An Open Letter to New York

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 14^th 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