Goodbye to New York, Part 6

The first thing I see when I open my eyes as we descend into LaGuardia is the New York City skyline jutting into my window. The transition from Cleveland (or rather Oberlin, Ohio) to airports to New York City is not a smooth one. I missed New York and I didn’t even realize it. Sometimes living in Manhattan makes us forget that we live on a tiny island and makes us dismiss the word “glorious” as touristy when it applies so well. Who could disregard such awesome man-made beauty, despite the sea of dirt and concrete and all the excrements of too many peoples’ lives? As we descend I watch the island from my aerial angle. I can see down all the streets, straight from east to west the reds and yellows that litter the perfect lines and comforting symmetrical grids. Now I’m stuck in the traffic I pinpointed from the plane when I muttered to myself “shit look at all that red, it’ll take forever to get back to the city,” spoken like a true New Yorker. I’m starting to realize that this will become my commute, this half-day trek from flat normalcy to vibrant hectic heights. I will be leaving the city behind, and it will not wait for me. I will come back a foreigner to the city that has been my home for eight years. I will get in a cab from the airport and frantically write in the dark backseat about how the city sucks me in and spits me out and no matter how much I keep up I will always be behind. Yet there is no other way to live the city life, to breathe the dirty city air and thrive on it. When I’m gone I will compare everything to how it’s done in the city, but after a few weeks my definition of the city will be entirely obsolete. When I return to it I will have to start again, rebuilding my definition, only to do it again and again for a lifetime. This is not a bad thing, though, for every time I return to Oberlin, Ohio, it will be waiting for me just as I left it, with everything in its proper place. I will know it and own it and I will not need a rhythm or a vibe because nothing will require that kind of synchrony. That kind of familiarity will be nice for a few days, but this city, the city, does not suffer from monotony, and its constant deformities and reformations will keep me from sinking into passivity, into “okay” and normalcy. The city makes do; it goes on what it has and doesn’t pause for departures. The city will not miss me; it will take my absence with nothing more than a grain of salt. I will never say goodbye to the city, because it has never said goodbye to me.