Right View, Wrong City

Sipping hot Earl Grey from my favorite chair and looking at this view doesn’t suck.

Here, on the thirteenth floor, I can see the city center’s concrete lego bricks lay in their deceitful permanence.  There’s a major train line and interstate highway that would sit at the foreground of this photo.  I have the luxury of knowing what the weather and traffic are doing before I leave my place just by looking out the window.  The thing is, I live in Connecticut.  I have nothing against the state or its people, but I am a New Yorker through and through.  When I walk out the lobby doors of my building, I won’t be able to hail down a cab, walk two blocks to the subway or stumble across a great new gallery in the next neighborhood on my walk after dinner.  I can’t pick up Sunday’s New York Times late Saturday afternoon, grab a nosh at Zabar’s and catch a last minute foreign film, all without the need for a car.  I’ve not passed a pile of garbaged and feared the presence of rats or giant cockroaches on my walks here.  There’s no risk here.  No everyday adventure.  No grit. I belong in New York City.  I’d love to make that happen.  This is not a negative view of where I am.  Just the opposite.  It’s a realization.  An embrace of my most authentic self.  I feel grateful every day that I have this apartment, this view, this home but…

I’m pretty sure it’s in the wrong city.

For now, it will have to do.  And like I said, it doesn’t suck.