Though I moved to California in 1968 when I was nineteen and made it my home, in no small part I’m still a “New Yawkah.” Even so, I’m slowly losing New York.
I remember the unseasonably frigid October night when I decided to move to San Francisco; I was waiting for an A-Train at the 86th Street subway platform. It was late, and needing to get to my place on St. Marks Place in the East Village I’d used the last of my change to buy a token, was tired and under-dressed for the sudden drop in temperature. A cold draft knifed its way through the subway tunnel darkness, and as I jammed my hands into the pockets of my jacket I clutched the single door key to my studio apartment. I thought, “In a city of maybe 30 million doors, this key opens just one. If I can’t get home, I could die.” I suddenly felt very alone and vulnerable. “Larry,” I mused, “if your destiny is to be 19 years old and have a crap job for eighty bucks a week, you can do that someplace warmer.” Two months later, I was on a plane.
San Francisco was sweet – goodbye snow, goodbye noise, goodbye sky-high rent. Keys to an apartment at the top of a Victorian home on Diamond Street and monthly rent: $150. I found a crap job for eighty bucks a week and over forty years laid down deep roots of work, friends, marriage and family. In coming to California I’ve gained a lot.
The rest of my family remained in New York; I’m the only one who moved away, and going back to visit has been part of my yearly routine, sometimes several times a year. For a while I owned a greeting card company which took me to many cities for trade shows, including
New York. I’d stay with my mother on East 86th Street and schlep my way down to the Javits Convention Center to hawk my stuff, a set of keys in my pocket to her door in New York.
Sometimes I’d stay with my father on East 72nd by the River. A visit to my sister at 114th and Riverside was usual, too. Different doors, different keys, and all would open. In this way New York remained available to me, if not exactly as a resident, close enough.
My dad passed away last year and his apartment was sold; I threw away my keys. My mom died recently, and now those keys will be useless too. Forty-plus years after leaving,
I’m back down to just one door, my sister’s. Like I said, I’m slowly losing New York.
When a friend or family member dies a whole universe dies with them; jokes, objects, stories, names and places lose their conjoined meaning. I realize more than ever that life is of shared construction, mutually dependent. As my mother’s memory and grip on reality was lost what we shared was lost also; but then again, all of that has been like a dream, something we cooked up. Such is the hard truth of gain and loss: it’s all cooked up. There is, it appears, just this one continuous moment to work with, no more, no less.
Just before he died, Tibet’s great teacher the Sixteenth Karmapa summed it up. “Nothing happened,” he said.
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