ra.

The facts suggest that I’ve left New York. It’s been a protracted, heartwrenching process, and until now, I didn’t understand that it would end. In my mind, I’m still a New Yorker, just… an expatriated one. It’s the only place I’ve ever felt I belonged, and this is still true. When I go back, I’m a New Yorker again; I feel the startling relief of hearing my own language, and every block shimmers with a ghostly overlay of memories. And I was a New Yorker long before I got there — even as a ten-year-old, I dreamed of New York, the glittering metropole of movies and novels, and I couldn’t wait to live there.