“That first night I opened my window on the bus into town and watched for the skyline, but all I could see were the wastes of Queens and big signs that said MIDTOWN TUNNEL THIS LANE and then a flood of summer rain (even that seemed remarkable and exotic, for I had come out of the West where there was no summer rain), and for the next three days I sat wrapped in blankets in a hotel room air conditioned to 35 degrees and tried to get over a cold and a high fever. It did not occur to me to call a doctor, because I knew none, and although it did occur to me to call the desk and ask that the air conditioner be turned off, I never called, because I did not know how much to tip whoever might come—was anyone ever so young? I am here to tell you that someone was.” — Joan Didion’s Goodbye to All That

I’m sitting on the New Jersey turnpike right now, on my way back from my super-awesome best weekend ever in New York City. Across the aisle, a middle-aged woman is talking on her phone about what must have been her first trip. Here’s her catalog: She went to Chinatown. She saw Chicago for half-price. She ate the best soup of her life at that deli from When Harry Met Sally. She bought a hot dog! Off the street! And she is just so, so happy about all of it. She’s gotten a few eye-rolls from the cool kids on the bus, but her husband, sitting next to her with his eyes closed, smiles every now and then as she gushes. I can’t tell if he’s remembering the deli, or just loving the sound of her voice.

I was 14 the first time I came to New York City, somewhat misplaced in my high school’s business club. There was some kind of “youth business leaders’ conference,” and everyone else on the trip was an upperclassman that actually had an interest in some of those words.  I was taking a Keyboarding class at the time (how quaint does that sound?), which meant I could go, and my mom had prepared by buying me a blazer that was fully three sizes too big. I carried that blazer exactly the way one carries a train ticket, checking every now and then with a brush of the fingers to make sure it’s still there, still offering passage.

The day we got to explore Midtown–  which to us WAS the city, the only part of New York that mattered–  everyone paired up to leave me the odd number out. I didn’t want to make a fuss, and I didn’t want to stay with the chaperone, so I turned and struck off alone. It was the most vivid moment of my life thus far, and my list of accomplishments looked a lot like this woman’s, who is still on the phone in the aisle across from me. I bought a pretzel, I wandered in and out of t-shirt stores, I got turned around in the bustle, I found Chinatown. I knew New York was “dangerous,” so I did what you’re supposed to: walk fast, don’t gawk up at the buildings, look people in the eye if they seem dangerous, keep a hand on your bag, act like you know where you’re going. I was determined to pass as a New Yorker, having no idea how laughable that would be. As if a tiny blonde girl wandering 7th avenue in an oversized Casual Corner blazer on a weekday afternoon pretending not to look at things could possibly be a native.

But no one blinked.  In the eleven years since, every time I come back to NY, no one blinks. No one questions my right to be here. Yesterday, while I was waiting to cross Broadway at 149th, a man turning the corner in his car yelled out the window, “I hope you have a great day!” This giant city remains the single most welcoming place I’ve ever been– a phrase I just stole from my busmate.

Last night, Julianne and I stood between two bridges, looking over the Hudson towards Manhattan, with the sun setting through the cables and the water glittering in a way that SUCH DIRTY WATER has no right to. We talked about every movie about the end of the world where the Statue of Liberty is swept over by the towering waves of God’s wrath or our own selfishness.  We talked about the dragons of this particular city and about that ridiculous blazer I kept in my closet until I went away to college. We talked about the millions of New York stories being told so loudly that they drown each other out, and how I always like the schmaltzy ones where people take care of each other because this place is too bright and too tough to do otherwise. We remembered to each other the passion fruit macaroons we just ate– how the bright, orange cookies cracked in our mouths like shells.