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New York

An Open Letter to New York City: Part II

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Dear New York City,

When it’s a sunny day and I’m sitting outside in a park, it’s hard to hate you. And the truth is, it’s hard to hate you at all now that I’ve been here long enough. You’ve taken me in and somehow made yourself a home in me. You’re in the feet that have traversed your streets, the legs that have climbed the stairs of your subways, the chest that has felt the vibrations of your buses, trains, and street music, the hands that have opened countless doors, the eyes that have seen people from all walks of life, and the mind that decided to give you a chance.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t know that we’re best friends. Some days, I think you’re shunning me altogether. Those are the days where I can’t find what I’m looking for, when I take a wrong turn, when I miss the early Metro-North train, when I have to go to three grocery stores and the streetcar man to find one item. Those are the days when no one looks up, no one smiles, and no one seems to care whether the people around them are there at all.

Those are the days, New York, when you tire me.

But more often, now that I’ve met you where you are, more often you’re a delight. Your sights, sounds, smells, and tastes tickle the senses in ways both good and bad but always alive. You’re demanding because your offers never end. There’s culture, food, and experience on literally every block. You’re always awake, always ready, always open to take in the next weary traveler. But you’re tough, too. You don’t give in without a fight and I’ve certainly never seen you give up.

New York people have stories and you feature prominently in all of them. New York people are here for a reason, hustling for a reason, and all attribute their actions to the energy, drive, and culture that you’ve cultivated. You create spaces for people who don’t have patience for you, waiting just outside until they peek out. For them, for me, you have quiet little cafés, parks and river paths, libraries and independent bookstores. You reserve places for the people who are afraid to find them on their own. And when they’re ready, you open the doors to everything else that is out there, the glitz, glamour, grittiness, and attitude of the greatest city in the world.

And of course, you have community neighborhoods that all feel different. That’s my favorite part about you – you take all these people, you watch as they split themselves into group after group, and you let them develop into a patchwork of lives, a quilt of everything that makes you who you are. You cross rivers. You encompass islands. You’re connected by bridges and tunnels, by the people who cross them and by the people whose lives are crossed by them. You’re a story of who we are and how we got here. You’re a story of the people who flock to you and will continue to come.

Without a doubt, you’ve changed me. You’ve made me more curious about people but less likely to voice my curiosity. You’ve made me warier but more willing to test the waters. Because of you, I’m more confident but much quieter. I’ve asked more questions, read more books, found more answers, wiped away more tears. You’ve forced me to embody resilience, to learn from experience, to solve problems I never expected to have. You’ve taught me to ask for help and to accept it when it comes. You showed me people who struggle and promised a path forward. I followed you and found it.

Once upon a time, you scared me a little. You were too big, too loud, and too fast. You were full of people who knew you and loved you. I didn’t know you. I didn’t love you. Some days, all I want is to love you. Other days, I catch myself doing just that. I’m ready to say goodbye to you only because you’ve left me wanting more. You’re not going anywhere and I’m sure I’ll be back one day. There’s no place like you, New York City, and I’m grateful I’ve had a chance to call you my home. See you soon.

Love always,

Rebecca Michelle

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PS You can read my first open letter to NYC here.

New York

An Open Letter to New York City

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Dear New York City,

Most days, I hate you.

I spend a great deal of time startled by your noise, crammed into your trains, waiting in your lines, trying to get around leisurely walkers on your streets and sidewalks, and stunned at your prices. Most days, frankly, you are anything but serene with your noise pollution, skyscrapers, and frenetic pace of existence. Stop and smell the roses doesn’t exist here, so much so that there aren’t even any roses.

But when I stop to think for a moment, you do continue to leave me in awe. How have you built skyscrapers so tall and so wedged together that they often eliminate the need for sunglasses? How have you constructed a mass transit system that allows me to go anywhere (except, regrettably, work) without the need of a vehicle? How have you managed to welcome people from all corners of the sky and unite them in the common desire of finding the best bagel or slice of pizza?

