NYC

Early this evening I was walking through one of the subway stations near my apartment on my way home when I walked past a dad with two kids: a boy who looked to be about ten and his sister, younger by a year or two.  The boy was holding a Metrocard; the dad was waiting for them a few paces ahead. There was nothing remarkable about the scene, nothing even vaguely out of the ordinary. A dad, two kids, on their way somewhere, or going home like me; I didn't know, it didn't matter, but as I kept on walking, I suddenly stopped, right at the base of the stairs to the street.

Everything was out of the ordinary about that scene, at least in terms of what had been ordinary for me for so many years. I found myself thinking, pounding the obvious over the head with a hammer: Oh my god. Children actually live--LIVE--in this city!" Mine do. 

When I was growing up in a borderline rural town that has since become more classically suburban, trips to the city, and Boston, mind you, not New York, were special. We went quite a bit: my father went to every Boston Celtics home game, and we went with him sometimes, my mother liked to take us to see plays and go to the ballet,we went shopping, or out to dinner, or to visit our urban pioneer friends, who lived in the then still slightly edgy South End, where my father felt nervous parking his car. But every time I walked down Newbury Street, or looked for books in the Boston Public Library, or later, even when I lived in Cambridge and took the T downtown every single day, it still felt like a mini event: Here I am in the city!

Which I think is why I occasionally have these moments, these instances of feeling shell shocked that my children will have Metrocards, that their "ordinary" will be hot dog stands and 24 hour delis, taxis to Chinatown, picnics in the park. Their "ordinary" won't be waiting for a ride, being driven to a friend's house, walking around to the side yard to get the mail. I don't think my oldest, at five, knows what a mall is, or a car pool. When we are not in the city she doesn't understand that you can't get things delivered. 

And she has an urban confidence that I remember even as a small child noticing in my South End friends: an assumption that the streets they walked were theirs, a total absence of that "Look, I'm in the city!" vibe that I possibly still exude to some extent, in the best possible way, because I think it with such pleasure. 

I didn't plan this, living here. If you'd told me twenty years ago I would be, I would have laughed in your face, called you insane. But here I am, heading home each day on the express train, my unlimited ride card in my wallet, with this child who owns the streets of New York, and another one, who can walk all around the block, if you give her an hour or so, who's got a little swagger, too.

Yes, kids live here. Mine do.