While sorting yet another batch of old photos this weekend, I realized that I’ve been back in New York for about ten years. Ten years! No wonder I’m dying for a change of pace. Ten years in a place like this is time enough for plenty of ups and downs, but I’m ready to take a break from such a wide spectrum of experience. Although I can say New York itself is more responsible for the ups than the downs, I’ve had enough massive downs during these last ten years that I just want to go someplace more low-key and bury my head in the sand (or rather, in a pile of nerdy typography books) for a while.
Yes, I’ll miss good pizza and Coney Island and WYSIWYG and corner delis and this city’s particular blend of people, and all the possibilities for enlightenment and adventure that brought me back here in the first place. However, I won’t miss subway rush-hour hostility or the crowds along 34th Street or endless commuting or throngs of wannabe “Sex and the City” girls screeching around the East Village or another generic “luxury” apartment building replacing something I loved. I’ll miss a lot of specific people, but I’ve become so isolated through depression-fueled negligence that I miss those people already.
When I left Boston after living there for almost eight years, I felt like I had pretty much finished it. Here, I still don’t feel like I’ve even scratched the surface, which is exactly the kind of endless promise that brought me back in the first place. Living here is damn hard, though, and frankly I need a rest.
When my pal Mark and I snagged that massive loft in Bushwick ten years ago, we were young and full of enthusiasm. The ridiculous misadventures we had living there were only the first of many absurdities that make for good stories but a wearisome way of life. (I keep forgetting that those were the pre-blog years — most of you don’t even know the full wackiness of Junky Alfredo or Texas Trevor or the Crackhouse Stake-Out or the weekly thrift store binges!) Just as Mark has been pulled back to New York over and over again through the years, I’m sure I’ll never escape the event horizon of this place. I don’t think I want to. But it’ll be interesting to try.