last train home
i’m staring at red leather seats. a deep, cherry red. saturated and bold, confident in itself and its age. a rectangular piece of beige leather cuts through the red sea, held together by thin red stitching waving in and out and in an out.
as i pass sprawling parking lots, deserted and hollow, the only activity being the flicker of streetlights, i’m reminded of the skyscrapers, honking horns, chatter-around-the-corner, and scurrying rats of the city.
reminded of the bankers in wool coats sitting next to hipsters donning oversized puffers. reminded of slush on the sidewalks dousing burnt cigarette butts and tiny shreds of paper from a comedy show flyer (that happened last week).
and i’m reminded of the many languages, many smells, many noises, and many MANY that envelopes you.
in new york city, a thick skin hardens around you, shielding you from the rancor just mere inches away.
i will miss this casing. this proverbial turtle shell that is suffocating, not having any personal space, but also freeing, knowing that here, in squished subways and crowded bars, personal space is a concept with very, very little significance.
i’ll be moving to San Francisco very soon, in just two days in fact, and i’m very excited. but i’d regret saying i wouldn’t miss life here, in the Big Apple.
i don’t live in new york city currently. i’m an hour away. well, an hour and a half by train. and i go in maybe once a week, usually to catch a gig doing video at a music show or visiting friends. and i still get lost snaking through the subway and i glance down at my Apple Maps app every three seconds when im trying to reach a restaurant.
the city is still large and unfamiliar and grand to me. i’m by no means a new yorker.
but i read the New Yorker (thank you very much, David Remnick, for your hard work)
im in love with films about New York. i adore artists and musicians who find their grit and grime by starting in Brooklyn bars or Bronx strip joints. i can’t get enough of novels or essays or anecdotes of walks through Central Park, Itzhak Perlman at Carnegie Hall, Michael Ovtiz’s history with MoMA, the many, MANY bodega cats and the list can go on and on and on.
even though i rarely spent time in the city as a child, it feels part of me that i find it hard to articulate.
maybe it’s the mindset? the idea of being a New Yorker? of being squished in tiny apartments, reeking of cigarette smoke, discussing art and poetry and music and theater and politics, all while you’ve barely gotten through one of the five cocktails you’ll have that night.
there’s something intoxicating about new york. and i feel like i’ve barely touched the tip of it. barely tasted the city.
it almost feels like a lost love. your lips nearly touching, close enough to smell each others breath and feel the warmth coming off their face, but the skin never touches, the tongues never meet, and your lovers slinks away before it even started.
you guys shared the same air, but never felt each others embrace.
and that’s how i feel with this city.
i hope i return.
i think life in the West Coast will be amazing.
i know it will.
but tonight, at 12:20AM on January 31st, as i sit on a red leather set, wearing an Oxford shirt stained with my sweat, i will internally shed a tear for the relationship i have just started, and must end, with New York City.
am i being dramatic?
100%.
but a romantic stays a romantic no matter how much his heart shall break.