Your shops, subway notices, and countless agencies and organizations operate in languages I’ve never heard of and can’t recognize. You have a sense of style and flavor influenced by all those who dream of you, flock to you, gaze around in anticipation.

You have an energy that is unmatched. You are always ready for the next innovation, and not just because you’ve anticipated what it is. People write songs, poems, and stories about you. You are the cool kid on the playground, the teacher’s pet, the current big thing and the next big thing. You are, by millions, loved.

And like anything loved, you are often trying. You are an exhausting place to be at the end of the day when all I want is a carton of milk at the grocery store. You make it hard to manage a budget – so much to do and it all costs so much money! But you give a little, too. You build parks, organize parades, and sponsor cultural events. You know you’re expensive, and sometimes you apologize and provide a free night at a museum, knowing you’ll be forgiven.

As hard as I try to understand you, you remain a mystery. Your abundance of options and activities has me perpetually concerned that I’m missing something. As I cope with feeling left behind, I gravitate towards the places I’ve come to feel comfortable and at home. They know me at a coffee shop now. Isn’t that enough? Must I continue to seek out yet another? Goodness knows you have them! And that’s precisely the problem – you have everything and it’s left up to your residents to find it.

In a lot of ways, you’re a playground bully. You taunt and yell, urging more and faster. And then when someone looks up, you are contrite. You open a door to somewhere quiet. You wink and slip away for a while.

It’s been an adventure getting to know you. You’re like a best friend – present, patient,  accepting, full of adventure and excitement – and also like a worst enemy – loud, invasive, taunting, difficult to shake. Some days we get along pretty well. Other days, I want nothing to do with you and it seems like you want nothing to do with me. We have a love-hate relationship, you might say. Or, more accurately, a like-hate relationship.

Getting to know me as I relate to you has been a different adventure entirely, one that is very much a work in progress. You’ve brought out things in me I don’t like – a tendency to walk with my head down, a reluctance to speak to strangers, a sense of urgency even when I’m not going anywhere, a feeling of hopelessness, anxiety, isolation, and frustration at the poverty you’ve permitted, the children you’ve let down, and the inequality that you allow to persist.

But I have to thank you, too. You constantly remind me that there’s work to be done to improve the world. You force me out of my comfort zone every minute of every day. You’ve emboldened me to read, write, and think about the choices I’ve made and the choices I will make in the future. Whatever doesn’t kill me will, in the end, make me stronger.

You’re unlike any other, New York. And though there are many, many days when I want to give it all up, throw in the towel, and call it quits . . . I’m not quite through with you.

Love always,

Rebecca Michelle

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On My Mind

Dear Old Friend

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A while back, I wrote about a girl, my best friend, who faded from my life. I wrote about how disappointed I was that nearly two decades of friendship (we met 20 years ago this September) had melted away. My best efforts at keeping my friends close had failed. Despite it all, I have tried really hard to remain present, available, aware. I understand how, when confronted with something new or scary or uncertain, it brings comfort to talk to an old friend. Someone who “knew me when” and with whom no backstory is necessary.

But I also understand that as time goes by, those friends change. Many of my friends who “knew me when” are friends from high school. The farther we go from common ground, the more gaps there are in shared experiences, the less truly old friends come to think about or rely on one another. We find other friends, newer-but-still-old friends, with whom we do not have to explain what is currently amiss or exciting in our current lives because they probably already know.

The girl I mentioned at the beginning of this post got engaged a couple days ago. I found out via Facebook today. Despite the fact that we haven’t really spoken in years, we recently got back in touch when I wished her a happy birthday via text (this is what the world has come to, right?). She told me she was enjoying living in her new city and excited about an upcoming vacation, which just ended.

To say I was disappointed to find out about her engagement via Facebook, with the masses rather than through personal means, is inaccurate. I was shocked. Then I felt really sad.

And then I put myself in her shoes.

