Leaving the Premises

I’m from New England and, like most people from New England, infuriatingly reluctant to grant a premise. When I moved to New York in my early twenties, I brought along that Yankee skepticism – a mix of parochial resentment and academic misanthropy – as well as one box of clothes and two boxes of books. I bumped on the idea of a city as required reading. I bumped on the Breslin affect. I left for San Francisco. I posted up in Phnom Penh. But I came back and a decade later, a few weeks after a citywide protest of Apple’s new bagel emoji, I granted the premise. 

What is New York, after all, but a premise?

Of course, the details of that premise vary transplant to transplant. For the marinara-faced bullshitters south of 14th or above the trading floor, it’s Sinatra: “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” For me, it was Updike: “People living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” But as of last Friday, I’m one of those people. I’m back in New England – albeit just an hour from the Merritt. 

When you move — and specifically when you leave a major metropolitan area – you are granted a six- to twelve-month grace period¹ during which you’re allowed to be unprepared and confused without shame or pretense. You don’t have to know where anything is. You don’t have to have friends. You don’t have to know what’s going on – much less be invited to whatever that may be. You can be, in some sense, kidding. No one is allowed to fault you for it. 

I’m in that window now and I hope it lasts. I’m in no hurry to accept the premise of Connecticut, a deeply unsexy state despite everyone constantly checking each other for ticks, because I understand that doing so will change me.