Published in the Long Island Advance, March 13, 2008
I continue to live with one foot tentatively in Jackson Heights and the other firmly planted in Patchogue, and it’s quite a stretch. Initially I was very homesick, and even anticipating being so, moving was much more difficult than I imagined. Then again, when one waits as long as I did to move away from home, there’s a lot of adjusting to do, especially when you consider that moving from the suburbs to the city has been, for me, like moving to a foreign country.
What I miss the most is the sun, the smell of salt in the air and the color green. Yes, there are trees on my block, however my apartment windows do not look out over them, and being on the fourth floor of a six story building means that even on a sunny day, it just barely glances across my windows, and only for about five minutes at sunrise. I can glimpse it from my kitchen window if I crane my neck almost out of it. It reminds me of those real estate ads that say “water view,” but don’t tell you that you can only see the water if you’re standing on your roof in the winter when there are no leaves on the trees.
My Queens neighborhood boasts three laundromats, four drug stores, seven restaurants, three bakeries, two banks, a few phone and clothing stores, coffee shops, including a Starbuck’s, Petland, Carvel, two McDonald’s, and a Burger King, all within in a several block radius, and yet I have this need to shop on Long Island for pretty much everything except groceries. It’s very inconvenient to have to carry multiple, and sometimes very heavy bags back to my apartment each Sunday evening. Getting home requires the train and the subway, and I feel as if I can now add the word “Sherpa” to my resume’. I’ve also found myself renting movies in Patchogue, watching them in Queens, and returning them the following weekend. Even I think that’s a bit ridiculous!
This past weekend I bought a rolling suitcase. I managed to stow away all my clothes, the laundry that I sometimes bring with me to do over the weekend, a package of four energy efficient light bulbs, a power strip, a small wreath for my bathroom wall, a package of plastic clothes hangers, and the perfume I bought in Ulta. It never occurred to me that I could have purchased almost all of those items in stores around the corner from my apartment. I have yet to venture to the Queens Mall or to find other of my favorite stores, probably because almost every weekend I’m here, on Long Island.
On one walk around my block you might hear Russian, Korean, Polish, Spanish or Farsi being spoken, and sometimes, even English, and on my way out to the street from the subway I regularly pass Peruvian musicians performing “music from the Andes.”
The sights, sounds and smells are so different that, for now, I am living in a foreign country, and I didn’t even need to apply for a passport to get here.
I think that as much as I love living in Queens, my head is still not there yet, or maybe it’s my heart that has yet to make the transition.
Showing posts with label Queens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Queens. Show all posts
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Friday, July 27, 2007
To U-Haul or not
Published in The Long Island Advance
July 26, 2007
As many of you know, I’m planning a move to Queens in the fall. Anticipating this I’ve begun to pack boxes. I don’t have much in the way of furniture, but boy, do I have a lot of boxes. They sit in closets or the spare rooms on the third floor of the house I’m living in, just waiting for me to carry them down three flights of stairs and out the door.
Initially when thinking about moving my thoughts were, “no big deal,” it’s just a bunch of boxes and some minor furnishings, figuring a U-Haul, my son Nick, and one or two of his friends and maybe a few pizzas’ and my move would be accomplished. My daughter, Erin, I suspect will be more like a “box unpacker” as like her mother, carrying heavy objects is not our thing.
In my mind my move was all figured out using a U-Haul and the man-woman power of my children. That was until I helped move Erin to Astoria a few weeks ago. It didn’t take long for me to decide that hiring professional movers was a much better idea. Twenty (well, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but it felt like twenty) trips later, up three flights of stairs each time, and I was convinced of it.
The day of Erin’s move she and I drove to Queens early, my car packed with bags and boxes, wine glasses, a full length mirror, her laptop and TV. First we had to stop in Forest Hills to pick up the key from her new roommate. Of course the Map Quest directions were not quite accurate and not being familiar with the area, we drove around, and around, and around, until we eventually ended up in the general vicinity of where her roommate works and the elusive apartment keys. I finally found myself parked in front of a fire hydrant outside a church with the word “martyr” in the name. “Ah, the perfect spot,” I thought to myself.
Miraculously, we made it from Forest Hills to Astoria using directions provided to us by people who do not drive. Need I say more?
After my car was finally emptied, we had time to kill while waiting for her father to arrive with the U-Haul and her cousin and uncle, all there to be the furniture movers. In between we went looking for a mattress pad on Steinway Street and found ourselves in a linen store. As I walked in, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath saying to Erin, “I can’t believe it! We’re in the old Swezey’s linen store!” I was so excited to be there that I stopped thinking about my twenty trips up and down the three flights of stairs, and those that were yet to come.
The U-Haul was a drama unto itself. Even though I wasn’t actually driving it, I felt like I was, after all, this was a collective experience. Where were we going to park it? Where did we have to go to return it? When we couldn’t find the place to return it, what way were we going to drive to get it back to were it was picked up, since you can’t drive them on parkways? One mini U-Haul nightmare after another, found me making calls the next day for estimates from professional movers.
When she heard this, my mother’s first words were “We used to move your sister all the time and we never used movers.” I think she’s forgetting that was over twenty years ago and we’re all that much older now. Personally, I’m done with physical labor. I want someone to carry out my boxes, drive them to where I’m going, carry them in and leave me sitting on the floor in my new living room, unpacking them.
