I wrote this for a class last semester. We were supposed to write about coming to New York, and our relationship with the city in comparison to another city we know well. I've since been home for five weeks and come back, but this still feels relevant.
I saw New York City and Providence for the first time during
the same week. It was the summer
before my senior year of high school, and my parents and I drove up the East
Coast to visit Boston University. It was the first time I’d ever been north of the Mason
Dixon. On the way, I made the shy
request that we stop in Providence, Rhode Island, to visit Brown University. “Just to see it,” I clarified. Visiting with actual hopes or
expectations would have seemed preposterous.
Providence
felt like the epitome of New England.
The colonial houses rested on the hills in every color I could
name. Trees canopied the brick
sidewalks. The river walk ran the
length of downtown, with gondolas floating by the docks. The campus was full of 19th
century, ivy-covered stone and brick buildings that looked like they belonged
in oil paintings. I
didn’t think I’d ever seen a place as beautiful.
On
our way back south, my mom and I convinced my dad that we should stop in New
York. We’d never been there, and
we were too close to miss the opportunity. We passed through the city, parked in New Jersey, and rode
the PATH train into Manhattan (a feat that took us hours to figure out). The train, the first I’d ever ridden,
emerged unexpectedly in the cavity of the World Trade Center – my first
up-close view of Manhattan. We
lingered at the site for a while, then set out to accomplish a short list “NYC To Do” list. We bought my sister a fake designer
purse in Chinatown, ate lasagna at an obscenely touristy restaurant in Little
Italy, went to Strand Bookstore, walked into the lobby of the Empire State
Building (establishing that it was too expensive to go up for the view), and
then took a taxi to Times Square.
The
taxi dropped us off a couple of blocks away, and I remember rounding a corner
and all of a sudden feeling like we were right in the center of the
square. None of us spoke. I slowly rotated, taking in the
lights. Then I nodded and said,
“Alright. I’m done.”
Our
New York visit only lasted a handful of hours, but I’d gotten all that I wanted
from the city.
The word “providence” means divine
guidance or care, which felt apt, considering that only a miracle could have
gotten me there. The streets of
the city have names that wouldn’t let me forget how lucky I was. Hope, Benefit, Prospect, Power, Angell,
Meeting. I spent my first year in
Providence crisscrossing the city, walking from coffee shop to coffee shop
until I was a regular in all of them.
There was an urgency to my restlessness that prevented me from remaining
stationary for more than an hour at a time. I walked for miles every day, even in rain and snow, and
filled journal after journal on the barstools of café counters. I subsisted on plain bagels with cream
cheese and iced mochas. I couldn’t
work in libraries, and I couldn’t work in my room. I never got tired of walking. I’d never known a city so well.
After
four years, Providence started to feel smaller, and I knew that it was right to
leave while I only had good memories to hold onto. I left Providence, spent the summer in Segovia, Spain, and
then in Rome, and then went back home to Mississippi. For months I kept imagining myself moving to New Orleans,
Boston, Austin, or Washington D.C.
I applied to MFA and Ph.D. programs all over the country, confessing
only to my parents that the MFA program at Columbia was my top choice. It felt silly to give the idea of
living in New York much thought, because I knew how slim the chances of getting
in would be.
I
got a phone call from a New York number as I was pulling into the Winn Dixie
parking lot in March. It was Lis
Harris, telling me I’d gotten into the program. I asked if she was serious several times, and then sat in my
car in front of Winn Dixie, stunned.
I hadn’t received a financial aid award yet, so I didn’t know what to
think about the money. And I
didn’t know what to think about New York.
I never wanted to live in New
York. I was content to see it on
TV from my couch as I watched the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving morning and New
Years Eve in Times Square (both live and again at midnight when they replay it
for Central Time). I knew a lot of
people applied to the program because of the city, and I felt weirdly defensive
that anyone would assume I was one of them. I imagined New York as cutthroat and competitive,
unforgiving and overwhelming. I
dreaded the thought of trying to find affordable housing, coming up with enough
money to survive, and watching the loans pile up. It’s only two years, I kept telling myself. You can stand anything for two
years. This is what you wanted.
