Not at Home

Today at Native Meadow #14

New York City and Me 1975

When I moved to New York City in the fall of 1975, I had never been there. I grew up in the small southern city of Roanoke, Virginia and then went to the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg. “The city” was not a part of any life I knew except for that of Carol Dalhouse.

Recognizing my mother’s terror and my own inexperience, Carol offered to go with us for my first few days in the Big Apple before I headed over to Montclair, NJ where a college theater friend had offered me a place until I found one.

Carol Dalhouse was one of the first art mamas I was lucky enough to have and unlike my entire extended family, my wish to go to New York to study theater was to her neither crazed nor suicidal. Dear woman.

Working the summer after graduation, I had saved about a $1,000. There’s a moment in the opening credits of “That Girl”, which somehow involves endless running, when Marlo Thomas, while running clutches her straw hat with a hand to the back of her head with its surreally perfect flip do while she gazes up at a skyscraper with utter amazement and excitement. This moment somehow epitomizes for me my total urban innocence back then.

Except I had five years ago abandoned the sleek “mod” look of the 70’s to become an unabashed “hippie” complete with Janis Joplin hair and no bra.

On my own in that city, I was never so lonely and disoriented in my life. I remember the first weeks when I needed 10-12 hours of sleep just because my poor little brain had so many new images and challenges to process.

I lasted 10 months. By the time I left, I had theater opportunities and connections I would have given an arm for when I came. But there was a pivotal moment when I found myself half on top of a yellow cab pounding the hood with my fist and shouting, “It’s my turn.”

22 was a great time to learn in such a clear way that I was not a city girl.

But visit and see as much theater as possible for three days? Yes to that. Then and now, at the end of three days, my patience with constantly striving for a place to put my own body is done.

This week I and my daughter took my grandson to New York City for his fist time. We saw “The Lion King”, “Hamilton” and last night, the clarion and timely “Good Night and Good Luck”. We ate wonderful food, walked and walked, visited the American Museum of Natural History, played chess in Central Park, and went to the MET.

My grandson was delighted with the whole thing and his aunt and I chuckled a bit at the rose colored glasses a few days and a lot of moolah can put on a young one in this town.

So on this day I am not at Native Meadow but am eager and ready to return, to stretch out wide, to walk slowly and breathe in the clean wet earth and blossom of spring.