One Fine Day Again

One Fine Day Again

I am staring out across New York Harbor at the Verrazano Bridge from my dining room table. It is the last week of October and we are an hour from sunset, so its that loveliest time of day. I wandered home, walking the entire half block along State Street with a pleasant breeze blowing. There is not a cloud in the sky and the water is just mildly choppy, just enough to remind us that the harbor is a living, breathing beast and not some stagnant pond. It may be my imagination, but I feel like the weather this summer and early fall has been outstanding here in NYC. It did rain yesterday and and a few days ago, but I seem to be ignoring those few days and choosing to remember these fine days, of which there seem to be an inordinately good number.

This causes me to wonder how the weather looks across the country. With the exception of a smallish system heading from Iowa into Wisconsin, the rest of the country seems clear and pleasant. Then I turn to my soon-to-be-full-time-home in San Diego and sigh at the beautiful 70-80 degree sunny weather that seems to be on order there for as far as the Weather app goes forward with its forecast. I have a vivid sense of walking out of the house on our hilltop in northern San Diego County. The cactus garden will be in bloom, the humming birds will be humming and the spacious in-ground hot tub will be inviting me in to soak my weary bones and joints to get me kickstarted in the morning as the sun rises over Palomar Mountain to the East. If it was this time of day, I will be on the deck looking out at the setting sun over the Pacific Ocean, admiring the beauty of the surrounding boulder-strewn hills and, if the air is clear enough, seeing Catalina Island in the notch between the hills that overlook Camp Pendleton to the West.

You can tell by this description that I love my house and setting where I will enjoy my retirement from the big, bad, Big Apple. But as much as I like that western hilltop, I must say that NYC is dishing up some very memorable and regret-inducing days that make me wonder if I am doing the right thing packing it in on the City. And then I remember.

In 1976 when I came to NYC for my first post-MBA job in midtown Manhattan, I remember looking out the window of the express bus working its way into the flow into the Midtown Tunnel from Queens (I lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the ground floor and right over the laundry room dryers of the Towers at Waters Edge in Bayside, Queens), and seeing the mess that was the streets of financial-crisis 70’s NYC. At that time I recall thinking that I would stay in NYC for up to five years to earn my banking chops and then move to somewhere I really wanted to live and to do what I really wanted to do. Ah, the naïveté of youth! Forty-four years later, here I am still wondering where I want to really live and what I really want to do. Age does little to solve those quandaries though it does help one know what one doesn’t want. I don’t want Florida or Arizona. No offense to people who live there, but Florida’s flatness and tropical air bugs me. Arizona’s dryness and barren landscape does not warm my heart. I wish I could say the politics of either was off-putting, but San Diego isn’t any less red, especially in the north country where we will live. But we do have family nearby and we do like the house, the views and the weather.

While I am adamant about having only one residence, I have two years to adjust to giving up (or not) our house in Ithaca. If we want a four-season spot with a nice summer and a very liberal community, you can’t beat Ithaca. We may try some summering there over the next two years, just for shits and giggles as they say. I would never have suggested that (Kim is sort of neutral at best about Ithaca as she has one set of friends there…our country mice cousins Pete and Nancy), but go-figure, it was Kim that voiced the idea. Our granddaughters and other kids would like that, so we’ll see.

I understand that it seems flighty or shallow to let weather and trivial issues like pleasant environs govern where one lives. We are programmed to think this decision should be driven by work, obligation and/or family need. But I am coming around to disagree with all that. Nothing affects the soul and one’s state of mind more than the weather and the view one has from one’s porch or window. I never opt for a nicer place without a view versus a lesser place with a killer view. My heart has to soar for me to be at my best.

But New York seems to want to remind me that it can be pretty awesome here too. And New York would be right, especially where we have chosen to live. Kim walks Cecil every day in Battery Park, looking out over The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I stare out over the Harbor from my office, from my dining room and during my walk to and from work, all two-hundred steps of it. I understand that it’s a twenty dollar cab ride to get to anywhere, but hey, we get the daily views and breezes and that’s well worth the cab fare when we want to go out on the town.

I am not leaving Nëw York because the weather or the views are inferior. They aren’t. I am not moving to San Diego because the views and the weather are great. They are, but even though I like that and relish it, I am not nor ever have been driven by such things. I’ve owned the house in San Diego for eight years and it has been just as nice that whole time. So why now? It’s time. Everyone has to decide when it’s time and it’s time. I’m not sure I know why. Am I tired of working? Somewhat. I am bored with my work? A little. I’ve been the go-to guy on the team for a long time, regardless of the team. My teammates are falling away on all sides. Some by need and some by lack of need. We may still make our situation work, I give it even odds, but I’m not sure I enjoy being the last man standing. It’s always hard to decide if you are that last man standing or dead man walking. I do not want to be dead man walking.

I want to be that guy who can look out over the harbor on his walk home and think about what a great day it is, regardless of what’s gone on that day. I want to be at peace with my world and look forward to everything I do today and tomorrow. Moving to San Diego doesn’t assure me of any of that. Staying in New York hasn’t completely done that for me even though it has allowed me to get closer to that in the last few years. Being near my kids or away from my kids won’t affect that, they will be with me in my heart in either place and I will see them all often. As best I can tell, what will bring me more peace than anything else will be to be able to not think about the weather, to embrace the wonders of my views, to not worry about anything other than the quality and righteousness of what I will do that day. It might be writing, it might be reading, it might be teaching, it might be learning. I just want life to be good for me and for those with whom I interact. That’s what will make one fine day, every day, again and again and again.