Hello dear friends.
Last month we packed up everything in the apartment we lived in for six years and moved to a rental near Reva’s school while we figured out what would come next for us. As I’m sure so many of you New Yorkers with small kids know, it’s the most popular question on the padded floors of the playground. Do we stay, or do we go? As parents, we get used to, and in my case, grow to love the lifestyle the city provides us. It allows us to tap into our creativity with a little more ease, if only because of the zany and brilliant people all around, the inertia, the unexpectedness of it all.
The slight shock you feel when you see a rat running across the playground or a person in full Renaissance garb on the subway at 11 AM on a Monday. The city keeps us on our toes. But also as parents, we get tired of being on top of our kids all the time. Of creamming our clothing into plastic bins that are overstuffed and don’t close because the closet in our flex bedroom doesn’t fit more than one season’s worth and our kids got the master bedroom with the thicker wall. Of not needing a baby monitor because we can hear every breath being taken 200 feet away.
We get tired of the challenges of commuting on public transport to after-school activities with a stroller and a scooter and a bag of tricks, of not being able to buy snacks in bulk, of overpaying for chocolate milk at the bodega. We have a love-hate relationship with getting out of the house at 7:59 AM with the dog and both kids because we’d rather still be in our pajamas but we’d also rather be anywhere but in the living room which is littered with tiny plastic toys and a box of gloves the baby tore apart.
In our case, we are leaning more and more towards moving out of Brooklyn for two main reasons: we want our kids to go to a Jewish school and we want a bigger apartment. It seems increasingly difficult to afford both of these things in Brooklyn. In a world post-October 7th, it feels mission-critical that my children learn about who they are as Jews in the world and that they get a very deep understanding of Jewish texts and traditions to have in their back pocket as go they through life.
Packing up took me on a nice little waltz down memory lane. I remembered unboxing the shiny, porcelain Villeroy & Boch china I had received from my wedding registry and stacking it neatly in the kitchen cabinets, feeling like a real grown-up. I remembered walking through the front door lugging the car seat with Reva and being assaulted with a surge of emotions postpartum. I sat on the couch, feeling incredibly in love with my daughter, and crying hysterically for reasons beyond logic.
I remember cheering for the essential workers at 7 PM every night of April 2020, reveling in the echos of the sound “Wooooo!” I remember lighting Shabbat candles for the first time on my own and learning to make challah on my gray marbled counter, the feeling of the squishy warm dough under my hand against the cold slab of stone being sensational. I remember sitting in my backyard with Joseph still inside my belly, 41 weeks pregnant, waiting to pop. Every few hours someone else texted me: “any updates?”
As anyone who has ever moved knows, it’s hard to dislodge all the puzzle pieces of your existence, wrap them in bubble wrap and tissue paper, cram them in a box, and send them on their way. It took me over a week to hand-wrap each cup and plate and platter, and don’t get me started on the glassware. Finally, after what seemed like 9,000 boxes were stacked one on top of the other, we made our way north a few avenues to Park Slope, which is a bustling metropolis compared to the sleepy Windsor Terrace streets that I had grown accustomed to.
I had grown used to having two choices if I ever wanted to buy myself lunch near my apartment in Windsor Terrace. There was John’s Deli, for sandwiches or Italian food, and there were croissant sandwiches at the coffee shop. That was it. I could walk up to Daytime Cafe if I wanted to get mushroom toast, but most days, that was too far of a hike during business hours. I had grown used to my coffee local shop, the one around the corner from my house, where the barista Andre knew my name and knew my order. He even warned me about the caffeine content in some drinks when I was super pregnant, an endearing (if mildly annoying) trait that I won’t forget when reminiscing back on my mornings fondly. I went to that shop almost every day to “work-from-home” sitting in the back patio in the summer and in the warm cocoon of fresh-baked pastries in the winter. I had gotten used to the constant sound of espresso being ground in the background.
I knew my neighbors, like, really knew them, and even befriended one neighbor in my building named Pat (hi Pat!) who became a dear friend of the family, a taste tester of all my recipes, a frequent date night sitter. I can’t recall how Pat and I met, but when I think of my old apartment, I think of talking on the couch or in the hallway or by the front door with Pat.
Le Paddock, the French restaurant around the corner from us was our go-to spot for a bite. The french fries were homemade, big giant piles of them stacked high, always served with silky garlic aioli. The martinis were cold, served in old-school glasses with three big olives, each stuffed with a tiny pimento pepper. You couldn’t go wrong with a big bowl of kale caesar, a French onion soup and maybe steak frites or duck confit to share. Gorge yourself on the warm slices of baguette that come in a silver bucket when you sit down, smeared with cold butter and a little shake of sea salt. You were home.
When Reva made her first real friend at the playground, Kai, we also got lucky enough to make friends with his parents. The four of us did so many things together, so many mundane things that made life better, easier, and more fun. We’d let the kids play together on rainy days while we had a glass of wine or some fancy cheese. We’d take the kids to the park every single day in the summer, staying until 8 PM, eating pizza from the shop across the street. Anything to get that Vitamin D before it got frigid in October. The husbands went to Costco together, splitting packs of chicken and mango juice boxes. We ate dinner on their rooftop (a giant beef tenderloin, expertly sliced and grilled to perfection) and dinner around our table (roast chicken and challah) and so many cups of drippy ice cream at Uncle Louie G’s. We had it all.
It’s weird to think of the time in the past tense, and it feels off-center to live in this in-between phase where we are figuring out what comes next. On the one hand, we’re completely unpacked and have made ourselves mostly at home. On the other, we haven’t hung up our art or decorated the place beyond the basics. The walls are a crisp white. Day by day, we’re stack ranking the priorities to figure out our next stop: school, proximity to family, proximity to the city, commute, green spaces, synagogues, etc. What’s most important?
Change is scary, but it’s also exciting, and it feels good to kind of shake off the cobwebs and start fresh. To think about what might happen and how this next phase of our life will play out. Who will we meet and befriend? What restaurants will become our new local favorite? Where will we go for our morning coffee on the weekends? I’m excited to find out.
Sending you all very big hugs-
Jane
ah... I rated a WHOLE paragraph?? So sweet - so very bitter sweet! As I recall, we met one day when I petted Maui and you told me all about the Scraps Pizzas you were making! ;) I sure do you miss having you around every corner now and then... love you so much!
Moving is scary, but your reasons are hard to dispute. Looks like a wonderful place. Knowing the kind of people you guys are, the experience will be a great one.