Dear Babies,
We live in the suburbs. Port Washington. We don't live on a farm, but close to one. Several, actually, here on Long Island. So why, then, I found myself thinking yesterday when I got back from Whole Foods, unpacking seven hundred (700) reusable bags of $238 worth of groceries with scarily still nothing to eat, am I buying lettuce grown in Brooklyn? And I said Brooklyn like it was a disease.
It occurred to me then that metamorphosis has occurred.
What used to be the City! with stars in my eyes has now become the City, blech. It's hot there, says this former City girl who thought she, like Carrie Bradshaw, was New York City and would never ever leave (and then she had twins, and a "quaint" one bedroom on the Upper West Side quickly lost its charm). The streets are gross there, I now say, like a traitor.
I'm sure summer has a lot to do with it.
Who longs to be baking as you walk on hot tar, or, at best, sweating on an old flat sheet sprawled on grass in a park as you hold in your pee in fear of, gasp, having to use a public toilet.
All your dad ever wants to do when he's not at work in the City is sit in the backyard here at home. In fact, we had an awning installed so he could do so in the rain. "It's like a little room," he says, with stars in his eyes...
I always dreamed of having a house out east on the North Fork...by the wineries...with a picnic table underneath a tree where we would eat watermelon...and have a tire swing...and I wouldn't wear shoes all summer...I'd forever be in a ponytail and a bathing suit or a breezy cotton dress...
It's not out east, but it is a house, with a yard, with trees, and a picnic table...our watermelon comes from Whole Foods but so what, it is delicious.
It's August now. The thick of summer. In a few minutes I'm going to throw you guys in the car and head down to the water. We'll be there in four, maybe five minutes. We'll throw rocks at that shoreline, and delight at each and every splash...
Au revoir, New York City. If you need me, I'll be at the beach.
Love,
Mom