When I consider the people who are closest to me now, is she on my list? No. Would I go out of my way to let her know of a major change in my life before posting it on social media? No. Would I, when the hype was over, give her a call? I would, and I would because I value people in my life who “knew me when,” regardless of how long ago that was.

Then I started to think about what I would want from an old friend if I were to share such exciting news about my own life. I’d want acknowledgement – I’d want to know that friends were thinking of me and feeling happy for me. So, in the spirit of “do unto others,” a mantra that I chant in my head dozens of times a day, I sent her a congratulatory text message.

Call me hopeless, foolish, or sentimental, but I wasn’t satisfied. Overtly doing more seemed inappropriate, and I’m 99% sure she doesn’t read this blog, so this is where I will say the rest of what I want to say to this very old friend.

First of all, congratulations! Now and always, I wish you the greatest happiness in the world. I know how you’ve battled to be where you are, who you are, and what you are and I am proud of you. You both deserve the world 

It makes me laugh to congratulate you on your engagement because it doesn’t seem like that long ago when we were gossiping about pimply boys, taking teen magazine quizzes, and trying to decide what we wanted to be when we grew up.

Do you remember how we used to sing Les Mis songs on the bus in elementary school? Do you remember when you first got your pink glasses and made me close my eyes until you put them on to show me?

Do you remember how I used to come over and clean spiders out of your basement before sleepovers? Do you remember taking me to meet your elementary school friends before we started middle school (separately, in the end)?

Do you remember how you cried when you called to tell me you were moving away? Do you remember how I cried? Do you remember when I called you before anyone else to tell you my parents were splitting up?

Do you remember playing on the same rec soccer team for a few summers and spending most of our time picking flowers instead of watching the ball?

Do you remember teaching me not to be afraid of your dog? Do you remember laughing hysterically when I told you we were getting a dog? I laughed, too.

Do you remember never letting a birthday pass without exchange a card, gift, and phone call? Do you remember the photo album you made me one year? I found it during one of my moves – it brought tears to my eyes.

Do you remember how we used to plot to get my sister and your brother together so that we could be sisters? Do you remember how we used to call each other sisters?

Do you remember the countless plays we put on and how we always managed to make ourselves the stars? We thought we were so sneaky, too.

Do you remember calling to tell me that a boy you really liked had asked you to junior prom? Can you believe that you are now engaged to that boy, who has grown into a man?

Do you remember all of our phone calls before leaving on vacations and once we’d returned? Talk minutes, especially long distance, were precious in the days of landlines and then borrowing our parents’ cell phones. Do you remember the postcards we’d send and gifts we’d buy for each other whenever we went away? I bought you a lot of snow globes and I still wear a pair of earrings you picked up for me once.

Do you remember when I took the train to visit you a few times in high school? Do you remember coming to visit me in college? Do you remember the road trip we always planned and never managed to take?

Do you remember how we devoured historical fiction, played with your Magic Attic or my American Girl dolls, and wished we could go back in time? Do you remember when we used to write historical fiction and other stories and send them back and forth via email for constructive criticism and editing?

Do you remember how you called me “Prince Watermelon” when I wore pink and green rubber bands in my braces? Do you remember how you used to tell me your hair was wavy? Do you remember when my hair actually used to be wavy?

Do you remember calling me once in high school, crying after a fight with your parents, and the first words you said were, “Tell me it’s going to be okay. I just need to hear that it’s going to be okay”? I don’t remember what was wrong, but I know that it was okay. Do you remember the hours we spent on the phone when I broke off a relationship? Do you remember how gentle you were when I asked how yours was going?

Do you remember when we used to write letters when you were away at camp? We used to sign off with “BFF, LYLAS”. Getting a letter from you was often the highlight of my day.

Whenever I’m asked, on a bank form or something else requiring security questions, “What is the name of your childhood best friend?” I put your name.

To you, my childhood best friend, I wish love and happiness and peace. I wish you a wonderful, exciting time full of wonderful, exciting things. I wish you friends and family and joy. If you ever need me, I’ll be there.

xoxo