Monday, September 14, 2009

Life knows better...

My Aunt and Uncle are currently visiting New York City. Every now and then I receive a picture of my Aunt in Little Italy, or any anecdote about some adventure they're having. My Uncle's latest email mentioned a free water taxi which shuttles people to the Ikea store in Brooklyn.

My mind immediately shot back to a memory from over three years ago when I had just moved to Brooklyn from Washington Heights. My roommate and I had made arrangements with our landlord to have him build closets before we moved in. When we arrived on moving day there were still no closets. He said he hadn't had time. So we came to the agreement that we could go to the Ikea store and buy wardrobes and take the amount out of our rent. It sounded reasonable at the time.

What we didn't realize was that public transportation between Bushwick, Brooklyn and the only Ikea store in the metro area (at that time) in Elizabeth, NJ was a very complicated thing. I don't recall how many different trains and buses we had to take to get there but I do recall it was a very epic and unpleasant journey. We easily spent three times as long getting there and back as we did actually in the store. I won't even get into the details of assembling the things.

So when my Uncle wrote and mentioned an Ikea store now in Brooklyn I immediately felt jealousy and bitterness. “Why wasn't the store there three years ago??” my mind demanded.

And then I realize that if my life in New York had been easier and more satisfying I might not have left the city and may have never lived in Colorado - where I am far more at home than anywhere else I have lived. So Brooklyn - you can keep your Ikea store. In Colorado, I have mountains!

1 comment:

  1. This, in a nutshell, is why many of us escaped from New York. Even things that are simple elsewhere are expensive/awkward/frustrating there.

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