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I may have married London, but my heart will always belong to New York. Every four months, six months, eight months, eleven months I fly back to her like a businessman cheating on his all-too-knowing wife. "Heather," London says, "Go and enjoy yourself, but remember that you're coming home to me." And I do – time and time again, I get back on the flight at JFK, wondering why exactly I do this to myself. Feeling guilty to leave my mistress behind, knowing that she's the one who truly has my heart – but being so gosh-darned comfortable with The Way Things Are...
London’s good to me. Her summers don’t scorch me and her winters don’t bury me in dirty, reeking slush. Her subways are well-maintained, clean and devoid of the musicians, panhandlers and noise to which I’d become accustomed. London’s sprawl allows me the luxuries of both a garden and a flat with enough space for a washing machine, a dining room table and a balcony. In London, the roses bloom year-round and it smells like clean rain. Joggers cross the Thames en route to the park, where they’ll run alongside the deer by the ancient oaks and elms. And when you feel you’ve earned a break from all of this comfort, you’ve got 25 vacation days a year to luxuriate elsewhere. What more could you want, she asks.
In New York, the summers are hotter than hell and the winters are so cold they make your old injuries creak and ache. The subway advertisements are covered with sloppy scrawled commentary, and someone’s always testing out the ring tones on their new Nokia. The blind Russian accordian player shoves past you on the crowded N train, mumbling, “Your donations are greatly appreciated.” You wheel your red metal grandma cart to the Laundromat at 8AM on the way to work and, when you stop by on your way home at 6PM, they give you a bundle of crisply folded rock t-shirts and holey jeans. You eat dinner on the couch and smoke your joint out of the window facing the neighbors across the street who blast reggaeton until 3AM. The August stench of Chinatown can peel the paint of a school bus, but the old ladies continue to practice their Tai Chi on the blacktop basketball court, oblivious. You get to work early, stay late and are lucky if you get away for a week in the summer – but what does that matter, when you’re already in the only place on Earth that it’s truly worth being?
But still, I bring my bag to the luggage drop counter, present my liquids in a plastic baggie at security, and sit in a hard plastic chair by the gate, waiting to board the flight away from my true love. How long can I last until I break up with comfort and gentility for the messy, crazy, sexy, gritty passion I thought I could forget?
Not long now, I think. Glancing out of the window to see the runway, I’m only able to catch my own reflection. Not long now.
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