Shout-Out to New York Part III: Flying from Santa Cruz to Land in New York City

A Shift in Dimensions

by C.S. Gold

When I moved back to New York, where I was born, from Santa Cruz, California to go to graduate school at Columbia University, I phoned offices at the school for information and they hung up on me before I even started to speak. What?! My relaxed Santa Cruz speech was not quick enough for New York?

Men on buses asked me out, later telling me they thought I was a prostitute, because I said, “Hi!” to everyone. My social work professor Carol H. Meyer, author of Social Work Practice… wrote, “Very unusual!” on my paper where I assessed that my young male client, who had not spoken in months, may benefit from foot massage.

“You don’t have New York instincts,” my caring first cousin Karen told me, and began training me. Karen, who is brilliant (and I’n not just saying that because we share common genes) showed me how to use safety pins to clip my keys and little purse inside my new winter coat.

One night while walking on Broadway, on the Upper West Side I heard someone following me. I saw three big guys walking in front of me and walked up to them and told them why I was scared. They welcomed me as a sister and instructed me, “Act as if you own the street.” Then they watched me practice. Karen told me later that she disagreed, saying it’s better when you’re scared on the street to “every 15 seconds flail around and act like you’re crazy”.

New Yorkers may seem distant reading folded newspapers on the subway, but, as you probably have experienced, can be helpful, golden-hearted, and loyal like no others (when they’re not telling you “where to go”, or what to do).

Another example of kindheartedness was what greeted me when I arrived at the first day of my internship, co-leading a group for women heroin addicts. One of the women presented me with a white frosted cake she’d made, on which in turquoise writing, surrounded by swirls it said, “Welcome, Claudia.”

Among the many special (and challenging) experiences there, I like to say that the best thing that happened from going to Columbia was meeting Toni Lawson: An African American woman knocked on my dorm door asking to borrow my broom, introducing herself as my next-door neighbor.

We walked later to Broadway to get scones and vanilla yogurt, where I learned she was an art major (she tended to give away her paintings), and an aspiring philanthropist (she tended to give to charities even when money was dwindling), also originally from Long Island, from Westbury. We began sharing spaghetti dinners cooked in my electric frying pan.

After eating, laughing about our dates and hoped for dates, we would sit on my single dorm bed saying prayers. Her personal prayers for me, with thanks to God filled the room with cinnamon and sugar.

We made lists of the qualities we wanted in our future husbands: honest, good sense of humor, good listener, spiritual, kind. We ended up at each other’s weddings in New York and California during the next four years. We later realized we forgot to put one practical thing on our lists: good health. Both of our kind husbands died prematurely of cancer.

Thinking of the lists that Toni and I made of our ideal mates, reminds me of a list you and I might like to make called, “What Would Your Ideal Quarantine Day Look Like?” from The Stay at Home Quarantine Planner by Leonie Dawson.

We may also like to think of a city special to us and of what things we are grateful for about our time there. If you have been to the Big Apple, lived there, been born there, have ancestors who arrived in Ellis Island, visited there, though there are many things to choose from, you may consider: What is special to you about New York? I’d love to see your responses below. about New York, another city that is special to you or your visualization of your ideal socially distanced day.

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• We pray for you New Yorkers, and are so sorry for those of you who have lost departed loved ones in sorrowful circumstances!