget the pain-in-the-ass stuff — the alt side parking, the schlepping of groceries, the smell of summer garbage. But I miss something, mourn something, that is almost too close to the bone to articulate.
I can see now that the underlying beat of New York City is ambition. Whether people admit it or not, they are there because they’re after something — some form of accomplishment. It may not be Trump Tower, but they’re trying to build or make something in their world — an artwork, a career, an identity, a philosophy — some kind of offering that others can see and appreciate.
Here, in Northampton, it’s about something else. Freedom isn’t quite right, but it’s close. It’s more about individual contentment, I think, than individual accomplishment. And that is very likely a better fit for me. But it also means that a dream has died. Something vague that carried me to and kept me in New York City for nearly 20 years. A romantic notion of life lived in that particular place, fueled by movies like Swing Time, Moonstruck, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crossing Delancey. A vision of my life with the same cinematic sheen. But without the right scaffolding — the brownstones and bridges and water towers and crosswalks — that dream ceases to be.
And there are things that I can no longer hold in my hands. Certain ideas about myself. Some assumptions about the future. There is a tenuousness about everything, and I feel tender like a bruise.
Mostly I’m too busy to feel fragile. Mostly I’m being productive and appreciating my new comforts. I’m noticing all sorts of natural beauty and watching my children thrive in an environment of blazing sun, fresh-cut grass and unprecedented independence. But I’ve got some interior unpacking to do. Probably some rearranging. NYC and I are no longer together, and I’ve got to discover what it means to live without it.
Tenuousness. Tender like a bruise. Losses too close to the bone to fully articulate. Yes. Yes. Yes. I cannot add anything to these beautiful words. So, just, thank you. xo
“Where the coffee is strong, and so are the woman.” I love Northampton and the surrounding areas. My partner and I have gone there for years and finally bought a place in one of the hill towns (supposedly close to where Rachel Maddow hangs out). But I still live in NYC, sort of, so my letting-go-of-my-NYC-self thing has been delayed or clouded over entirely.
I always say that what I like about NY is that people here take their lives seriously. Someone could run a falafel truck or a hedge fun, she’s still in it and planning her next big steps. Whereas where I came from, the distant suburbs of Arizona and California, people focus more their new decks, and making sun tea, and going shopping than on their careers as expressions of who they are or who they are trying to be. They just don’t care as much.
Good post!
We miss you already Kate – and we are not even back in Brooklyn.
We have been neighbors and friends as long as our children can remember. Your family and ours left at the same time, to Northampton and Berlin. Today we are returning after one month as planned, but the last time we left it was a real move with the potential for a final departure from NYC. Your words describe just how we felt then.
Thank you for another beautiful post and your friends for the great replies: “I always say that what I like about NY is that people here take their lives seriously. Someone could run a falafel truck or a hedge fun, she’s still in it and planning her next big steps” (Michael)
love from Berlin GLJ