New York, I Love You
The first time I was supposed to move to New York, I was ten years old. I was a fledgling actress fresh off of a guest-starring role on the PBS Series The Puzzle Place (which, thankfully, cannot be found on the internet) and my Manhattan-based manager, Toby Gibson, was sure I’d be her next star (after all, she’d discovered Tom Cruise, as she continuously reminded my mother and me). But, my father the military man was being relocated from the Pentagon to Offutt Air Force Base in Nowhereland, Nebraska. Ms. Gibson wasn’t having it.
“She’ll live with me!” Ms. Gibson told my mother. My mother’s facial expression was enough to make Ms. Gibson amend her original statement. “Of course you both can stay with me…” But, my mother the dedicated family woman wasn’t having it. My family moved to Nebraska, where nobody was checking for Black actresses of any age. Thus, my acting career and dreams of New York died quickly.
Until September 11, 2001. My father had retired from the Air Force the year before and we’d moved back to Virginia and the Twin Towers and the Pentagon had been struck. I had become obsessed with it. I would watch and re-watch video of the towers being hit and the towers crumbling in upon themselves and the people jumping to their deaths. I would read and re-read every narrative available of every man, woman and child on each of the planes, as if they would all be forgotten about if I didn’t. Junior boys at my high school were making jokes to cope the very day it happened and after a few months, it felt like everyone had moved on. None of the families in my school or church were directly affected and it felt like everyone had forgotten. So I remembered enough for everyone.
And then my mother took me to New York to visit my aunt and cousin in Brooklyn for my spring break — I was the kind of girl who went on spring breaks with parents instead of friends (and still am, actually). The sun was shining just for me as I strutted about Manhattan in Chucks, heavy eye make-up, spiked bracelets to match my short, flipped up hair and an I [Heart] New York shirt with the neck cut out of it (I had a short goth phase). We prayed at Ground Zero and I bought every piece of World Trade Center memorabilia I could get my hands on. Strong people lived in NYC — survivors — and I’d decided that day I was going to be one of them.
Then somewhere along the line I must’ve changed my mind. When it came time to apply to college, I didn’t even bother to apply to NYU or Columbia as I had fantasized I would for at least a year. I guess I imagined I’d just go there for law school. But then the time for law school came around and again I didn’t bother applying anywhere in New York. And then law school graduation came and went and I made my way to DC. And the rest, as they cliché, is history.
But New York was always in the background wooing me quietly. And this winter, when I’d gone up to Manhattan to review a few Broadway shows, I fell in love all over again. The noise, the energy, the food, the people, the history the culture! There is absolutely nothing not to love about New York. And I thought, “Why not?” A dangerous question for an incurable optimist to ask herself. And after three years in D.C., now seems like the absolute perfect time to pack it up and ship it out.
There’s a funny thing about me and the number three. I spent three years in high school, three years in college, three years in law school and three years in the real world here in the District. I like to think I live my life in three’s — One for the Father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy Spirit. My friend countered this idea by saying the only three I live by are the letters A.D.D.
Touché.
Maybe there is a perfectly good reason why I can’t seem to sit still for very long. Or maybe there isn’t at all. Maybe moving to Manhattan and pursuing writing full-time on the flimsiest of hopes and floppiest of plans is foolish and cowardly. Or maybe it’s the bravest thing I’ve ever done. Maybe Alicia Keys is lying to me. Or maybe this is the perfect opportunity to rediscover God’s word as truth: “A [wo]man’s gift makes room for h[er] And brings h[er] before the great.” I don’t pretend to know that this is exactly what God wants me to do with my life at this moment; I guess time will tell. But I do believe that, whether right or wrong, God will never leave me nor forsake me. He promised to prosper me and not to harm me. To give me hope and a future. That is a tremendous comfort.
But in the meantime, please check out my articles on EBONY.com so that my amazing editor keeps giving me awesome assignments and I can feed myself while in the big city! And this is just my “hello” post to New York, not quite my goodbye post to D.C. — I’ve got a bit more time before that. But I will always be a D.C. Diva, wherever in the world I physically find myself, so stay tuned to DCDistrictDiva.com! My story’s not quite over just yet.
Be blessed and in His favor always!
DD