Meeting Myself in New York City

Last month I went to New York City for work. NEW YORK CITY. I always say it big and grand in my head. I imagine the Monopoly guy with the top hat spreading his arms wide. NEW. YORK. CITY. Drawing out each word like the letters are towering silver gates.

When I’m there, I long to stop it all so I can have time to really see everything. To open the gates, peer inside, watch and stare at, uninterrupted, all the millions of textures, curlicues, black Sharpie slashes, pot holes, scaffolds, gestures, shouts, CDs hanging in trees, stacks of folded boxes on sidewalks next to hills of garbage bags, garbage truck blocking the narrow street, six cars sitting patiently behind, one way streets, doorways like puzzle pieces crammed together, askew steps going up to doorways, askew steps going down to doorways, fire escapes, wrought iron, jagged metal, soft cobblestones, and all those colors sprayed, slapped, dolloped, popped, stroked on in anger, love, and humanity.

Opening the gate and staring in would be like setting to life the miniature rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. As a child, on any visit to the Art Institute all I wanted to do was stare at the Thorne collection of miniature rooms. Those rooms were set up for voyeurism. 

But New York City is not. It moves way too fast. It spins. There is no staring at it. It cannot be freeze-framed or captured. It wouldn’t be New York City if it could.

I don’t travel for work often. It sounds glamorous but it’s really a pain in the ass for me. The childcare pre-travel coordination and dependency on my family is intense. And one would think it would be so indulgent and freeing to be off the leash for a couple days. It sort of is. But not nearly as much as it should be.

Without my kids, I quickly realize how much of a buffer they are. Traveling with them, I focus intensely on taking care of them. I don’t think about my own discomfort of cramming my big body into an airplane seat and slightly holding my breath the whole flight so I don’t ooze onto the person next to me. Lord knows the world does not need any more fodder to make them annoyed by fat people. There is more than enough unjust anti-largeness to go around.

Without my kids, I hear and see everything around me—and there is a lot of ugly. Like the time my flight was moved from one gate to another. Despite the reasonable explanation that the plane had mechanical issues that would take hours to fix and instead of waiting, we could leave right away on a plane that was working, passengers were absolutely distraught. All we had to do was walk to another gate. Around me I heard a wave of heavy sighs. Then comments like “This is just absurd.” “Absolutely ridiculous.” “That gate is soooooo far from here.” “This is insane.” Jeez, I thought, it’s not like we have to crawl there on bloody stumps.

Or another time I overheard a woman telling her friend about a homeless guy on her train coming in to the airport. “He had his head in his hands and was yelling—please someone help me! Help me! Oh god, I need help! I’m gonna die! It was so annoying and he was screaming at the top of his lungs.” Her friend just said, “Jesus, what a pain.” Honestly I don’t know what I would have done in that situation. I really wanted her friend to ask, “Was he hurt? Did anyone talk to him? Did anyone help him? How do you know he was homeless? Were you scared? For him or yourself?”  But I’m pretty sure the answers would have made my involuntary eavesdropping even more annoying.

Once I have my revelation that I use my children as headphones and blinders when we travel, I get over it and actually put on headphones and put my face in a book, and I just plunge into the stream of humanity traveling to New York City.

In my hotel room, I realize that my favorite thing about time away from my kids is how remarkably fast I can get ready. It’s quiet and all I do is meet my own needs. It takes like 15 minutes to get ready without them. I wonder then what fills the hour of getting ready with them. Well here’s a snapshot:

Alarm goes off. I get out of bed and push snooze. (I put my alarm clock across the room so I won’t push snooze multiple times and be late. It doesn’t work.) Back to sleep. Alarm. Snooze. Sleep. Repeat. Finally up. Make coffee. Always wake my son first. He’s easy. Very grumpy, doesn’t want to be touched. Just turn on the light and say, “Time to wake up. Are you hearing me? Are you getting up?” Say that until I get eye movement or a nod. Then on to his sister. She is the complete opposite. Here’s what I have to do.

