Weekend: Holding On & Letting Go

This weekend, I went out with these girls to say good-bye to one of our own, who is moving this week across the country to be with the love of her life (the only way we could possibly bear to let her leave).

At dinner, it hit me.  It just occurred to me all of a sudden.  That this is what I'm going to remember.  For the rest of my life, anytime I say, "When we lived in New York...," this is what those memories will be made of.

These people, these faces.  This group of girls that I found a place with.  This city that was home for the first years of our marriage.

I'm going to remember what New York streets look like in the rain, and how I never had an umbrella when I needed one.

I'm going to remember our subway stop, the place we always walked to on the platform to wait, our favorite seats to take on the train, the way I got sick if I wasn't facing sideways.  I think I'll be able to recite the 1 train stops for the rest of my life.

I'm going to remember that the cab fare to get home from downtown was $27.

I'm going to remember the way we loved the boats on the Hudson outside our window, all kinds of boats, but our favorites were the tugs.

I'm going to remember the Westside Highway late at night, the sailboats in Boat Basin eerily floating on the water, and the lights of the bridge getting closer and closer.

I'm going to remember the night we got crepes after Mandy's going away dinner and, if I'm lucky, I'm going to remember how they tasted.

These tiny little details, these images, these passing conversations, these nights in the city.  All these things are building up, being stored in my mind to create my memory of New York.  New York the way I'll remember it 20 or 40 or 60 years from now.  This is it.  It's happening now, but it's also already my past, and at the same time, it's also already my future.  It's all together somehow, and at the same time it's fleeting.  On the one hand, it's hard to grasp, but on the other...I hope it will be impossible to let go.