I'm Sure I Left Something in New York

I am fairly certain I did not leave my heart in New York. It had pretty much been deflated and left to gasp a few months before my departure. There was simply not enough to leave behind.

After I moved away in 1998, I swore off returning, despite the number of fabulous people I knew/know there. And then ... well, 2001 happened. And then ... well, I waited. I stalled. I stuttered. It was like I was trying to figure out how to see an old boyfriend who'd been emotionally abusive.

In 2005, I finally returned to New York, shocked to find the city transformed, not only in so many physical ways, but in less tangible emotional ways that left me confused. This wasn't the city that had always seemed ready for a fight. Now that we were both older, and at least one of us a bit better off financially, it felt more like an anti-climactic reunion where there simply wasn't too much to say. Not uncomfortable. Not bad. Just...not what I expected.

What shocked me most at the time was my longing for Brooklyn--specifically the area in and around Park Slope, where I lived for two of the years of my time in the city. When Megan and I had first moved there, we had friends tell us it was too far away and they would never come visit us there. Then, of course, several of them moved in only a stone's throw away from us. By 2005, the whole neighborhood was overrun with people I assume had once upon a time said they would never, ever live in Brooklyn. Normally, I think I would have blanched to see them all wandering around the leafy green, brownstone-dotted streets. But seeing them all as part of a long-delayed visit, it seemed appropriate. This was not my neighborhood anymore, after all.

When I made it to New York again in 2006 and 2007--both for work, both visits padded with extra personal days--I was once again in the zone. I still knew how to navigate the subways with barely a glance at the underground signs; I could easily weave in and out of the people on the sidewalks; I could bundle up in layers appropriate to the cold; and I was content in knowing this was not my day-to-day reality.

By the end of my last visit, nearly two years ago, it was clear to me that my enjoyment of New York depended solely on the amount of time I spent in Brooklyn. When work kept me cooped up in Midtown, Chelsea, and the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I stared to itch, antsy with the knowledge that I was stuck in this part of the city I never liked--that offered so little to me personally.

When I finally escaped back to Brooklyn and walked above ground I could actually exhale again. It was no longer that I simply missed Brooklyn. It was that, to me, it was New York. It didn't need to be the Slope. It could be Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene, Prospect Park, Windsor Terrace, or even a still-sketchy second-hand store on a weird part of Atlantic Avenue. Any of them felt...right.

As I get ready to return to New York once again, people keep asking me what I am going to do there. They ask about certain places in Manhattan--neighborhoods, stores, restaurants, and the like. I usually say that, of course, there's plenty of art I will see in Manhattan, but I am really looking forward to seeing my friends...and to being in Brooklyn. Some instantly understand. Some assume I mean only Williamsburg. Some look utterly baffled as to how I could gladly leave Manhattan alone my entire time there if not for the art housed on the island.

I don't tell them I simply want to walk around what once seemed like my own personal Sesame Street. I don't spin the story as to how I ended up living in an apartment over an international deli. I don't tell them that my deflated heart had actually still managed to beat there, nor do I explain why. It's simply not necessary. It's just Brooklyn. And it's just a little part of me, still.