Where I was Headed

image from Wikipedia

I was pretty far uptown already, pretty far from where home was now. It was Sunday afternoon, and it had only been a coincidence that an invitation from a friend had landed me in the general vicinity of my old haunts. It's funny to me now that when I'd been so young and first moved to New York to go to graduate school, Brooklyn had seemed so far away. Hell, the whole rest of my life had seemed so far away.

I'd be lying if I said that any of my thoughts that Sunday had been epiphanies. Rather, there had for years been this recurring thought, image, memory – one that I've always associated with innocence.

Seventeen years ago, I was twenty-two years old and had just moved to New York, having only been here once before (by way of Port Authority on a Greyhound bus my senior year in college – immediately getting on another bus to catch my semester abroad flight that was leaving from JFK that night). Within the first twenty-four hours of having come to New York to live, I remember, after having opened a few of the boxes that I'd piled in what would now be my bedroom in the big, empty graduate housing apartment (where I was apparently the first roommate to arrive), the first walk that I remember taking was to Columbia's great sunny steps in front of Low Library.

I'd sat there with my journal, I remember, fully aware of the fact that I had no idea what lay before me – not in terms of this graduate program I was starting, not in terms of what I'd do for money afterwards, not when it came to where I'd end up living eventually (or how on earth I'd be able to pay for it), and certainly not in terms of any kind of long-term love. It was all incredibly vague, and in a way that was good at the time, because by vague I also mean very far into the future, which meant that despite how scary and uncertain it all was, there was doubtlessly plenty of time for all of the pieces to just magically fall into exactly the right place.

That's the moment I think of when I think about having first moved to New York – the late August sun shining down onto that wide space that opened onto the center of campus. And now, on a Sunday afternoon, I was passing through the neighborhood and had decided to walk through the gates to get to my train.

It's been nearly twenty years. The steps were to my left now. The sun was in and out, out and in.

There were things I hadn't even thought to wonder about back then. Like whether or not I'd be divorced or find myself in danger of losing my job or my house, or whether I'd get bedbugs and almost have a nervous breakdown, along with other medical scares here and there that might really take a toll on my life. I'd been afraid enough back then, without considering all of that! Afraid enough, but that's not to say sufficiently afraid.

For years now I've been thinking, some day when I find myself in the neighborhood, I should really spend some time there, just sit there quietly. Not with a book or a journal. Just sit there. Just look around. Just wait. Would I ever really remember what it had been like then, who I had been?

So I did sit, and I waited to remember some premonition I might have had back then, some inkling about what my life had in store for me. But the epiphany never came. Not this time, anyway. Maybe if I'd sat there longer, if I'd had more patience that day – but I guess I didn't. Not yet. I stood up and walked toward that subway station that would bring me home.