I stared at the screen in shock.
I had just received a message that my barista at the coffee shop I love, who I expected to see over my birthday-weekend-rendez-vous with the city, quit the other day.
As I sat on the 3 train I thought about the concept of permanence. I love New York with all my heart, but each and every time I return something is different.
Friends switch apartments.
The little yogurt shop on MacDougal Street closes down.
The café in the Lower East Side no longer exists.
I plan to move to the city at the end of the summer, and I always thought I would be able to find an apartment that works, and stay a while. I thought I would finally settle in the city I adore, hang up my posters and my pictures and feel, for the first time in a long time, permanent.
But is it possible to be permanent in a city that lacks permanence? The more I come back to New York, the more I notice how much it evolves, and how often people leave.
With so many people coming and going, the city is constantly changing.
It makes me wonder, will I become impermanent? Will I slip into the city madness and the cracks of the sidewalk and become obsolete?
A New York state of mind, a New York state of permanence.
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