We've come to New York for the week, to make sure our little ones remember their cultural home although it is no longer their physical home. Yesterday, the city welcomed us warmly: a gorgeous winter day, a rewarding meeting at church and then an entrancing afternoon at the ballet with good friends. There is something so fulfilling, so warming to the very bone, about seeing my children run around the Lincoln Center fountain -- my "back yard" growing up across the street -- and learning to love the very same places I loved as a child myself. With a small immediate family to offer them and down even their grandfather, I feel like familiarizing them with my childhood home is familiarizing them with the inanimate personalities and influences that made me who I am, much as they are learning about Elliot from his abundant and involved extended family.
But those warm feelings came yesterday. Today introduced my kids to the darker side of New York and, like a spurned loved, I wondered what exactly we're doing hanging around here. We had tickets to see the Tim Burton exhibit at the MoMA at 2:00pm. Never having been a tourist in my own city during the week after Christmas, I naively failed to realize that a million other people -- literally? -- would have the same idea. Pushing a stroller through midtown today was a miserable and deflating experience. My city, it seemed, was working so hard to flatter the mobs of tourists queuing down the streets for the Disney Store, the American Girl Store and Radio City Music Hall that it had absolutely nothing left for me. In this light, the city seemed more like a bad version of an adult's amusement park than a sublime bastion of beauty and intrigue.
We'll try again tomorrow, and I'll be sure to stay away from midtown. Hopefully New York will show us some love again.
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