A New York State of Mind

One thing I’ve found useful to keep tucked into the back of my mind is that you’re always just one wrong move away from calamity. Sometimes it’s a move you make, and sometimes it’s a move somebody else makes. But it’s there. Ignore it at your peril.

Back in December 2007, on our final day living in New York City, Susan and I rented a U-Haul truck along with a car trailer to hitch behind it so we could tow our car. We loaded the truck with belongings outside of our apartment on East 44^th Street, then drove way downtown to the west side, where the trailer was located.

We got the trailer hitched up and the car loaded on to it. The U-Haul guy said we were good to go. We pulled out, but then another U-Haul guy immediately waved us down.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” he barked.

I hit the brakes, rolled down the window, asked what was up.

“Trailer’s not hooked up right,” he told us.

He walked to the back of the trailer, fiddled with this and that for a few minutes, then gave us the thumbs up to proceed.

Well, thank God for that dude, is all I gotta say. Otherwise, we would have started our journey with a loose trailer carrying a 2,500-pound Honda Civic.

It would’ve been a real blast to be driving along the westside highway and have our car trailer disengage from the truck at 35 mph – you can’t drive fast on that crowded stretch of road – where it might have rammed into other cars across two lanes and snarled traffic for a decade or so.

Better yet, this might have happened on a bridge crossing the Hudson River, where maybe a few cars would have gone crashing into the rail and maybe into the water, and, oh, never mind.

This is how close we come to calamity, folks. If there hadn’t been a Johnny-on-the-spot at the U-Haul place making sure the trailer was hooked up the right way, well…..

That was nearly 16 years ago. It was the last memory I have of our time in New York – almost driving away with a trailer that wasn’t hooked up right.

As things happened, we motored merrily along and headed south, 700-plus miles, to my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. That’s where we decided to relocate so we could buy an affordable home and start a family.

We ended up buying a house in a modern, cookie-cutter neighborhood in nearby Huntersville, N.C., one of those sprawling exurban communities full of housing developments, chain restaurants, dense car traffic, and shopping centers. We still own that home, though we haven’t lived there in more than nine years (we rent it out).

Now things have come full circle. After leaving the Huntersville home, we moved into a leafy old historic neighborhood near downtown Charlotte. We left that home in 2018 to move to London. In a few days we’ll leave London and move to northern New Jersey – just across the Hudson from New York City, which we left 16 years ago.

This was not in the plans, but plans do change.

*****

I’ve begun to get a familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach the last few days, part emptiness, part nostalgia, part sadness, part excitement. It happens to coincide with our last days in London, which have a certain melancholy hue to them. But it’s something I’ve felt before. The last time was way back in 2007, when we left New York City.

We lived in Manhattan for close to three years – three of the richest, craziest, most rewarding and memorable years of my life. New York City was a magical place to me. I had always dreamed of living and working there. To have actually done so – something that didn’t seem in the cards when I was a younger man – I count among life’s great blessings.

I spent many days and nights bopping around Manhattan, usually on foot or bike, soaking up the city, staring in awe and wonder at its endless skyscrapers and endless hustle. There were more than a few times when I walked miles on end, from the heart of midtown to the southern tip of the island.

I tried to experience as much of Manhattan as I could – Wall Street to Harlem. I sought out just about every corner of the island, and embarked on missions to find what remained of the gritty, dodgy neighborhoods New York used to be famous for, before it got gentrified and sanitized.

Leaving it behind was both emotional and smart – emotional because we would miss the city’s energy, diversity, and vibe, and smart because we wanted to have kids, and needed to be where that was economically feasible. The Big Apple can wear you and your bank account down in a hurry.

North Carolina served many purposes. It was affordable (at least compared to NYC), we had family and friends nearby, we could buy a big enough home to welcome two new daughters into the world, and you still had access to plenty of urban delights.

Did I think we would one day return to the New York City area? Maybe not – but I didn’t discount it, either, because we had very deep professional ties to the city.

We won’t be moving back into Manhattan proper. We’ll be across the Hudson, maybe a 30-minute commute away. The place we’re moving to is one of those charming, progressive, well-heeled and hyper-educated towns that specialize in leafy parks and cutesy villages with lots of restaurants and shops. It’ll be a nice change of pace from the hum and thrum of Londontown.

*****

The New York we left is not the New York we’ll return to. A lot changes in 16 years. Most of our old haunts are no longer around, replaced by new buildings and made-over streets. I wonder if any of the doormen from our old apartment building are still there. I wonder if our grumpy, passive-aggressive, dickhead of a super is still there. On second thought, screw him…..

Meanwhile, we’ve gotten 16 years older, with two daughters who are pretty much the centers of our universe right now. I’m no longer as wide-eyed about the world, though I still get a thrill out of walking around a big city.

We’ll hop over to Manhattan fairly often, I suspect, so we can experience it as older folks with two daughters instead of the younger, childless couple we were the last time around.

Maybe I’ll wander by the U-Haul place, if it’s still there. Hopefully Johnny-on-the-Spot is still working there, saving errant trailers from highway disaster. I’ll shake his hand and thank him, and we’ll have a warm embrace.

Nah, he’ll probably nod his head and wonder what the f**k this f*****g f**k is f*****g talking about, while I’m trying to f******g work here. Seriously, the f***k is this f*****g guy f******g talking about, what f*******g car trailer? Who gives a f**k?

That, too, is New York. God love it.

Note: The photo was taken by Susan, during our last visit to NYC, summer of 2021. Here’s another one. Check out the T-shirts beside the dude walking. New York City, baby.