“Rise Up!”

Some thoughts on leaving New York . . .

Amanda and I appreciate all the well wishes people have offered us for our new life in California.  However, it was refreshing to see a friend today, who, as soon as she saw me, said “You’re really not a California person”.  I really am not.  I am a New Yorker, down to the very depths of my soul.

A few weeks ago, actually, on the anniversary of 9/11, another wise friend said, “New York teaches you what is important”.  New York has taught and given me so much.  New York very much made me who I am.  It has given me so much that I feel that I am ungrateful to be leaving the city at this moment of her need.

New York has been my home for 22 years, the vast majority of my adult life.  Together with my wife and child, the city is without exaggeration, one of the great loves of my life.   It’s a love that Amanda and I share so much that we held our wedding ceremony on a beach on the Brooklyn side of the East River in front of the Manhattan skyline so we could include the city itself as a witness to our wedding.

My love affair with the city started with a long courtship.  That courtship began when I was seven years old when my parents brought me here on vacation.  It continued across several holidays here as a child with my parents and then across visits in my early 20’s when I accompanied my father on some of his business trips.  During one of those trips, I realized that I wanted to make this city my home.

My plan for today was to ride up from Brooklyn Heights to the Upper West Side. I would take one last ride up the bike path on the west side along the Hudson. After a socially distanced outing in Central Park, I was going to slowly ride home through Manhattan and visit some places from my New York past.  I wanted to visit places in New York that were not part of my life in New York but the New York of the city’s and my courtship.  I would visit places that were significant to me from that journey, starting with the Hilton on Sixth Avenue, where we stayed on that first visit.

The weather, however, had other plans.  It was raining today, so I left the bike at home and took the subway up to the UWS.  So instead of my original plan, I spent my afternoon taking a slow walk in the rain through my old neighborhood, visiting places from that New York life.

That life started on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of the El Nino of May 1998: Eleven solid days of heavy rainfall.  Eleven days of ceaseless, relentless, heavy, round the clock downpour.  It was not an auspicious start to a new life.

The plan for that rainy afternoon in the middle of that eleven days of biblical scale deluge was to attend a gathering for a beach house summer share in Amagansett at the Hi-Life Bar and Grill.  I got out of a cab across the street on Amsterdam Avenue, wondering if I had the emotional capacity to be sociable.  I found that I did.  That afternoon in the bar was the real start of my actual life in New York City.

As I walked this afternoon through the rain through my old neighborhood. I started hearing the lyrics of a song in my head.

"There is a blood red circle
On the cold dark ground
And the rain is falling down
The church door's thrown open
I can hear the organ's song
But the congregation's gone"

We really do appreciate all the well wishes for our new life in California.  I would give virtually anything, though, to be able to stay in our home.

We have to leave New York, though, but I do wish it was at some other time.  I wish it was a time when New York City had recovered.  I wish we could be leaving at a time when New York City had done again what it does so well and risen up and healed itself.

As I carried on walking through the rainy streets, I started playing that song through my headphones:

“Now the sweet bells of mercy
Drift through the evening trees
Young men on the corner
Like scattered leaves
The boarded up windows
The empty streets
While my brother's down on his knees

My city of ruins
My city of ruins

Come on, rise up! Come on, rise up!
Come on, rise up! Come on, rise up!
Come on, rise up! Come on, rise up!”

My adoptive hometown has given me so much.  I want to be here.  I want to be part of it when it rises up again.  Bruce Springsteen wrote this song for his adoptive hometown of Asbury Park. It says everything about how I am feeling about my own adoptive hometown:

“Now's there's tears on the pillow
And you took my heart when you left
Without your sweet kiss
My soul is lost, my friend
Tell me how do I begin again?”