New York – A Love Song

Extravagant breakfast! Sugary toast with caramelized strawberries and Brie cheese. Recipe here.

I know the exact moment I fell in love with New York City: I was 14 and sat on our couch in Kalmar in Sweden in front of the TV watching a recording of Simon & Garfunkel’s concert in Central Park. While Simon & Garfunkel sang, the camera panned over the New York City skyline and the skies got darker and darker as the evening progressed. Sometimes the camera zoomed in on people in the audience, and they all looked so incredibly happy. People in my own town never seemed that happy. It was always doom and gloom and five feet of snow. And I never heard people sing like Simon & Garfunkel either. I wanted to marry them, either one, and if that wasn’t possible, I wanted to go live where they lived.

So I decided that when I grew up, I was going to live in New York City.

Here’s some of what I’ve gleaned from living in and around New York City:

• New Yorkers never walk, they run.
• New Yorkers wear black, no matter what color Paris dictates.
• Nothing is particularly shocking to New Yorkers.
• New Yorkers are the kindest people. They can afford to, they live in the coolest city on Earth.
• New York is like a non-stop movie, but you never feel you’re an extra; you’re a star like everyone else.
• Even people who don’t know New York can get so worked up and excited about the city that they cry. Literally. I'm not lying, I’ve seen this happen.

There’s urgency about New York. New York is now, is now, is now. It’s never two years from now, or when we’re fifty and have money, or after we get married, or when the kids are in college. New York isn’t safe like that. New York is actually the very opposite of safety. It’s always, always now. And you know, just walking down the street, any street in New York, just about anything can happen. It’s like riding the rollercoaster.

Once, many years ago, some customer gave a waitress a one million dollar tip. This didn’t happen in Kansas City or St Louis, it happened in New York.

Once, when I was selling ice cream opposite Lincoln Center a woman came in and spoke in a strong Russian accent.
"Where are you from?" I asked ever so nicely and handed her a cone with rum raisin.
"Brooklyn," she said.

I know a guy with a Ph.D in mathematics who works extra at Target on the weekends selling cellphones.
"I could make a good living in California," he says. "I'm thinking about moving. It's cheaper. It's real pretty too, y'know?"
And he shows me pictures. He never moved.
"I can't leave New York," he says and shrugs sheepishly.

Once I moved to New York, I stopped traveling. There was no need to travel anymore. As long as I have New York, I need no pristine mountaintops in Austria or coral reefs in the South Pacific. I didn't always think like this. I had an acting teacher who had never been outside of the state of New York, well, maybe he'd been to New Jersey and Connecticut. He used to say:
"I don't need Europe. I can go to the park and watch the squirrels!"
I used to think that was a blasphemous thing to say. Now I understand.

Last year, I thought “Perhaps I am done now?”

New York is dirty and expensive, terribly expensive. Living in or around it comes with a steep price tag, and I have a young child and wouldn’t Sweden be better after all? So off we went.

A couple of months later my son and I walk into a grocery store in a small town in Sweden. And it’s clean and quiet and good and affordable and everything is hermetically sealed. And suddenly there’s music playing in the background. Suddenly we hear this song, this very New York sort of rap song. And we look at each other, my son and I, with the grocery cart in between us. And my son says:
“We cannot stay here, Mamma! We have to go back home.”

So back to New York we travel on the cheapest of tickets with the cheapest of airlines. My husband had just received his Swedish work permit. I had just signed up with an employment office. To hell with all of that. After a yearlong absence, we breathe in the dirt and the dust again and there’s the familiar loudness around Midtown, New York’s hub, when we get out of the cab. The scent from the Halal food carts, and it’s a hot and humid June night and people are smiling. And a thousand bright lights flicker absolutely everywhere. It is so extraordinary! It is so very wonderful! The city that never sleeps, beckoning you to stay up, you too. So that you don’t miss a thing.

It is so nice to be back in New York.