The leap is more important than the faith
Happy New York Anniversary to me
Today I was in Central Park and I had a magical Central Park moment. Actually: moments. It started with baby bunnies1 not in the wild but in a playpen, set up in the park, while their bunny parents watched from a stroller and their teenage sister sat in the corner, chewing lettuce and brooding. The human steward of these bunnies takes them out for air and sun, the way my downstairs neighbor takes her enormous samoyed, Hildy, to the park three times a day.
And of course, because I was in Central Park, there were also horses, and some sort of kickboxing class. And a frenetic swarm of groundskeepers obliterating the hill immediately above the kickboxers with weed-whackers. The kickboxers, in turn, were kicking and punching and fighting in a haze of yellowy grass clippings, illuminated by the late-summer sun peeking through the buildings. There were three girls in dresses playing volleyball, and two kids in coordinating clothes romping in the lambent sun between the hedgerows, chased by a squad of photographers. I had two pastries, and a hot macchiato because it was 66 degrees and I was freezing my ass off.
Today is my seven-year New York anniversary.
When I moved to New York, people gave me “friendly” “advice” about the city. Several people warned, “Don’t let that city ruin you,” or said some variation of “It will chew you up and spit you out.” At least a dozen people said, “Oh, I love New York, but I would NEVER EVER live there, yuck,” which honestly felt kind of mean to say to me, a person who was excited to live there!
But I was still excited to live here. I am still excited to live here. It’s interesting: I never thought of myself as someone who “dreamed” of living in New York. I hadn’t given serious consideration to moving here until I visited.
Looking back, though, I should’ve known, since this city is the focal point of the musical which was my entire childhood personality:
The longer I live in New York, the less adequate my language seems. It’s hard to articulate a feeling that requires so little of me. I have never, ever doubted whether I should live here. I think this is because I love New York City. I love New York City! When I’m here, I have the sensation that I have found everything I was searching for everywhere else. In my experience, that is what love is supposed to feel like. Like any good love story, it doesn’t need me to mythologize it. It does that all on its own.
Even though I don’t have “a lot to say” about living in New York, I can’t let today go by unacknowledged. I think it’s good to recognize that I had an inkling about something that would make me happy, and I jumped feet-first into it, and seven years have passed and I was right, I am happy. Those seven years would’ve passed no matter where I was, or what I did. And when I moved here, and accomplished that one significant goal, it opened up a hundred new doors in my heart.
It reminds me of a principle I hear all the time in creative work, in writing. Use up all your good ideas, as fast as you can. More will come to take their place. So: Follow all your dreams, as quickly as you can. More will come to take their place, things you never could’ve wanted until you did the first, biggest, scariest, most wonderful one. But you won’t know what is behind the doors until you do it, whatever your New York is. Until you pack your boxes and buy your ticket, it’s just a dream. Do you want to have a dream? Or do you want to have a life?
So often, magical moments start with baby bunnies. Or end with them! Or have them in the middle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!