Me: Knock, knock. (Not on her door but rather on the lump under the covers.)

Her: Grunt, nod, little smile, murmur “woozit?”

Me: Mrs. Tickalotta. Are you home?

Her: Bigger smile, murmur “yup.”

Me: Can I come in and see twin baby armpits? (I then tickle each armpit.) Mr. and Mrs. Knees? (I then tickle each knee.) All ten little piggies? (I then tickle each toe and sometimes have to do the This Little Piggy Went to Market thing.) Belly button? Neck?

Her: Bigger and bigger giggles, murmur “you forgot ears.”

And that’s just the beginning. Then I help her pick clothes. Sometimes I choose three shirt options and three pants options. I present them and she rates them either maybe or no. Then we go back to the maybes and she finally picks. If I’m lucky.

My mom would say, “You’re the adult; you can say no to that insanity.” But I can’t really. I don’t want to. Because in two second she will be 18. I already miss her.

So I lavish the few mornings I have alone on business trips and I marvel at how little I need to get ready in the morning. Then when I’m ready, I sit on the bed and read my book and drink coffee. My very own Mrs. Tickalotta.

I did have a few other tickling indulgences on my New York City trip. All in the form of good food at atmosphere-laden little places that I just wanted to miniaturize and slip into my purse.

We stayed in the Brooklyn Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge. The first night we asked for the concierge for a restaurant recommendation. Nick at the front desk said there was no concierge on duty but that we should go to Taperia. He too quickly pulled out a card and wrote his name on it and told us to say Nick sent us. 

I guessed this would not be a place we’d want to go. I imagined Nick had some deal with the Taperia place. No, we’re from Chicago; we can figure out a scam like this.

There was an oversized digital tablet in the lobby that you could look up places nearby. We tried it out but couldn’t really tell what might be good. So we decided to follow Nick’s map, just knowing we’d find something better along the way. But if we didn’t, we’d go to Taperia. As long as it wasn’t a warehouse where they snatched up and held Midwestern women.

We stood in front of the hotel, looking right and left, trying to avoid making eye contact with the dank, looming, eastern European looking Brooklyn Supreme Court building across the street. To its right is the Brooklyn War Museum. And just beyond that is a Brooklyn Bridge on-ramp. Luckily we were going left. Around the corner, we saw smaller, more colonial looking government buildings and a big square. The square made it start to feel more like New York. We don’t really have squares in Chicago. 

Once we got onto Montague Street, I finally felt the intricacies of a New York City neighborhood rush up to tickle my senses. Ah yes. The doors—just door after door after door. Steps going down to places and steps going up to places. You can never see into these places. And stuff spills out of them onto the sidewalks—fruit stands, signboards, postcard and book racks, bins of stuff for sale, boxes broken down and stacked for pick up, crates, always so many wooden crates.

Before we knew it, we arrived at Taperia. It was compelling and drew us in. 

Thank goodness because it was delicious as well. I had ropa vieja (Cuban style roast beef that shreds off the bone like old clothes falling apart—hence ropa (clothes) vieja (old) and maduros (sweet ripe plaintains, lightly fried, tossed in light sugar and butter). My mojito, packed with fresh mint, was just the right cooling touch to the slightly spicy meat and its accompanying rice and beans. For dessert, we shared chocolate semifreddo and key lime cheese cake spring rolls.

When we left I told the hostess that Nick sent us.

The next day, we went to the Shake Shack for lunch. I had a burger, fries, and a peanut butter shake. I’ll tell you what—it did not suck. And best of all, I didn’t feel the usual gross after-burger-eating feeling. The vegetarian fed Angus beef and all natural ingredients make all the difference. The menu said they spin the ice cream fresh every day right there at the Shake!

