Here it is, from this week’s newly re-named and designed Brooklyn Paper:
Smartmom hates it when, every couple of years, one of her friends or
neighbors decides to leave Park Slope for supposedly greener pastures.
The move is usually preceded by a whole lot of bellyaching: “The
city is dirty and dangerous”; “my apartment’s too small”; “real-estate
prices are through the roof”; “parking is ridiculous”; “the schools are
overcrowded”; “there’s too much crime”; “private school is too
expensive.”
Times like these, Smartmom finds herself getting defensive. When
people say they’re leaving Park Slope, she feels her core values,
her life choices, are under attack.
So what’s wrong with Park Slope? If it’s good enough for Smartmom…
At the same time, Smartmom can’t help but think that if people move
away, there’ll be less of them to steal a Thursday parking space, a
spot on line at ConnMuffCo, or a place or two in class at PS 321.
OK. Smartmom gets it. Everyone has real-estate and quality-of-life longings he can’t satisfy here.
But are such concerns worth going bumper-to-bumper in the Lincoln Tunnel or shopping in big box stores at the mall?
When her friends, the Deserters, moved to a big Victorian house in Nyack, Smartmom pretended to be happy for them.
But really she felt abandoned. Weren’t they going to miss their
impromptu Sunday night potluck suppers and their juicy stoop
conversations?
When Gluten Free, Dadu and family left Prospect Heights for a house, upstate Kingston that’s almost as big as Atlantic Yards, Smartmom
supported their decision to move. But what she really wanted to say
was: why would you want to move so far away from me?
Smartmom knows she has to stop personalizing everything! But nobody likes to be left behind — especially for the wrong reasons.
Often, the desire to move can be summed up by one word: backyard.
For some baffling reason, backyards have deep psychological meaning to
those who grew up in the ’burbs. It’s their Rosebud, their code word
for “normal childhood.”
Deep down, those who choose the ’burbs believe that growing up in a big city is just plain weird.
This argument galls Smartmom because she’s a city kid through and
through (and just look how normal she is!). As the Music for Aardvarks
song goes: “Beep beep, honk honk, can you spare a dime? Have a bagel
with a schmear and see the Guggenheim…”
A city childhood is no different from childhood anywhere else.
Smartmom frolicked on West 86th Street, dropped water balloons from her
parent’s ninth-floor bedroom window, popped wheelies on her bike in
Riverside Park and got to trick-or-treat on 12 floors of her apartment
building — what a treat bag!
Yes, there are also some key differences. At an early age, Smartmom
knew where to find the Jackson Pollocks at MOMA and the French
impressionists at the Met.
She went to “be-ins” in Central Park and Young People’s Concerts
with Leonard Bernstein at Lincoln Center. She frequented FAO Schwarz,
Barney Greengrass, Charivari, the Automat, the New Yorker Bookstore,
and the Thalia.
In high school, she’d hang out with friends at the West End, a jazz club near Columbia University.
And when it was time for Saturday Night Live, she’d hail a cab and be home in time for Rosanne Rosannadana.
Then as now, subways, taxis and car services were a godsend to city
parents of teens. Teen driving is just one less thing to worry about.
But it’s true, Smartmom and Hepcat considered leaving Park Slope once. Only once.
In fact, they came very close to buying a mid-century modern farmhouse in Northern California right next door to Hepcat’s mom.
Occasionally, Smartmom allows herself to wonder if they made a mistake. Maybe life on the farm would have been really cool.
Instead of a column in The Brooklyn Paper, she could be writing for
the Tracy Press. She’d find out what it’s like to be a landowner. Her
kids would get to see stars at night and Republicans at the Safeway.
Part of her loved the idea of reinventing herself as a California
farm girl. But she knew she didn’t have the guts to make a big change
in her life.
So while Brooklyn is obviously the right place for her gang — Teen
Spirit likes to be walking distance from Music Matters — Smartmom is
trying to learn to respect the choices her friends make and not get so
defensive when they leave.
Smartmom still waves at Mrs. Deserter’s window every time she walks OSFO to school in the morning.
But Smartmom hasn’t mastered the art of the long-distance
friendship. New phone numbers must be memorized. New conversation
topics must be substituted for the old standbys: local real estate, 321
teachers, gripes about the Food Co-op, and Third Street gossip.
As for Gluten Free and Dadu, Smartmom still dials 718 instead of 845
whenever she calls them even though they’ve been gone for four years.
The ease of shouting up to a window Brooklyn-style must be replaced
with the effort of picking up the phone.
