Goodbye to all rats

Dear friend,

My first Letter from Hot Springs comes to you not from Arkansas but from Brooklyn, New York. It's my last night in the city. Katie and the kids have already abandoned ship, retreating to her parents' place in Yonkers and leaving me here to finish the packing all by myself.

Packing is a form of violence. It rips open the chest and exposes the heart. On one hand there's the brutality of just taking a well-managed, carefully-ordered life and tearing it up at the roots and throwing it into boxes and bags as if it was garbage for the curb. On the other there's the discovery of artifacts long-lost, set into the couch cushions and under the rugs and beds like fossils under layers of earth - the historical record of our family's life in this apartment. A lego man behind a bookcase. A polaroid photo of old friends who once visited from California under the bed. A note for a babysitter one date night years ago behind the refrigerator.

The worst part is the letters. I have this weird thing I do where I hide all the letters that Katie and I write to each other in books in the bookshelf. The idea is that we would discover them randomly as we take down old books to read and then relive a pleasant memory. It never worked. We never reread our old books I guess. What's worse is that it has backfired and now on the occasion of our move I'm sitting here in the floor surrounded by old books and boxes and reading several years worth of love letters and father's day cards and melting into a sentimental mess.

I've had a hard time keeping it together this week. I'm a pretty sentimental person on my best day. But this week, as it has dawned on me that every little thing we do is The Last Time We Will Ever Do This, I've been spiraling. Singing the kids to sleep on the last night they slept here, I started sobbing in the middle of You Are My Sunshine and Adeline said "why are you crying, Daddy?" "Because this is the last time I'll sing to you in here." She laughed at me and said "You can sing to us in Arkansas." She's right, as she usually is. Kids are unapologetically unsentimental. But she also didn't watch herself grow up from a baby to a little girl in that room. So give me a damn break, Adeline. I'm having a moment.

Ever since we decided to do this Arkansas thing I've been doing this thing that maybe has been a way for me to mentally prepare for this moment. I've been letting every little annoying thing about New York City bother the hell out of me. Things I used to just shrug off as life in the big city have been eating away at my every nerve. The rats in the park. The crowded subway platforms. The long lines everywhere you go. The constant honking of horns. The noise outside my window during concerts in Prospect Park. The ridiculous price of literally everything. And for a while it was kind of working. I was getting really psyched up to leave and to move somewhere slower, cheaper, calmer, cleaner, easier. I was looking forward to seeing how the kids take to having lots of space and being let off the proverbial leash a little bit. I've been looking forward to having some peace and quiet.

But here in my last days in New York City I finally realize - all the rats and subway platforms and noisy concerts, it's not enough.

New York City is the greatest city in the world.

I've lived in this city off and on since 1999. I got married here. My kids were born here. I've seen incredible things and had amazing experiences living in this city - things that I truly would not have seen or experienced anywhere else. There is a reason why twelve million of us cram into this little place, pile on top of each other, give up our space, money, privacy, sometimes our dignity, to forge something like a normal life in this not normal place.

I think it's because even if we don't like all the grime and chaos and pain that comes with it, we love living close to so many other people. Even if we don't particularly care to interact with a single other human being -a state of mind I often find myself in - we still take comfort knowing so many other human beings are in close proximity to us, standing in line with us, waiting on crowded platforms with us, making eye contact and rolling our eyes or shrugging our shoulders or smiling at each other's babies or giving up our seats to each other or making all that damn noise upstairs. We're all in this New York thing together, even when we don't even speak to each other.

Maybe I'd even say especially when we don't speak to each other. Being alone and left alone in New York is one of the best things about this city. You can eat by yourself in a restaurant or walk down the street singing to yourself and nobody gives you a second look. You never need to feel weird or insecure or judged - mainly because nobody is going to pay you any mind at all. The city is too big. Nobody cares about whatever you're up to. And for some of us that's just fine. That's how it should be.

I say all this because I'm about to move to a city with the same number of people as live in the four block radius around my apartment. I say this because I'm sitting in my apartment with the windows up listening to a very loud concert across the street in Prospect Park as I write this. I say this because I've had a lot of people I wanted to say goodbye to before I left town, and I didn't get to, both because I've had a lot of stuff to get done, but also because that's just how it goes in New York City. People come and go. It's no big deal. It's a big place with lots of people. I'm going to miss the hell out of this place. That doesn't mean it's going to miss me one bit. New York City will go on without me. And that's just fine. That's how it should be.

I need to get back to packing I'll be sure to write you once I get to Hot Springs.

Love,

David