July 26, 2007
As many of you know, I’m planning a move to Queens in the fall. Anticipating this I’ve begun to pack boxes. I don’t have much in the way of furniture, but boy, do I have a lot of boxes. They sit in closets or the spare rooms on the third floor of the house I’m living in, just waiting for me to carry them down three flights of stairs and out the door.
Initially when thinking about moving my thoughts were, “no big deal,” it’s just a bunch of boxes and some minor furnishings, figuring a U-Haul, my son Nick, and one or two of his friends and maybe a few pizzas’ and my move would be accomplished. My daughter, Erin, I suspect will be more like a “box unpacker” as like her mother, carrying heavy objects is not our thing.
In my mind my move was all figured out using a U-Haul and the man-woman power of my children. That was until I helped move Erin to Astoria a few weeks ago. It didn’t take long for me to decide that hiring professional movers was a much better idea. Twenty (well, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but it felt like twenty) trips later, up three flights of stairs each time, and I was convinced of it.
The day of Erin’s move she and I drove to Queens early, my car packed with bags and boxes, wine glasses, a full length mirror, her laptop and TV. First we had to stop in Forest Hills to pick up the key from her new roommate. Of course the Map Quest directions were not quite accurate and not being familiar with the area, we drove around, and around, and around, until we eventually ended up in the general vicinity of where her roommate works and the elusive apartment keys. I finally found myself parked in front of a fire hydrant outside a church with the word “martyr” in the name. “Ah, the perfect spot,” I thought to myself.
Miraculously, we made it from Forest Hills to Astoria using directions provided to us by people who do not drive. Need I say more?
After my car was finally emptied, we had time to kill while waiting for her father to arrive with the U-Haul and her cousin and uncle, all there to be the furniture movers. In between we went looking for a mattress pad on Steinway Street and found ourselves in a linen store. As I walked in, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath saying to Erin, “I can’t believe it! We’re in the old Swezey’s linen store!” I was so excited to be there that I stopped thinking about my twenty trips up and down the three flights of stairs, and those that were yet to come.
The U-Haul was a drama unto itself. Even though I wasn’t actually driving it, I felt like I was, after all, this was a collective experience. Where were we going to park it? Where did we have to go to return it? When we couldn’t find the place to return it, what way were we going to drive to get it back to were it was picked up, since you can’t drive them on parkways? One mini U-Haul nightmare after another, found me making calls the next day for estimates from professional movers.
When she heard this, my mother’s first words were “We used to move your sister all the time and we never used movers.” I think she’s forgetting that was over twenty years ago and we’re all that much older now. Personally, I’m done with physical labor. I want someone to carry out my boxes, drive them to where I’m going, carry them in and leave me sitting on the floor in my new living room, unpacking them.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Stepping off a cliff
I cannot freakin’ breathe. On my way home from work tonight I called everyone I know (well, not everyone), looking for someone who could talk me down from the edge of this cliff I feel like I’m standing on.
There are two more days left at my current job. And, tomorrow really doesn’t count since it’s almost tomorrow, and since there’s a meeting in the morning and then I suspect, a much larger “good-bye” lunch than I’ll be comfortable with. So, really….it’s more like one more day left.
How did I get here?! Must have been that whole “putting one barefoot in front of the other” thing I was doing. Now I’m looking over the edge of the precipice and feeling like I’m on that “Sky Walk” that’s hanging out from the edge of the Grand Canyon. Not something I would enjoy doing. I don’t like standing too close to the edge, unless there’s a man involved.
Tuesday morning I’ll be on the 7:17 train to Jamaica. I’m leaving a job I’ve done for 14 years to take one that I have no experience with, although thankfully I was not foolish enough to leave my current nonprofit work world. I did come to realize that this particular nonprofit world is a good fit for me, and I really don’t think I have the personality to work in the “for profit” world anyway.
Moving to a more urban area is more profitable in the nonprofit world, if that makes any sense. And it looks like that’s exactly what I’m doing, starting a new job in Queens next Tuesday, with a move to follow. Stepping off a cliff, or if I want to be just a little less dramatic, walking through a new open door, into a world that’s the same, yet different.
I’ve written and now I’ll walk. It’s time’s like these that I wish I were a runner. I would be forced to breathe then……
There are two more days left at my current job. And, tomorrow really doesn’t count since it’s almost tomorrow, and since there’s a meeting in the morning and then I suspect, a much larger “good-bye” lunch than I’ll be comfortable with. So, really….it’s more like one more day left.
How did I get here?! Must have been that whole “putting one barefoot in front of the other” thing I was doing. Now I’m looking over the edge of the precipice and feeling like I’m on that “Sky Walk” that’s hanging out from the edge of the Grand Canyon. Not something I would enjoy doing. I don’t like standing too close to the edge, unless there’s a man involved.
Tuesday morning I’ll be on the 7:17 train to Jamaica. I’m leaving a job I’ve done for 14 years to take one that I have no experience with, although thankfully I was not foolish enough to leave my current nonprofit work world. I did come to realize that this particular nonprofit world is a good fit for me, and I really don’t think I have the personality to work in the “for profit” world anyway.
Moving to a more urban area is more profitable in the nonprofit world, if that makes any sense. And it looks like that’s exactly what I’m doing, starting a new job in Queens next Tuesday, with a move to follow. Stepping off a cliff, or if I want to be just a little less dramatic, walking through a new open door, into a world that’s the same, yet different.
I’ve written and now I’ll walk. It’s time’s like these that I wish I were a runner. I would be forced to breathe then……
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