I have a spatial memory so acute
that it almost feels more like an extra sense. After I’ve been somewhere once, for even the briefest of
visits, I have no trouble successfully navigating it again. I memorize maps instead of writing
directions, because once I have a mental image of a city’s shape, I feel like I
can never be lost.
But New York can’t be memorized in
a glance, I kept reminding myself as I studied maps of Manhattan last
summer. I could visualize the
layout, the arrangements of the neighborhoods, but I don’t feel like I know a
place until I can draw my own map with my own landmarks. I’d never lived in a place that I
hadn’t been able to memorize in days.
I couldn’t imagine how long it might take to know New York.
I came to New York with my guard
up. My mom and I stayed in a hotel
next to Port Authority while I was moving in. I navigated from the passenger seat, directing her as we drove
our Trail Blazer towards the Ikea in Red Hook. I’m a nervous passenger, especially in cities. Traffic got thicker as the skyscrapers
of downtown got larger, and my heart started beating faster. I felt a nearly overwhelming urge
to get out of the car immediately.
“What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong!” she kept
demanding, trying to glance at me without fully taking her eyes off the
road. I shook my head, eyes
closed, whispering, “Please stop, please stop asking me anything, you’re making
it worse, just please stop,” my body shaking as I tried to take deeper
breathes.
“Tell me what’s wrong!”
“I need you to stop talking to me!”
I was scaring her, I knew. I was
scaring myself. I don’t think I’d
ever had a panic attack before.
How was I supposed to live in a city that I couldn’t even look at
through a windshield?
I
moved into my apartment the next day.
There are wood floors and the walls are a warm cream color. My window is large, with a view of 113th Street. I sat on the floor with a
hammer and screwdriver and put together all of my furniture. I hung my maps and paintings of
Providence, Rome, and New Orleans on my wall. I set up my coffee pot, and my mom helped me put away all of
my dishes. I bought the first
full-sized bed I’ve ever owned and slept on an air mattress for a week until it
was delivered. I started to
imagine that I could feel at home in this place.
Something happened between
Providence and now, and I can’t drink much caffeine anymore. I try to deny this fact, and still
drink it once a day in small quantities.
A few weeks ago, on my slowly progressing quest to find the best coffee
shops in New York, I spent $6 on a mocha.
I tried to console myself with reminders that it was a one-time treat,
that I hardly ever buy espresso drinks, and that I’ll never do that again. I drink most of my coffee in my
apartment, because I can’t afford the drinks or the subway rides to get to
them. No barista knows my
name. I haven’t eaten a bagel in
years.
But I’m getting to know New York in
a different way. I pick a new
place to explore every day I’m not too busy. I walk for hours with snacks, a book, and my 35mm camera. I went to the Union Square farmer’s
market every week and watched the peaches and nectarines gradually become apples
and pumpkins. I took pictures of
the autumn leaves in Central Park, and I watched the first snow through my
bedroom window. I have dinner
parties, because I love to cook most when it’s for other people. I have roommates that I feel lucky to
live with. I don’t feel
intimidated or overwhelmed. New
York doesn’t feel like home, but it feels like a place where I’m happy to
be.
Providence
belonged to me in a way that no other city ever had. It will always be the
first city I felt belonged only to me, just as New Orleans will always be a
version of home, and Rome will always be the romantic notion that managed to
live up to my every impossible expectation. New York is an elaborate gift I
hadn’t asked for but couldn’t refuse.
There’s a camaraderie I find in all
of the people who are just passing through – in the joy on the girl’s face when
I recognized her accent on the subway and told her I was from Mississippi, too,
and in the jolt I feel each time I see one of my former classmates who shared
Providence with me for four years and have somehow found their own way
here. It happens a lot. In the middle of Times Square. At a
book signing at the Brooklyn Book Festival. In a café in the East Village. In advertisements for a new Broadway show.
One
of my roommates spent the last five years in New Orleans, and has adopted it in
much the way I adopted Providence.
Never have all my worlds collided like this.
For now, I’m happy to hold onto New
York until it’s time to pass it along into the next eagerly grasping
hands. It’s a temporary loan, and
we all know it. Right now I can’t
tell you how long the loan will last, nor how hard it will be to let go when
it’s over.
