Apartment Living New York City Style

It's fascinating how language, the ways language distinguishes items in our lives, has become a source of confusion for our family with this new move. Our son, who has only known his home to be in a house, is finding it confusing when he makes these references to our house since our house is now inside an apartment building. He asks whether when we buy our house, it will be a house, to which we've had to clarify that when we buy, it will be in an another apartment building, but that this will become our home. See, how confusing all of this is for an almost five year old?

Here are the few advantages to apartment life thus far: there are no trash cans to be brought in once a week after the gardener has hauled them to the sidewalk, there are no interruptions during the week when those awful, loud blowers wreak havoc on one's nerves, trash cans are emptied without much fuss down a trash chute just outside your front door, packages are delivered right to your door, groceries delivered to your door, and there are no interruptions to your day since it is nearly impossible for Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons to show up at your door, hoping for a minute of your time. In fact, I don't think I've seen the noticeable proselytizers in the city, those men and women neatly dressed, canvassing a neighborhood in twos and threes with briefcases in hand. Perhaps they think this city of so many myths is lost to the holier than thou ways of their religious order.

For most people who have never lived in the city, they view this place for singles and the uber-wealthy. Very rarely do people imagine living here, raising a family, kids in tow. And yet, as I had written earlier, this city is the new mecca for families. Our apartment complex, which is part of a humongous planned community, not too dissimilar from Park LaBrea, is home to some dozen, yes a dozen, parks and playgrounds. The playground right outside our building's doors is larger than the small playground tucked into neighborhoods in LA. And since it is still 'summer-like' weather, parents bring their kids out after dinner to run off any residue energy before beginning the evening routine. It is quite unreal to be sitting on a park bench, watching my son running all over this playground with the neighborhood kids. This idyllic scene is far removed from what, I'm sure, most of our friends in LA must picture of our our new life here in the big city. This city, unlike LA, is not a town dominated by one industry, therefore making it possible to meet a multitude of professionals. So, as I sit and watch my son with a new benign neglect--quite ironic since we are living here in New York and not Mayberry--, I engage in desultory small talk with men and women with career experiences that spans, what feels like, the entire job market.

Last night, we were the last ones to leave the playground before the gates were locked for the night. My son, who has adjusted to the radical changes to his life, walked into the building, pushing the elevator number for our floor, all of these actions taken without a second thought now, this being our second week here. All of my worries about uprooting him from all that had been familiar have faded to the background as I watch him adjust to all of these changes without much thought to his former life.

What's truly remarkable is how all of the realities of city life is taken in stride by me as the mom of a small young child. When we walk past homeless men and women, panic doesn't set in that his exposure to the uglier realities of life will damage him in some way. Instead, we walk on, taking note that sometimes life offers up a reality far removed from what you had dreamed. I know we live in a 'safe' area, all of this being relative since we are in a city. But for some reason, the overwhelming need to overprotect him hasn't set in. I, like all the other parents in the area, walk down the street with him by my side, sometimes his hand clasped in mine, sometimes not, as we maneuver sidewalks and the large boulevards with crosswalks. As I used to always say, I found the eerily, quiet of the Hollywood Hills much more terrifying since the quiet of those hills hid the murderous rampage of Charles Manson and his deranged followers. Will I be this sanguine about him walking to school by himself as he approaches early adolescence through the busy streets of Manhattan? That remains to be seen. I will say his exposure to life, all of it not sanitized and distant as observed through a car window will, I think, keep in good stead as he learns to find his way in this island of city dwellers.