why choose rat kingdom, you ask?
Lot of New York-focused links lately, but you gotta know it’s that adopted home city pride (along with a LOT of white flour-based foods) that’s what’s keepin’ the lights on over here emotionally and spiritually……...which is why I absolutely have to share this lovely essay from Glynnis MacNicol: The New York You Once Knew Is Gone. The One You Loved Remains.
There’s no shortage of emotional paeans to New York City, especially right now (@bymariandrew’s illustrated love notes are one of my favorite places to be on IG), but this piece ties in cleverly to both the clichéd “Why I Left New York” literary genre and the iconic E.B. White essay “Here Is New York.” There are so many sublimely wonderful lines, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone get to the heart of the “but why would you choose 300 square feet of rat kingdom over anywhere else” question better than these lines:
We are a city of congregators. We are so used to being jammed up against one another, so thrilled and challenged and comforted by it that maintaining social distancing requires the mental vigilance of giving up an addiction. For years, New Yorkers have been advised by those who’ve left the city that bigger houses and more land can be found elsewhere for a fraction of the price — as if everyone here doesn’t know exactly the demands of the deal they struck in staying. Exchanging ease for the possibility of magic.
Isn’t that amazing?
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