the (non) move.

monday mornings can be hard. most difficult when the week threatens to undo you before it even begins. 

yesterday i marveled at the shifting light now hitting new york. i walked along the river and watched as bicyclist after bicyclist pedaled past. this corner of new york is dare i say, something of a bike mecca. i noticed young men with rackets on their backs headed to the free tennis courts just down the hill. suddenly the neighborhood is alive and threatened with the prospect of having to leave it, i simply don't want to. 

much as a part of me is ready to leave new york, it's not time yet. and it wouldn't be so easy. tumultuous as our relationship is, we have mutual accounts, joint stock options, and suddenly a lot of furniture that i don't want to give up. 

so i've decided to stay. for another year at least. which means another year in my castle in the sky apartment. but not moving can prove unbelievably stressful.

and there's nothing like moving (or not moving in new york). the whole things is a giant game of roulette combined with cat-and-mouse, and even a little strategic chess (or battleship, depending on where your preferences lie). and then there's that pesky little sticking point: it's expensive. and not terribly well-managed or policed. 

so this is the week that i roll the die. cast a net out in search of a roommate and hope that all the little card houses i've built add up to something...viable, instead of crashing down around my feet.

of course there's not enough time for any of this...but such is life.

so i remind myself to breathe and throw a little prayer up towards the powers that be, a little help?

hudson heights.

when i was a little girl my father was constantly traveling to russia.

he'd return with beautiful items from the one of the country's many outdoor markets. small wooden toys. intricately carved santas. hand-painted matryoshka dolls detailing native fairy-tales. and from these items i gleaned what i could from a country that felt a world away. a lifetime away, really.

i remember once dreaming that i was there, in russia, swinging on a swing set. i went to jump off (as children do at the peak of a swing when you're young and without fear) and off i flew. and off i fell--off the edge of the world--i disappeared from the image. as though the world was two-dimensional and i had died. (think old-school video games).

that was my impression of russia. that the world was flat and russia was the edge.

sometimes that's how i feel about my little corner of new york. aslant on the hill. just next to the river. quiet.

and at the edge of the earth.

as though at any moment i might simply fall from the screen.

just a thought.

once upon a time not so very long ago i dated a man who should have made me very happy.

and he did.

sometimes.

but sometimes in the cool darkness of another day done i felt a low, rolling sadness.

deep and soft.

it was my friend angela who pointed out what a big thing that was. i would go on and on about all the reasons i should like him and all the reasons i was struggling in the relationship and she'd kinda look at me from out the corner of her eye and say: but you're sad when you're with him.

and that would be that.

the end of the discussion.

sometimes i wonder if that's what this city has become for me. a place i should love. a place i work hard each day to convince myself that i could love. when truth be told, the city makes me sad. a low, rolling sadness.

deep and soft.

getting to know manhattan.

new york was awash in tourists this holiday season. and when i say new york i really mean midtown--for it is midtown to which the tourists flock. to see the tree at rockefeller center. to see times square and its countless billboards. to see the lights and tall buildings. 

and i get it. i do, i get it.  and yet a part of me wants to shout out to them: no, this is not it. not here. this is not new york!

you know that scene in funny face where audrey hepburn sneaks off to an underground cafe? and it's dark and infused with smoke and she dances wildly to beatnik music surrounded by frenchmen wearing berets? well. take away the smoke. and transplant it here across the atlantic. and well, i suppose that's the new york i'm always in search of. 

(when in new york i want to eat at  restaurants i'll find nowhere else in the world. and see things that will never be replicated on some las vegas strip).

but i suppose that says more about me than the city. 

you know where i'd tell the tourists to go? where i'd suggest you might explore?  the parks. to riverside. and fort tryon. to central park, yes. and the conservatory gardens. and as of today, inwood hill.

my lovely friend kate and i headed to inwood (the northern-most part of manhattan) to wander around it's 196.4 acres (which they say looks not so different than when peter minuet bought the island from the dutch all those years ago). i've always wanted to go but been hard pressed to find a friend willing to make the trek. not kate. she was up to it--she's always up for a little adventure (and it certainly doesn't hurt that she's one of the funniest and most intelligent friends i have). 

the park was aglow with orange. snow still on the ground. and the hudson glimmering in the distance. and all city, you know? still new york. still manhattan. 

kate pointed out deer tracks and we talked as girls do who haven't seen each other in a year. and january got a little bit better. and manhattan gets cell service everywhere (even in the middle of a natural forest). 

the blizzard's aftermath.

a photo account of montclair, nj post-storm. all photos taken by my brother (since i was stuck here in the city).

new yorkers were encouraged to stay home today. 

work was cancelled. the day was suddenly mine and free.

my family was only twenty minutes away in new jersey. however with the 20-24 inches of snow on the roads they were as good as across the world.

so i was snowbound. all by my lonesome. 

and what's a girl to do when the day stretches long before her? clean, of course. 

i scrubbed the stove. the inside of the fridge. i soaked the garbage and recycling cans (in the bathtub, no less). got down on all fours and worked away at the spots on our aging wood floors. 

and when all was said and done i took a walk. 

i felt how the snow changes the city. how a quiet takes hold. inundates everything, everyone. how when the snow settles, but has yet to be cleared the city takes deep, gasping breaths. reaching for the stillness, the calm. pulling it into itself. storing it away. reveling in the short time it  is allowed to simply be. to exist. and when no one is looking--when they're shielding their eyes from the snow, or digging a car out of the snowbank, the city exposes its heart. for just one moment. it opens up, unfolds, unfurls. feels the electric cold against its great, naked nerve. and then closes again. recharged. ready for the next. 

if you're really quiet. if you stand really still. and you get really lucky. you'll feel it--the reverberations of it--in your bones. and the heart carries on.