Dear New York,
In case you don’t remember it as well as I
do (in fact, I’m positive that you don’t), I’m just writing to remind you that
it was six months ago today that I arrived – bleary eyed and raped by travel,
but eager to begin our life together.
Yeah, yeah, yeah…I know that writing to
wish you a happy six-month-aversary might make me seem like an
overly-sentimental idiot, but screw it – you’ve reduced me to tears of joy just
from walking your streets so there’s really no point trying to hide my obsession
with you now. Deal with it.
I always knew it was you, from as far back
as my old-enough-to-think-past-what-mum-made-me-for-lunch-today memory can go.
I remember sweltering under the relentless sun at the beach as a teenager, freckly
and sunburnt with sand in my swimsuit and thinking to myself something along
the lines of: “Fuck the beach. Give me buildings and bridges and bodegas and
bums. Give me people and possibilities and seasons and snow.”
You were the first place I visited outside
of Australia when I was 22. (Well, that’s a lie. I'd been to New Zealand, but
we all know that, as an Australian, that doesn’t count.) I remember arriving
and walking down 14th street where I saw someone putting money into
a parking meter, (yes – that’s my first memory of you) and wondering how the
entire act of someone putting money into a parking meter became incalculably
cooler merely for being done in you, New York. Today, that statement still
stands but on so many more levels than I ever considered possible.
I don’t know whether it’s a Northern
Hemisphere thing, but I feel a little closer to the Universe here. Everything I
ask for, I get – and that’s not just thanks to Seamless.com…though, that’s
definitely part of it.
Having said that, I didn’t ask for bed bugs
in our building, an overly yappy dog next door or heartbreak at the hands of
one of your native residents, but I got all of those, too. You’re like an
amazing cheating lover. You don’t apologise for breaking me from time to time,
because you and I both know that, no matter how badly you might treat me, I
wouldn’t give you up for the world.
And while you occasionally fuck each and
every one of us, you’ve got more love than I’ve found anywhere else so I’m
happy to share you in one big, sordid open relationship with millions of your
other full-time fools and part-time lovers just passing through. Everyone
deserves a piece of you.
Something I’ve noticed over the years is that
a lot of people say that when they want to feel better about life and the
universe, they lay under the stars and let their own insignificance wash over
them.
But if you ask me (and most don’t), I say
screw the stars. I’m here in your amazingness and I get that same feeling by
looking at you. Millions of people, each with their own story, their own
universe inside them, going about their lives – it makes me feel better, it
helps me feel connected to something bigger. It also makes me feel like going
out and getting drunk, but you tend to have that effect on me no matter what I
do, you marvellous minx.
You’re the one place where I’m not
surprised at being surprised. All I can expect from you is to never know what
to expect. Whether it’s a hug from an old black man on a train because he
thought I looked sad, or realising the podium dancer at the gay club I am drinking
at is the same guy I had a terrible date with two nights ago – it’s all
surprisingly not surprising.
People keep telling me that you’ll jade me
soon enough, but I know that for all you do have, New York, you don’t have the power
to repel me. No matter how long this love affair might last, I’ll always love
you as much. I’ll never be unmoved by your hip-hop dancers on the subway, or watching
clouds swirl around your skyscrapers. I’ll never tire of your accent, your
bright lights, or your incessant and unapologetic noisiness.
I know we’ll never be that tired couple in
a restaurant, not talking and barely tasting their food through their distaste for
each other. You’ll forever leave me smiling and bursting with love. I’ll never
hurry through your streets and not take you in. If those are the
characteristics of a true New Yorker, I’ll never be one.
Yours in love, lust, laughter and life,
Cass. X