Written in 2006

I am leaving New York after living here since 1983.  My husband and I are moving to Western New York with our young daughters.  Some friends question our sanity.  Others envy our freedom.  Most wonder how I’ll handle the separation from a city that’s been my lifeblood.

I recall the first party I attended here.  It was aboard the ship, Peking, anchored in the South Street Seaport.  Jazz sizzled on the breeze, you could hear the rustle of people meeting as they ate and drank their way through a sea of acquaintances, and the luminescence of Manhattan at night hung like a canopy overhead. 

I thought, “This is what I came to New York for.”

Now, more than twenty years later, I’m heading back to the area in which I grew up, armed with the skills, friends, contacts and experience I’d never have had if I’d stayed there.  Hopefully, that will make all the difference.

Oh, but I will miss New York!  Already, I feel a sense of loss and mourning for friends and the city we are leaving behind.  The last weeks here are teeming with farewell gatherings and promises to keep in touch.  When we do reconnect with these friends, we’ll pick up where we left off.  The same can’t be said about New York – cities change far more quickly than people.

As we arrange for movers, mail forwarding, electrical, phone and internet service – all the “mundanities” that litter life’s moves – I ponder how one says goodbye to a city.   

Strangely, I faced this same question some 25 years ago when I moved back to Rochester from the City of Lights.  After one mere year I found it difficult to leave, because Paris is not simply a city – it infuses the soul.  Hemingway said, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young [person], then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable Feast.”  Hemingway was right.

Preparing to leave Paris, I found myself revisiting the places that had enchanted me while there. 

Preparing to leave New York, I feel the same need to make pilgrimages. 

Just before leaving, I make one final trip into Manhattan.  Allowing extra time between meetings, I visit places I’d missed before.  Some favorites…Broadway, Central Park, Lincoln Center, East Sixth Street, The Village…we’ll visit to on our returns to New York.  But the true jewels of this city are its gem-sized parks, unique shops and secret rendezvous locations, significant only to the individuals who discover them and make them their own.

My first stop is Bryant Park.  Its ivy beds, bistro chairs and grassy lawn always felt like Paris – my Luxembourg Gardens in New York.  Since my first discovery of the park, an ivy-covered café has been added, as well as a carousel for children, recalling the gaiety of the puppet theaters in the Jardins du Luxembourg.  Missing still are the crèpes and glâces stands dotting the park’s periphery. 

Fittingly, as I cross the flagstones toward the twirling carousel, two women behind me converse in French.  I sit for a while watching laughing children ride the merry-go-round, but as rain begins to fall, I head to Lord & Taylor for my “95 scent tour” of the perfume, makeup and jewelry counters. The fragrance I associate with Lord & Taylor will forever conjure department store magic as surely as the smell of baking cookies takes me back to my grandmother’s kitchen.

Next, it is time to head downtown for lunch at Les Halles, a wonderfully-French restaurant discovered while attending Baruch.  As I meander down Fifth Avenue, again I detect the lilting cadence of French.  In front, two men converse in Hebrew.  The flower-vendor at the deli shouts in Korean to someone inside.  On another corner, I hear the rolling rhythm of Spanish.  Surrounding me is a cornucopia of languages that takes me back to my first encounter with Paris and its multi-culture.

I flourished in Paris.  That city, with its medley of cuisines, languages, cultures and influences became a springboard encouraging – no – propelling me to move to New York in pursuit of new experiences.  Here, I’ve reveled in the feast of the senses that is New York. 

But now, I’m leaving.  My husband and I make this choice – he with seemingly little reservation, I with much ambivalence – to slow our world so that we can enrich our daughters’ childhoods by spending more time with them and exposing them to experiences the city can’t offer.  It feels like the right move – at least, for now. 

When I moved here many years ago, my best friend who had arrived before me to study acting said, “Living in New York is a love-hate relationship.”  Mostly, I’ve loved it.

Copyright 2006©Carol White Llewellyn