A beautiful account of why not being there is so hard:
By Paul Ford
So it’s 5am and I’m wide awake. If you take NyQuil too many nights in a row does it backfire? Punish you for your decadence?
After being depressed all day yesterday, I had a bit of a snap-out-of-it moment last night. I was looking out my window and trying to remember how was it that a week ago, 2 weeks ago I was happy to be here. I realized that I needed to let go of New York a little, a lot maybe.
NYC is my city. It was 7 years exactly that I had been living there when I left it. I was also working on Wall Street at the time so I know that area so well. I can picture every storefront as I walk from my office to the WTC. I was dreaming tonight of walking up wall street amid ash and debris. Maybe it was like the ticker tape parade which was my first time to my office there as it was the day of my job interview. It was beautiful, sunny and cold and all the floating white made it feel like it was snowing through the sun. So in my dream I was walking up the street, Mangia on my right and the stock exchange on my left. Everything was grey, dust-coated. And I was in awe. And I was so happy, I said to myself finally I’m home again.
It’s really hard to be so far away. It hurts as much as being there. But because I’m not there, I can’t sit at the waterfront and try to forget about it with my friends who are also trying to forget about it. There are no candlelight peace vigils here. The metros aren’t quiet, they are humming with the buzz of daily life. The Parisians have been kind and concerned, but they are Parisians not New Yorkers. Life is going on easily here.
If I’m going to stay (which I am) and not fall into a pit of depression I’m going to have to try to become more Parisian and less New Yorker. Which means not listening to NPR every second I’m at home or at work. Not combing every NYC blog thrice daily for updates on the wind and the smell and the train schedules. This is going to be really hard.
New Angeles Monthly, June 2008
Weekend America, March 30, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 13, 2008
Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2008
Nil by Mouth is written by Neille Ilel. Neille is a writer, reporter and user interface specialist in Los Angeles. If you think that's a lot, she's also got a host of meandering sidelines including improv comedy, tennis, cooking, drawing and thinking about learning to play the guitar.
Nil is her given name. It's a long story.
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