This Town is Irredeemable
just a few weeks back home and I'm reminded how weird we all are
I just got back to the little winery from about three weeks stateside, which, despite being busy with things scheduled truly every day, never feels like enough time to see the people I’d like to and visit all the things I miss. Nary a museum nor botanical garden was visited!
One thing that stresses me out about New York, even after 15 years of living there, adjusting over that time, and now a couple of years of not being there full-time, is that you can just fill and fill and fill your days, endlessly, often to unsure ends. Simple logistics take forever and are expensive: getting between inconvenient neighborhoods, regional trains, parking, even the subway at $3 a pop becomes expensive if you have to go around town quite a bit in just a day and you don’t have a monthly pass. You bleed money when you step out of the door. You’re just trying to see a friend for a catch-up; you’re having a work meeting; it’s like paying a daily fee just to be outside or with people. If you need a sandwich or a Hal’s NY seltzer, which I often do, you’re out $15 a day. If you like sourdough bread from a good bakery, which is a bougie thing I do love, add $9 to that for a loaf of whatever.
As an example of logistical stress, at one point I got stuck in traffic trying to get back to the airport to drop off a rental; I’d run into an enormous smash-up down around Sheepshead Bay on a Friday evening: four lanes of honking, dented-up, immobile cars, ambulances fighting to get through, smashed glass all along the shoulders. On the next street over, when I tried to divert routes from the standstill onto Cropsey or Voorhies Ave, there was a middle-aged sort of dude with a massive lit cigar, a metallic blue Corvette with the top down, double shiny exhausts, just cheerfully hooting and hollering at passerby. We were going 25mph and had to stop at fifty red lights, and this man was having the time of his life. Just the absolute gall—did I hate him or love him? I thought, “This town is irredeemable.”
I hung out for a few days up in the Hudson Valley, a journey which brings a breath of relief; but the weirdnesses don’t quit when you leave the city. Did I visit a farm market inside an enormous, old black barn on a Saturday morning, only to be the only customer present, thereby frazzling the bushy-haired old lady who did not want to work the ancient register? Yes, yes I did. I bought vegetable seeds, a head of lettuce, and a fresh cookie, and I noted the probable 30 pounds of stacked-up winter clothing this person was wearing—it was chilly, but not like upstate February cold. I was intruding on whatever sort of morning she was having: she clearly did not expect to interact with the grubby, salad-wanting public that morning.
Another day, stopping into an ostensible juice place, wanting a smoothie, I talked myself into a more substantial meal on seeing that a jerk chicken wrap with yellow rice was an option, and that the owner-operators seemed of Caribbean descent or ties—there’s something that you definitely can’t find in Italy. This man, with his colorful bandana and his tropicana café walls and his ’90s R&B just bumping, pointed at me and said, “Girl are YOU ready for the best jerk chicken wrap of your life???” And I said, “Sir, I’ve never been more ready,” and I meant it. When I peeled the foil off and the chicken was steaming out of the flour tortilla, packed next to a bunch of shredded vegetables and really perfect yellow rice, I nearly cried. This thing was like $26 and weighed two pounds and was worth every second. What a bunch of joyous weirdos we all are.
So yes, it’s stressful coming back to the city in some ways: there’s too much to do and too many people to see and it’s goddamn expensive. Trying to balance errands and work and seeing loved ones is its own kind of stress. But it’s also terrific to be reminded of the characters at home—America is just so full of this stuff; obviously New York and the surrounding environs compresses many kinds of people into smaller geographic distances, so you get a lot of it, but the above folks were in three different NY towns; the surprises just keep coming. The variety and quality of food (and beverage!) can be extraordinary. We are replete with artists and creativity. A great many people are funny and particular and come from countless places. One is required to learn about the ways of others, if you don’t hide somewhere super sheltered. It’s good.
Meanwhile, back in the Italian village for a only a day or two, we went to one of our little morning farmers’ markets for groceries. There’s a dairy farm right nearby that produces artisanal cheeses and fresh yogurts – very delicious; we’re lucky to have easy access to them. Their stand is constantly busy each week. When it was our turn, the farmer and cheesemaker started asking questions about a red wine produced here at the winery, then immediately starting chatting about the wine world in general, first mentioning how great the French are at it and their amazing wine culture, then moving quickly to the Americans, “Them too—you know, Napa Valley?” I sort of blushed and averted my eyes. It’s a long topic, and where does one begin to discuss these two bruiser nations? Even after long years of doing this sort of thing tableside with my fellow Americans, explaining that what is famous by name and image does not necessarily have veracity or substance attached, explaining the marketing and advertising work of wealthy places…
At this exact moment, Frank Sinatra was playing on the farmer’s radio: “I wanna wake up in the city that never sleeps – king of the hill – top of the heap,” as I tried to focus on what the gentle-eyed, large-handed man said about global wine culture. New York, New Yoooooork. It is so bizarre to be from a place with such an outsized reputation, one that usually makes me cringe. It is also bizarre to come home to that place and remember how much more fractal and complicated it actually is, just as quickly lovely as it is dismaying. Full of weirdos and their good food and their utterly eccentric behavior. Good-for-nothings, gritty little angels.
Sorry to miss you, friend. And you are correct, the seltzer vig in the city has gotten too dear!