NYC

The apartment is packed up and empty and I'm leaving New York for Durham this Saturday. Just short of my 9th full year here. People, visitors mostly I guess, seem to associate New York with skyscrapers and traffic and concrete. To me New York is the water. Looking out from Astoria Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Fort Totten Park, Orchard Beach, the parks on both sides of the Hudson, (JFK) Boulevard East, Shore Road Park, and the Belt Parkway looking out at Jamaica Bay. Looking out from the ferries and the bridges. I love the waves and the breeze. The herons and egrets and cormorants and mergansers and red-tailed hawks and red-bellied woodpeckers. Whales and dolphins and seals just a few miles out on a boat from south Brooklyn. And New York is food. Taiwanese in Williamsburg. Thai and Malaysian in Elmhurst. Indian and Nepali in Jackson Heights. Korean in Bayside and Palisades Park. Central Asian cuisines I couldn't name by memory in Sheepshead Bay. What's expensive is usually not good.…