parts of it.

            I found a quarter in the pocket of my vest on my afternoon walk. I can’t remember the last time I wore this vest. One thing, though, I know. This quarter, its metal ice-cold from the cool California weather, had traveled more than 3,000 miles in that pocket, sitting there after I no doubt picked it up from a New York City street goodness knows when.

I left New York about a year ago now, and whenever it’s mentioned, everybody always wants to know if I “miss it.” For five years I called New York home, and when I moved there, I believed it would be forever. But dreams and things and people change, so when the chance to move out west for a new role in my company opened up, I did not hesitate, and I have no regrets.

I say I do not miss New York. I say I miss “parts of it.”

But the “parts” I miss are so original to me that I imagine polite lunchtime conversation is hardly the place to share, even if I know perhaps some people might want to hear. You see, often what I miss most is a time, or a memory, or a vivid snapshot of the perpendicularity of life’s moments. Can one miss a memory?

            How do I describe to a group of coworkers that I miss when the cold air pricks my face as I step out of my apartment building at sunrise onto a silent street, and I take that first breath of air not yet warmed by car engines and busy feet?  

            How do I say I miss the view down Broadway from Houston Street alone on my way to work before the day’s chaos has awakened to life, and on the clearest mornings, I can see to the end of the island?  

            How do I say I miss the silence of the bike trail riding north on a crisp October afternoon, with watercolor autumn colors splashed magnificently all around me, riding in a sea of oranges and reds and yellows, like fire, and when I breath in, there is only the loam and the leaves and the wind in my lungs?

            How do I say I miss Sunday evenings in the park, smelling the fires from outdoor grills, and when I close my eyes and listen, I hear the laughter of children and the chorus of conversation, the music from speakers mingling with time together?

            How do I say I miss what it feels like for the night to be clear enough that I can see the stars, and in that moment on this street, I feel like the only soul in a city of a million souls?

            Can one miss days?

A Friday in September. A Tuesday in June. A Sunday in February. Those days, each moment and memory so perfect, so alive in detail, you know even while you are living it you could not repeat it if you tried.

            I miss the feeling of history beneath my fingers. Bricks I can touch. Places I can sit and stand and feel where history, whether great or sad, happened, that moment soaking into the cobblestones, and New York adding another instant of a life to her immortality. Praying she might add mine, too.

            I walk through my new neighborhood in Los Angeles. I walk new streets now, younger streets, sit on different benches. Streets and benches I am growing to love with a love that is not like how I loved New York. How could it be?

Tonight, the sun sets, and I plunge my chilly fingers into the pockets of my vest, and I find a quarter. When I draw the round disc out, I turn it over, and see on its back an epigraph to Ellis Island. Turning the cold metal around in my fingers, I close my eyes.

            And then I miss New York.