I had mixed feelings about moving back to New York after a twenty-year
absence. The circumstances of my departure were not joyful.
I had returned to the States after a magical eleven months
in Israel in the fall of 1983. When I arrived at JFK and tasted
the dirt, noise, grime and push of New York City, I felt that
I had made the biggest mistake of my life in returning. It
was truly by the grace of God that I crawled out of the deep
depression I had sunk into at my parents’ house on Long
Island and was able to start to live again a few months later
in Boston.
Twenty years later I was newly married
with a baby on the way and had no clear prospects for employment.
On faith we had moved to Manhattan from California to be close
to my family for the birth of our son. We were guided to find
an apartment in Gramercy Park, a place neither of us knew.
We found an apartment we both liked the first day out. The
real estate agent believed in us so much that she said, “You
would not have come to New York if you could not make it here.
You will be ideal tenants. I am going to recommend to the
landlord that they rent the apartment to you.” In a
city where the norm for renting an apartment in a good neighborhood
was to make four times the rent (which translated into a cool
$100,000 per year salary), we found a real estate agent who
convinced the landlords to rent the apartment to us on faith.
Something was going on here…
A year later it was time to move again.
The sixty steps to our third floor apartment in the charming
brownstone on 18th St. were too much to navigate with a growing
baby and all his paraphernalia. The intensity of Manhattan
was getting to us as well. This time we were guided to look
across the East River in Brooklyn. Our first day in Brooklyn
found us in Prospect Park. We were amazed at the amount of
space and sky. I felt comfortable in the area close to the
park. Street after tree-lined street was filled with beautifully
restored brownstones. After living in Gramercy Park I felt
that I deserved to live in a place just as nice (if not nicer).
Heaven
had other plans for me. On a cold, rainy December day a real
estate agent guided us to a new building at the edge of Park
Slope. As we drove down the main shopping avenue away from
the park and the lovely tree-lined streets, the shops thinned
out and boarded up, gutted buildings started to dot the landscape.
I asked the agent, “Is this an okay neighborhood?”
The life-long resident of Park Slope assured me that it was
a solid, working-class area.
My mind and heart were not interested
in looking at the seventh-floor, spotless apartment with unobstructed
views to the south and west. The agent’s plug that the
Statue of Liberty could be seen out of a bedroom window did
nothing for me. As my wife happily went around the apartment
figuring out where we could put our furniture, all I thought
was, “No way! I am not living above a six-line highway!”*
Once again, I was proven wrong. After
my wife pointed out to me that I was not open to what Heaven
might have in mind for us, I was willing to go back and look
again with an open mind and heart. This time I appreciated
the building, the apartment and the amazing view of the Statue
of Liberty out of our master bedroom window. We took the apartment.
I needed to drop my agenda about the kind
of neighborhood and apartment that was “right”
for me to live in. In fact, I needed to drop the idea that
what was “right” for me was important at all.
I was now a family man who was committed to putting the needs
of his family first. The apartment met all our needs and was
less rent than in Manhattan. I trusted that the neighborhood
was good and safe, and that we would be happy there.
Every morning the first thing that I saw
as I opened my eyes and looked out the window directly in
front of me was the Statue of Liberty. No matter what the
weather, she stood with her arm extended proclaiming the possibility
of liberty for all who saw her. Many times throughout the
day I would gaze at her and think of what she represented.
As the days, weeks and months rolled on
I understood more and more that the liberty I craved was being
free of self-imposed ideas and beliefs of who I was and what
life owed me because of it. I was learning that there was
another way to live that set me free of the box my mind and
emotions had created inside of myself. Seeing the Statue of
Liberty outside my window everyday was a constant reminder
of the possibility to live a life free of the internal oppressions
that seemed so much a part of who I really was.
I
came to view our move to Brooklyn as an incredible gift. The
neighborhood turned out to be fine. One by one the gutted,
boarded up buildings were being transformed into airy, light-filled
apartments. The mix of people in the area was a joy to be
around. Seeing Lady Liberty everyday was a powerful reminder
that I had more work to do to transform the boarded up places
inside of myself into spacious, light-filled abodes of open-hearted
liberty that were ready to embrace life and contribute to
it for the good of my family and community.
Just as she inspired millions who
gazed upon her as they entered New York Harbor for the first
time, she continues to inspire me to break free of the chains
of internal oppression, and to live my life with an open heart
ready to appreciate and celebrate the goodness that continuously
graces it.
*Prospect Avenue sits on one
side of a six-lane great divide called the Prospect Expressway.
It was built by the master builder of 20th century New York
City and its suburbs, Robert Moses, in the 1950’s. The
construction of the expressway tore apart neighborhoods throughout
its 2.1 mile length.
