I've lived my life in this city and I'm not leaving anytime soon. New York City wears people out. The noise, the dirt, the bugs, the quadrupled rent increase, the broken heart instead of the Broadway bright light. But most folks I meet aren't actually from around these here parts. They've all come here with a purpose and then been sabotaged by the vagaries of urban reality, amazed by how little they seem to matter.
There's lots I miss. The bad old Times Square, The Pan Am sign, graffiti, subway tokens and chicken pot pie from McBells, my favorite Irish pub. But systems change, businesses close, buildings are torn down and what the hell are you going to do about it?
Some of us blessed or cursed with the collecting gene take comfort in the accumulation of objects that connect us to our past. We keep it small. You won't see me on the Bowery protesting the demise of CBGB's, but when they come for my 9 button, cream-colored AT+T phone from the 70's, that I still use and that has a ring loud enough to hear coming up in the elevator, they'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands. And by the way, I am writing this with a No. 2 pencil and then transferring my handwritten notes to the computer, if you must know.
These are the things you can control and apparently it runs in the family. My father spent his adult life writing exclusively with a Flair felt-tip marker pen, with brown ink, until that specific type was discontinued. Over the years, when I'd happen to pass an old stationary store, i'd check to see if they had any leftovers in stock, to no avail. But one day, after years of search, I found my brown whale, in a junky old store on Avenue A and 3rd Street I'd passed many times, somehow without thinking to ask. There they were. I recognized the contoured barrel grip instantly, which gives them an almost sensual plumpness in the center. The store owner scrounged around and came up short of two dozen. I asked if he could get more and he told me, with a trace of wistfulness and surprise at my interest, "They don't make these," which of course, I already knew.
When I gave them to my father as a birthday gift, he was moved beyond words. "Where did you find these?" he asked me, repeatedly. Tears welled up in his eyes. It was almost painful to see how connected he was to this slender symbol. To know that if he conserved well and wasted no ink, he'd most likely have enough brown pens to last the rest of his life. I felt a bit like an enabler, like I was encouraging some morbid and destructive pursuit. This is a man invested in detachment, disdainful of friendships, hard to know and prone to the spouting of comforting bromides, crying over a box of pens.
Spend any length of time in this city and you will learn that nostalgia is useless, the city has no patience for your memories. Tar will cover cobblestone, Disney will replace porn. In the meantime, support your local red sauce joint. Buy a used book from the dollar bin.
I think of my daughter hanging from the monkey bars in Tompkins Square Park, holding on as long as she can, her knuckles whitening in the cold November afternoon. At a certain point, she's going to have to let go.
