It can be easy to forget why I live in New York.
My apartment has earned the label "cozy," and while I like that it feels homey and comfortable I'd rather it felt homey and comfortable and spacious. Getting anywhere is a project since it's nearly impossible to follow that shortest distance of a single line between point A and point B. Everyone is frantic—rushing and running to the next thing in our overpacked lives. Buzzfeed seems to come out with a new thing each week about what a pain it is to live here, or annoying things New Yorkers only understand. I laughed, because it's true. And I got to the end of those ridiculous excuse for an article (that's right Buzzfeed, lists are not articles) and wondered why I put up with all of this?
But this past weekend, I was reminded not only why I live in New York, but why I harbor such love for this place. It was City Center's Encores! production of A Bed and A Chair: A New York Love Affair that reminded me to smirk a little when I think of NYC, rather than scowl.
The show was a Sondheim revue starring Bernadette Peters, Norm Lewis, Jeremy Jordan, and ridiculously awesome jazz singer Cyrille Aimee (see: Dream Team), and four dancers as their emotional alter egos—including my brother's friend and former castmate Tyler Hanes. Since seeing this show, I've decided that all Sondheim should always be performed as jazz. Sondheim's music can often be dark—beautifully complex, but dark. Yet, infused with the big band sound of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, it was just so...happy! Bouyant and rich. And this musical fusion reflected on New York itself. New York life is complicated, it's difficult, but it's also a deep wealth of emotion and culture and connections and vivacity—and I had forgotten that.
As the singers sang about their romances—both with each other and New York—landscape photography projections of the sprawling city splashed on the walls of the theater. It gave me chills to hear songs like "Giants in the Sky" from Into the Woods and look up at humungous skyscrapers from hundreds of feet below. YES! That's totally what it feels like! Sometimes I do feel overwhelmed like an overeager Jack and the Beanstalk. But that feeling is also thrilling. Or to see photos of the New York City skyline as the band riffed. I felt an unbelievable swelling in my heart to know that amongst those buildings sits my cozy apartment. I am part of that landscape.
But the whole performance also reminded me why I was so excited to move to New York in the first place. On a Friday night I can just decide, "Hey I think I'll go spend $30 to see some Broadway titans and the best jazz band in the country make some music for 90 minutes." Or on Saturday night I can swing by Subculture and see the writer of "Same Love" perform an intimate solo concert. I can wake up for Sunday brunch at the best breakfast restaurant in the city and I can also choose to just lay on my couch and do nothing. New York gives me all of these choices.
All that frantic hustle and bustle, it's energy that I can choose to use as fuel to light my fire. Not getting directly from point A to point B—do you know how many more books I read now that I don't have to watch the road?
I'm proud to say that I accomplish the feat of living here day in and day out. In fact, it dawned on me that when I'm older and I have kids running around some suburban house, I kind of hope they pridefully say to their friends, "Yeah. My mom lived in New York." That's right. I conquered it. And I'm glad that even when I start to wonder if New York is just too much, it seduces me back when it showers me with gifts like Friday night.
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