They say it can be done, but Smartmom is still having trouble. After
all, she still hasn’t visited the Deserters in their palace in Nyack,
which, let’s face it, isn’t that far away (physically, at least).
Wow!
FIrst, I love your writing style-it’s fun to read- Kudos to you for putting it out there!
Addressing your “Deserters” article. We too left several years back & I think too many NY’ers think NY is the only city in the world! The cost of living and trying to maintain self preservation was simply too high, trying to keep up was simply too impractical. Let’s not forget Park Slope is primarily upper middle class with some leftover strugglers and young whimsical newcomers. If one were to either have struck it well in the 90’s, were well on their way to high positions in life, or perhaps had maintainted the 3rd very common reality of having families with $ to back them, well they seemed to at least maintain a casual smile. Any one of those options afforded our friends the luxuries of being able to simply rent a car to leave the slope on a sizzling weekend in July-or if bored with that- they crossed the ocean to Madrid or Switzerland for a happy family vacation or perhaps Summer camp for the wee ones. That not being the case for all, but rather an illusionary promise of rejuvenation, perhaps that is at the core of this so called “desertion”.
I ‘m convinced you wrote the article with intentions of love-so I guess I can’t be too hard on you…but I also have many friends I left behind and most had a small trust fund or a rather large bank account. Come on SMART- MOM- get real!! I’m not particularly bitter, but I left knowing myself & my children would never be completely happy about the move, leaving behind all the fabulousness NY offers, but some of us simply had no back-up or personal independent future there, at least not at that time. Though we loved everything,…. except the 60 mice we killed in our apartment, the fact that our landlord was a shit , the fact that we were forced to stick ice packs on the thermostat to warm ourselves above 66 degrees in the cold of winter, and even more important, the fact that we couldn’t create anything of substance because we were big object makers, painters etc. and had two kids in our work space, or rather we worked in our living space, or I don’t know it was all a jumble all the while working & traveling 16 hours a day, to put home-made food on the table with no real promise. All that in 800 sq ft!! Yep it was awesome!
I find it disturbing that your opinions seem to neglect so many other realities- No, not an attachment to the burbs or the yards…but rather, out of options. Your poking reminders of the reality that we left behind is frustrating and somewhat insensitive. Do your really think everyone that leaves, does not deeply miss the activities and relationships NY has to offer? – And offer though it may, it still adds up to one high income or slaving for environment.
Looking back , I have rich memories of how my friends & I had crossed cultural and financial boundaries- to find unity in common values, goals and desires but I question that now. One of my very good friends left Park Slope & bought a 4 million dollar spot in Switzerland & somehow we are still connected. Others who stayed in Park Slope simply ignore those who leave- what does that say about the “Slopers”?
The seemingly general lack of sensitivities from those who stayed in the Slope, to all who may have left for this or that reason makes me wonder if I too was living in the cultivated, Park-Slope, landscape of delusional fantasies…
Let’s face it -there are many great cities and though Park Slope holds my heart, I realize now it was even more about the people that I loved including you, Smart Mom- Yep I thought we were becoming good friends and I too have not heard from you once since leaving- though I had sent e-mails several times- they all went unanswered.
For those who work to stay connected, relationships are the same now as they were then with our NY friends- though we can’t hang with them directly, and we’re not able to drink wine with them weekly, gaze stupified at the Halloween parade as we all watch in awe, or lazily hang & gossip on the stoop, we still manage to talk about the same old subjects- $ Art. politics, our disdain for Bush, environment, progress, missing the Co-op, not missing the Co-op, our fabulous teens, education, family issues, private dreams etc. Those issues continue on and have been the thread that binds, if you will, regardless of geography and whose doing what. Perhaps those connections are your road to reunions with old friends. Much more genuine than location! To me it seems the “deserters” are still in Park Slope!
>>But what she really wanted to say was: why would you want to move so far away from me?
>> Smartmom knows she has to stop personalizing everything!
I know that feeling!
This is a lesson for many people — maybe all, one I seem to need a lot of help on.
Smartmom,
It’s never too late. We could use a writer like you at the Tracy Press! And think of the entertaining stories from the farm you could tell your city friends.
Hey I was a city kid too–Brooklyn style. Flatbush, now renamed Midwood by those infernal real estate types. Never felt weird about raising city kids–always assumed I would. Brooklyn changed though & in my view not for the better. Manhattan lite. I don’t find the backyard compelling, but man do I love my GARDEN. Anyway, you are welcome to visit any time, but I recommend spring, when all the tulips I planted come up (if this weird warmth hasn’t killed them all).