Fished

“It is necessary to find one's own way in New York. New York City is not hospitable. She has no heart. She is not charming. She is not sympathetic. She is rushed and noisy and unkempt, a hard, ambitious, irresolute place. When she glitters she is very, very bright, and when she does not glitter she is dirty. New York does nothing for those of us who are inclined to love her except implant in our hearts a homesickness that baffles us until we go away from her, and then we realize why we are restless. At home or away, we are homesick for New York not because New York used to be better and not because she used to be worse but because the city holds us and we don't know why.” ―Maeve Brennan

I am going back to Jamaica for a few days. My mom will be turning 90 and I am going home. But I am leaving another real home to do it, this bricked over city where I have sunk roots with a good man and raised our children. I knew when I was 5 years old and my family was visiting my aunt and her family in New York City on vacation, that as soon as I was old enough I would move to the city. I don't know why I knew it, what made me decide it so early on. Maybe it was the way I felt as we walked the sidewalks, plugged in, buzzed, more free to be who I truly was, more fully alive. Somehow I knew it was my place. So I applied and went to college here, and then I stayed. And all these years I have been waiting for the call of another place, another way of life. I wonder sometimes if I have grown deaf or numb, because New York is an unforgiving city to live in, and yet here I remain. Some days the walls close in and I miss the wide blue sea. But a cure is always at hand. Just walk beyond your door and the city infuses you with something, an energy, the electric current of humanity flowing all around you, and even in your anonymity—maybe because of it—you feel absolved, released, not so odd or haunted or alone.