Shake Shack was born as a hot dog stand in Madison Square Park in Manhattan when an art installation was attracting many people. It has grown into a big family of Shake Shacks with locations on the east coast, Florida, England, Turkey, Russia, and interestingly 11 locations in the Middle East—the same number as New York.

The place was hip with urban clean design, not tiny but we did have to jockey to get a table. I was glad my kids weren’t with me. They would have lost their little minds. Especially if they feasted their tongues on The Urban LumberShack—vanilla custard, Belgian waffles, bananas, and The Redhead’s bacon peanut brittle. Not to mention they have beer so I’d be a goner. Even alone and not about to drink beer before work, all will power evaporated with one look at the menu. My kids and I would be demolished in that place.

The next night we went to dinner at Momofuku. In our Soho office we were warned to get to Momofuku by 5:00 and get in line. We didn’t make it by 5:00 but the “Nick” vibe must have been in the air because there was no line and we got a table for all seven of us right away.

The place was tiny. There were maybe six or seven tables that were shared and at which customers sat on round wooden blocks—everything including the walls was blond wood. There was also counter seating.

Quick aside about city tininess…my first couple times in Paris, the tininess of everything—the little café chairs, little espresso cups, the narrow streets, the skinny people, the toddler shoe cars—made me feel like a monster American lumbering down the streets, clearly out of place. The last time I was in Paris, with my kids, I did not feel like that. Again I was hyper alert to taking care of them and therefore NOT hyper alert to how big I was compared to all things tiny in Paris.

So in New York City, there is the same tininess of places. And I do tend to feel big and Midwestern when I’m there. But on this night at Momofuku, I felt so in place—human, neighborly, and communal. Despite the warmth I felt for all my colleagues and all the patrons of Momofuku, I would not let anyone have a bite of my Brussel sprouts. OMG they were so fucking good. They sat in the bowl at the edge of a little pond of coconut, peanuts, and Thai basil. And they were mine, all mine.

I did share pork buns. Unlike the round pork buns I so love in Chicago’s China Town, these were like soft sandwich bread—but still that precious doughiness—folded over a real slab of pork. Delicious. I got a taste of the kim chee as well—wonderfully spicy and again nicely complimented by my drink of choice which was a soju slushie (apple cider). My grandmother used to make a similar kind of slushie with brandy, Seven Up, apple juice, and crushed ice. We’d drink them and eat Chex mix when we played cards.

The desserts were incredibly interesting as well. We shared all three of the special daily desserts—Lucky Peach Soft Serve, Cap’n Crunch Cake Truffles, and Fruity Cereal & Marshmallow Cookie—all made with crappy cereals that kids beg their parents to buy (Lucky in the Lucky Peach is Lucky Charms!). As you can see the desserts looked nothing like crappy cereal, nor did they taste like crappy cereal.

The last day before our big meeting, we stopped at Ground Support in Soho for coffee and breakfast treats. I freaking love coffee. If you told me I had to pick one vice, I would pick coffee even over alcohol. But sadly I mostly only drink Starbucks. At Ground Support I made a firm resolution to get myself to places like this more often. The soy latte and crunchy French bread pb&j were so simply good. And again a tiny place with long wooden communal tables. I vowed to try new places back in Chicago. I was ashamed of my Starbucks and Panera routine.

I left New York City a few days later feeling refreshed—somehow like I was now a more interesting person than I was when I came. You know that feeling? You see yourself anew, maybe sparked by a haircut, an insightful compliment, or having just treated yourself. And you stand up a little straighter, feel a little proud and remember that you are important.

On the way home, nothing bothered me—all the flight delays, sticky airport floors, crowds. I had funny little conversations in my head—you hey, there you are! Nice. I’ve missed you. How about a moment alone in a café? Charming scarf.

And I didn’t hold my breath in the cramped airplane seat. Maybe my leg touched the guy next to me, maybe not. Something about New York City made it OK either way.

A Thorne Miniature Room at the Art Institute of Chicago