Last week, I was back in New York for a few days for business – this was my first trip back to Gotham since my 36-hour extended farewell in the middle of August. It was great to be back, but it also felt pretty strange to be staying in a hotel. When my driver picked me up at JFK, he confirmed “Headed to The Dream Hotel on 55th?” and I started to respond, “No, we’re going to West End and … “ before my voice trailed off and I remembered that I was not actually going “home”, but that I was once again a temporary visitor in the city that never sleeps.
Although I have reams of evidence that I actually did live in New York for two years, on this trip, it all felt like it had all been just a very vivid dream. It’s the same feeling I get when I’ve just returned from a vacation – the feeling of never having been gone at all. This time, it was the interesting contradictory sensations of everything being intimately familiar yet brand new at the same time.
On the day of my arrival, I had a late dinner with Nick and Reny at a random Italian place on 9th Avenue (“It’s the best in the city!” the host promised as we pondered the menu from the sidewalk – it turned out that the host had a great gift … for hyperbole.) The next day was full of meetings and work and I was more than happy to finally escape the office around 7:00 to join Ally, Oda, Nick, Dina and Kim for drinks at Ava Lounge and then dinner at Brasserie Cognac. (We settled on Ava after trying three other places that were either closed completely or closed for private parties for Fashion Week…I guess it was appropriate to wind up at an old haunt on my first trip back to the city.)
After a quick 48 hours, I was back in another town car heading for JFK… so glad to have been in the city, but just as glad to be heading “home” for real.
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