Village life

I love New York because I feel like I live in a village way more than I ever felt… even when I’ve lived in villages. By the time I walk down to the ground level of my apartment building on Saturday mornings, the Italians from the pizza place downstairs are already hosing off the front sidewalk, washing it of debris, waving hello. At the Mexican laundromat around the corner, I bump into the Korean woman who does my nails down the street. Walking to my local coffee shop where everyone knows me, I run into the Indian pharmacy shop-owner who is parking his car, stops to say hello to me and reminds me to get my refill on time. I finish my magazines at the café, sipping ice coffee (The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The Atlantic), before heading to the nail salon for my weekly manicure (and to catch up on the latest edition of US Weekly and In Touch Magazine, deliberating over Essie colors). Outside the salon, I pick up a box of blueberries from the Muslim boy who runs the fruit cart. This is my weekend routine. I’m not sure why these little interactions and familiarities make me so happy or give me such immense pleasure. In a city that is known for its impersonality, I can’t explain it except to say that anyone who thinks New York is impersonal has certainly never lived here before. And, at the center of all our being—ethnicity, tribe, family—the thing that makes us most who we are is where we live.