Comings and Goings

On Friday, my husband and I headed to Musical Box, a bar in the East Village, to say goodbye and good luck to Jen (another one), a good friend of mine from college who was leaving NYC to spend six weeks traveling through Central America. Then, after a short stopover in the city to pack up her belongings and bid goodbye to those of us she's leaving behind again, moving to L.A. for good to pursue acting (or a Masters degree, depending on how the acting goes).
The next day, we spent the afternoon with another pair of peripatetic friends, Justin and Sue, who were visiting from Vancouver (their second stop after leaving Brooklyn a few years ago-the first was Paris, for a year and a half) with their three-month-old son. A friend of theirs in Fort Greene had thrown a small party so they'd be able to see all of us at once. She called it brunch (though it beagn at 3pm, which is perfectly normal for NY on a weekend). But it was a real feast: plates of grapes and olives and crackers and goat cheese, sandwiches of French or foccacia bread with sliced beef, fresh egg salad, or chicken with caramelized onions and roquefort cheese.And homemade ice cream sandwiches. Delicious. And, of course, beer and wine; though I stuck primarily with water. It may be fall (unofficially, though in NYC, everyone behaves as if summer runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day weekend) but it still felt like summer. The temps were in the upper-80s and my sleeveless sweater clung to my back.
We were all peppering Justin and Sue with questions about Canada. They struggled to describe Vancouver to us and, finally, came up with "quiet." They don't walk in Vancouver--well, not like they did in NYC--and they pay a lot less rent there than they did here for a much larger apartment with a terrace. They didn't miss the rent in NYC. But they did missed the energy, they said. And the irony. Canadians, they concluded, did not understand irony. New Yorkers thrive on it.
And so I thought it was a bit ironic that New Yorkers spend so much time kvetching about the high cost of living here, and the nuisances (subways that are sometimes smelly or slow or even stalled, as mine was for five mintues tonight; taxi drivers that cut you off as you cross the street then honk and/or swear at you, though you had the walk light; literally picking up groceries or laundry or dry cleaning, and carrying it home because you don't have a car to put it in). And yet, once they move away, they can't stop talking about how much they miss the city--and when they might come back. And I do hope Justin and Sue come back with their Canadian-American son in tow.
We left the party around 5:30 and rushed back so we'd be home in time to greet Victor's old college roommate who was visiting from Las Vegas (where he'd recently moved from Florida). Ted is about six-foot-four with the body of a professional linebacker but not the attitude. Ted, who'd come out early for a Monday business meeting, has a sweet demeanor and the gregariousness of a Floridian and a successful salesman (which he is). He has been out here so many times that he's pretty familiar with the city; but he hasn't picked up any of our cynicism, which is refreshing.
We kicked back at the apartment on Saturday. But last night, Victor and I already had plans to go to dinner at Mario Batali's midtown seafood restaurant, Esca, and then see a sold-out show, Avenue Q, at 7pm with my mom (a belated birthday present). A raunchy puppet show (sort of an NC-17 Sesame Street set in Brooklyn), but very funny. So we met up afterwards, around 10, with Ted and a colleague of his, Amy, who had spent two years in NYC but now lived in San Diego. I thought about bailing (it was Sunday after all) but they convinced me to go out to a local bar we like,Spuyten Duyvil, where I nursed an excellent Belgian beer for the next 2 hours and listened to Amy tell me how much she missed the pace of life here and the raw ambition. In San Diego, she said, everyone is so relaxed it makes her nervous. I told her I missed the ocean out there, watching the waves. But she laughed. It can become boring, she said. And repetitive. The waves go out, the waves come in, out, in, out, in. The predictability of the tides gives me comfort. But I could see how it could lull those who live nearby into a state of complacency.
Would she move here though? Unlikely. I told her that she had almost the best of both worlds, since she came out here for work pretty regularly. She could look at New York like an injection of caffeine (appropriate, since she and her husband have started a coffee roasting business) or ambition, when she was feeling complacent. You can't be complacent in NY. Or you'll literally get run over. You can't stop. Even if you just `went with the flow' here, the tide of agressively ambitious residents will push you further than you ever imagined you could go. It's what I love about NY: the energy, the opportunities, and the sense that anything is possible here (but not without hard work and perserverence). There's little that's predictable about NY beyond those three things (well, besides unbelievably expensive rent for incredibly small apartments). Just when you think you've figured the city out, or its residents, it surprises you (more often than not, pleasantly).
But there are times when I crave the ocean, and the sunny climate of southern California. When I just want things to be a little easier. The perfect solution, I think, is to spend half the time in NYC. And half the time in California. Though NYC would always be home to me.