ANYWAYS BYE
Everyone I know has a fantasy escape plan. Portland, Oregon is the default, the place New Yorkers think will give them all the benefits of a progressive, culturally vibrant city, with the added advantages of friendliness and affordability. I tend to dream of returning to Baltimore, an even cheaper city with a more daring and distinctive arts scene, where I went to college and which I have missed ever since. My best friend from high school tells me that she and her new husband won’t move out of the city for a few years, but they’re already looking at bucolic properties upstate. Another couple of close friends are keeping a temporary move to Austin at the back of their minds. This Friday night I’ll be at the going-away party for a talented young musician who’s moving to Nashville.
And those are the people – all in their late 20s or early 30s — who haven’t left yet. In the past five years, I’ve watched other friends move from New York to Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Detroit. Yes, a few have trickled in from other cities, too, but far more are leaving than arriving.
I’m told that it was not always this way. Apparently there was a time, not so long ago, when an acquaintance’s news that she was skipping town would have been met with the same level of incredulity as an announcement that she was planning to jump off the Empire State Building. In her famous 1967 essay “Goodbye to All That,” Joan Didion wrote that her friends thought of her move from New York to LA as a “curious aberration.” But these days, the New Yorkers I know are more likely to react with congratulations or even jealousy. Departures that might have felt to previous generations like selling out or admitting defeat have become more like graduations; the people who leave New York seem not to have struck out, but to have gained some great insight about life, work, and happiness that’s been denied to those of us who remain. We become like those eternal graduate students
And those are the people – all in their late 20s or early 30s — who haven’t left yet. In the past five years, I’ve watched other friends move from New York to Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Detroit. Yes, a few have trickled in from other cities, too, but far more are leaving than arriving.
I’m told that it was not always this way. Apparently there was a time, not so long ago, when an acquaintance’s news that she was skipping town would have been met with the same level of incredulity as an announcement that she was planning to jump off the Empire State Building. In her famous 1967 essay “Goodbye to All That,” Joan Didion wrote that her friends thought of her move from New York to LA as a “curious aberration.” But these days, the New Yorkers I know are more likely to react with congratulations or even jealousy. Departures that might have felt to previous generations like selling out or admitting defeat have become more like graduations; the people who leave New York seem not to have struck out, but to have gained some great insight about life, work, and happiness that’s been denied to those of us who remain. We become like those eternal graduate students