A Wrap

New York, 2017

Well, 1099 posts later, and we are starting to pack our bags and say farewell to Williamsburg and New York.

It's been a strange year of limbo. Since my first scouting trip to L.A. back in September we've had so many puzzles to solve. I sort of can't believe we've nearly pulled it all off.

We feel really good about all of the changes afoot but my brain is more a little weary from all of the decision making. I would like to just be somewhere without feeling it's temporary.

Knowing that you are leaving a place feels a little like homesickness, even while you're still there. I can't help but think about how well we know this neighborhood. We remember when this or that store was something else entirely, three iterations ago, and when our twenty five year old selves led very different lives here. The city comes to feel like a part of your identity, and it's strange to think that we will soon be saying 'When we lived in New York...' in the past tense.

But it's a happy occasion too. It feels good to be intentional about what we want for our children and ourselves at this stage of life. Being in Maine in the summers or on the beach just about anywhere has taught me a lot about how we all thrive in nature and how wonderful it feels to hear the wind in the trees rather than the wail of sirens as you fall asleep at night. Yes, Los Angeles is a big city. But it's one with vast wild spaces we are keen to explore. Our city kids are in for a great adventure.

I had a feeling I would be wrapping up this blog when we moved, and now it's time to do just that. If you happened upon this site just now, feel free to check out the archives and see a little bit more about parenting in Brooklyn. I wouldn't have chosen any other place to be. If you've been reading all along, thank you for taking an interest in our journey.

I will of course be recording life out West as we settle into our house and life by the beach. You can follow our little tribe's progress on Instagram, if you like.

Adventures

New York, 2016

Axel is on spring break this week so today we went on a special trip into the city, just the two of us.

We visited City Treehouse (a playspace with an indoor water table), the Highline and the Pershing Square Beams, and the Whitney Museum.

New York was so gorgeous today it seemed like the city was almost showing off. Perfect spring weather, buskers everywhere playing beautiful music on cellos, violins, and saxophones...and Axel was so well behaved, we had a blast.

It's really nice that he's getting to an age where we can do things we both enjoy together, and days like this give me renewed faith in city life with kids. Onwards and upwards!

Monday

Williamsburg, 2015

Here's Axel with his favorite book du jour.

It kind of makes me laugh since we basically live in a Richard Scarry book here in Brooklyn (e.g. this tug boat / barge / smokestack / skyscraper vista from our walk on Sunday.)

Art & Commerce

Williamsburg, 2014

Everyone I know in New York has what I call an 'escape hatch fantasy.'

Sometimes, when it's icy and bitter out, L.A. is a popular escape hatch.

People will say things like, 'I could have an avocado tree in my backyard!', 'I'd go hiking every day,' or 'People go stand up paddle boarding there before work, don't they?'

Sometimes the fantasy centers on somewhere in Europe. It's Amsterdam or Stockholm or Normandy. Somewhere with a gentler pace of life, where people bike a lot while wearing skirts and braids. Of course, people bike a lot in skirt and braids in Brooklyn, but that's another story.

The escape hatch fantasy is an ongoing brunch or dinner conversation here that usually starts with someone announcing: 'Austin has a burgeoning art scene,' and ends with the cautionary tale of a friend of a friend who moved to a farm in Vermont and hated having to shop at Target and had to return to Brooklyn.

So I don't think these conversations are really about leaving, even as the circle around things like the insane price of real estate or the manic tempo of city life. Generally, for us, they tend to be about affirming what it is we love about living here, when it's obviously a challenging place.

One of the biggies for me is the meeting of art and commerce in the city. I grew up in Washington, D.C., which was a leafy, worldly, international place, certainly. But when I was a kid, my friends' parents were all judges and lawyers and doctors, or did vague financial things I didn't entirely grasp.

For Axel and Oscar, I love the fact that they are surrounded by people who make a substantive living doing creative things. There's an Oscar-winning screenwriter who lives in our building, for one. Axel's schoolmates' parents are collage artists, musicians, fashion designers, photographers, perfume executives, advertising gurus, real estate agents, news producers, and small business owners.

These kids will one day, I think, take it for granted that if you want to write a book, open a restaurant, or chase some kind of elusive dream, it doesn't have to mean living on the fringes.

I love the thought of our boys looking around and going, 'Yeah, I could be a chocolate maker.' Even at two, I feel like Axel is exposed to so many interesting ideas and visuals that I didn't happen upon until I was eighteen or so, discovering cities in my own right.

And if it turns out they want to work at Goldman Sachs, so be it. I just love the diversity of possibility here.

Go to New York

Williamsburg, 2014

Gah! I love pretty much every word of this essay, about a mom's wish that her kids will move to New York one day.

When I was a teenager and in university, I knew that someday I'd move to New York. There just wasn't any other option I could envision. Today I'm such a different person than I was when I arrived here at the ripe old age of 22, and my days of walking every square inch of Manhattan to avoid the subway fare seem long distant.

But if there is ever an act of faith it's choosing to raise your kids here. And yet I sometimes lament that by giving Axel and Oscar a New York City childhood, a Brooklyn childhood, I'm depriving them of the sheer joy that comes from discovering the place for yourself as an adult.

I guess someday they will discover it on their own terms, and that will be enough. Here is a little excerpt:

"I think about what I want to really tell them, really teach them, and it is this: Go to New York.

Go there in your 20s and be like everyone else who ever packs a bag and wonders if they’ll make it: Sit with your own uncertainty. It is the first thing New York City greets you with and you should know this feeling because most of life is spent in the gray and you won’t always succeed. You’ll need to tease out that feeling. Will it be fight or flight? Do you run when you don’t know the answer or outcome? Or will you stay, not knowing how it will all turn out, not knowing if any of it will be good, certain all of it will be hard, but just staying because you have mettle enough to find out."

NYC Sunday

New York, 2014

A perfect day in Central Park with the boys... Axel saw swans, turtles, monkeys, and penguins (and plenty of oddball New York characters); Oscar snoozed and discovered his thumb.

I think it's a good sign that, 13 years in, I'm still not jaded about living here. And what a place to grow up!

11211 Love

Williamsburg, 2013

Every time I come back to New York after some time away, I find myself thinking something to the tune of 'How could I ever live anywhere else?'

It's odd, because I spend much of my travels browsing in real estate windows and imagining myself transplanted there, wherever there is, if only for novelty's sake. It's also odd because there are many objectively more beautiful places to live than Brooklyn, places that are less expensive than the city, that boast lots of things (like trees, yards, good schools) that people generally feel make for a better quality of life, especially with kids.

And yet the thing about living anywhere for 12 years (eek!) is that you become a part of the community. Today, when I walked Axel to his playgroup, I passed several buildings I'd lived in, and countless stores and restaurants where we've made memories. There are stories for every street corner.

Just the fact that we press a button in the elevator and are out on the stroller-friendly city streets in minutes makes me wonder how we'd cope elsewhere.

Maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome?

W'burg Baby

Williamsburg, 2013

It's Friday! And here's a fun piece on childhood in New York...