It's not that I never wanted to move again. My love affair with New York City got complicated sometime towards the end of high school, when i felt like, if New York hadn't exactly exhausted its possibilities for me (anyone claiming that is a lying arrogant fool) there were things i needed to learn outside of New Yoirk, other cities I needed to live in and learn about. And I liked living in New Haven and Boston. I liked walking the streets of San Francisco and Chicago and Tucson and D.F. etc etc. There's an arrogance to New York, too, a "There is No Outside" much less justified and much more empirically false than the claim Hardt and Negri make about capitalism and empire. I don't like it. I love New York, but i'm not sure i need it. And i don't always think it loves me back. Which is to say I want to leave someday soonish.
But I like Sunset Park. I like my apartment, which has felt close to a real home, the closest since Bishop Street. Today I looked out into the backyard and there were hundreds of fireflies floating in the dusk. I like the guys at Charlie's Pizza down on 49th street who stared in dismay at the flatscreen TV as Jorge Posada threw a ball into the outfield (didn't even look like he was aiming for third) i like the park and the middle aged chinese couples practicing waltzes by the pool. I like my walk up fifth avenue and across the bridge. I like my room, my ceiling fan, my windows. I like living half a block from the subway and i like walking ten, fifteen miles a day sometimes, when i feel like it and when work permits. I like sitting on the stoop and watching the world pass by. Hopefully I can stay around here.
I also don't like to move. I like to set down roots and spread outward. I like to accumulate clutter.
Maybe New York is trying to tell me something.
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