What if it was easy? Here comes the sun...
We, and spring, arrive in New York
It’s 6:25 am in Manhattan. I’m having my morning coffee, made from Mexican coffee beans that I purchased at Trader Joe’s on the Upper West Side—where many shelves are empty because they can’t restock them quickly enough, or because people are hoarding imported goods before our tariffs on the world set in.
The coffee mug is from Abbey Road NW8 City of Westminster and has the faces of all four Beatles printed on the handle. The mug belongs to Matt, husband of my wife Lisa’s college roommate Amy.
Three of Lisa’s roommates live in the New York area. Lisa once tried to make a go of it here but returned to California after a fairly miserable year. Was the misery more circumstantial than fundamental?
This is a newly relevant question now that we’re looking at living in a 90-minute radius of New York for the next four years. Will either of us dyed-in-the-wool Californians take to this place?
Amy and Matt asked me that question directly yesterday. My answer was that we didn’t see it as a permanent move but as a chapter of our lives. Of course, this assumes we can afford to start that chapter in a place where housing costs a pretty penny.
The husbands of Lisa’s roommates are a bit like brothers-in-law. We are electrons orbiting around the periphery of stronger bonds.
We have things in common. All of us are family men with ambitions both fulfilled and thwarted to varying degrees. And there are unexpected connections. For example, Matt and I have siblings who are more than a decade older, making us more intimately familiar with the music of the 60s and 70s than the average person from our generation. We were also given the impression that music was vitally important and that being, say, a lyricist like John Lennon would be a very high calling indeed.
The subject of 70s music came up when Matt and Amy went to see Steve Miller play at The Met. Most of the Steve Miller Band’s hits were written in a couple of weeks spent in Northern California where “the girls are warm,” as you’ll recall from the song “Rock’n Me.” The album Book of Dreams from 1977 was, of course, the soundtrack to many wild parties that Matt and I attended as small children, in my case, passing the joint from one person to the next without smoking it myself.
Keep on a rockin'
Rockin' me baby
Matt and Amy are now out of town for the weekend at their country house in Connecticut. They’ve owned the place here in New York for 12 years, and we’ve stayed here four or five times before.
“It’s nice to be back in a place we know,” I said to Lisa before drifting off to sleep.
“Yes,” she said, “I feel that, too.”
It’s a feeling I savor this morning, sitting here in the living room as the light in the sky slowly brightens as if by the hand of God’s dimmer knob, listening to the birdsong as I sip my coffee and eat my cashews—which are, as my son so often reminds me, The Rich Man’s Nut.
When my coffee was brewing, I opened the window at the back of the house to let birdsong in and soon realized I was also letting in the occasional passing siren, or siren song. Now and then, there was also the faint rumble of a subway train moving through the city. Sound is a traveler. The golden record within Voyager still moves through space.
We’ve been in New York for nearly two weeks now. The cherry blossoms are blooming in Central Park. Some streets have flowering trees on both sides, creating a floral canopy that’s especially lovely.
One afternoon, my son and I sat on a park bench near Bow Bridge admiring the flowering trees and the lake. On the shore, a highly skilled acoustic guitar player sang folk songs and played in a gentle, lovely way that felt entirely appropriate to the scene.
An NYPD car rolled up and an officer told the musician that playing in the park was fine, but no amplifiers were allowed, which must have seemed like a fair enough rule when it was written, but when applied in this instance, ended what had been a fantastic free performance.
As the acoustic guitarist unplugged and began packing his things, the NYPD car rolled past us, and I noticed that all four tires were entirely covered with delicate cherry blossom petals.
When I later mentioned this detail to Lisa, she said, “Beauty has the last word.”
It’s easy to see why so many people from around the world want to live in New York (or own an apartment here that sits vacant when they’re away or gets rented on a short-term basis). NYC has now banned short-term rentals for any length of time less than a month, making hotels the only option for a stay of 29 days or less.
I’m not sure I know many people who could afford to stay in a New York hotel for 29 days, or 21, or 14.
Due in part to the new restrictions, for the remaining weeks we’re here, we will likely need to stay outside the five boroughs, or in (gasp) New Jersey. My son will commute to Manhattan to attend classes at Upright Citizens Brigade or work in a restaurant.
Facing this challenge of where to stay and for how long, I feel both incredibly fortunate and beleaguered. How lucky I am to be here with coffee and birdsong in a luxurious oasis thanks to the generosity of friends. How fortunate I am to be able to work remotely, once an unthinkable possibility for anyone but a traveling salesman or goatherd. And yet how exasperated I am by our search for housing and the prospect of finding a longer-term place for us in New York.
The latter thought has me returning to a question: What if it was easy?
If it was easy, how would it work? If it was easy, what would happen?
What if it was as easy as waking up on a Sunday morning in 1977 surrounded by hungover teenagers, quietly removing Book of Dreams from the record player, sliding it back into its sleeve, and gently placing Abbey Road on the turntable, rousing everyone from sleep with “Here Comes The Sun”? Sitting near the window, holding a shiny new bicentennial quarter, turning it over and over—George Washington’s profile, the eagle, two hundred years, such a long time—the needle moving from “Golden Slumbers” to “Carry That Weight” as if they are the same song.
Play the You’re a Trip Playlist
Access the ever-evolving playlist at this link which includes songs mentioned in this travelogue as well as songs I overhear during our travels.