I ’m in the middle of a three - hebdomad holiday in New York . It was supposed to be a two - calendar week vacation , planned long ago when I made it sleep together that the only thing I want for my 40th birthday was to spend as much clip in NY as I could afford . It got extended by a hebdomad because I had to amount out betimes for the CBS Sunday Morning shoot . ( no rescheduled air date yet , btw ) I spend the first calendar week in a great little studio apartment in the East Village , and then move to a two - bedroom that I ’m sharing with champion . Thanks to a last - minute of arc job with the flat I ’d lease and an sinful bit of salutary luck on Craigslist , for these last two weeks I ’m in an ineffably voluptuous Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park . Under any other circumstances I could never afford this position . To be honest , it would n’t occur to me to even await for an apartment in this part of town – I care a funky place in the Village much more than a posh place uptown .
But you know what ? The swish uptown apartment is start to go to my mind . I am starting to harbour wildly unrealistic notions of a easy Manhattan lifestyle in which I am on a first - name foundation with the doorman and the only graphics on the wall are the grand and serenely soundproofed window that exhibit an ever - changing panorama of this city I love more than any other piazza in the world .
And possibly , it come about to me now , I love this city more than gardening . I have always suppose that if not for all sort of practical considerations , I would live in New York . One of those practical consideration has always been the garden . Sure , I could make do with a balcony or a terrace or a roof garden or a fire outflow or a gay window or those little spaces in front or back of a brownstone or a community garden or the park or some such affair . But that ’s not the kind of garden I have at home – a real , full - sized backyard with chickens tramp around – and how , I have always said , how could I ever survive without that ?
Well , it ’s bug out to go on to me that I could . I could give up gardening for this .
It does n’t entail that I ’m unpatriotic to the cause . It just means that gardening – for some of us , anyway – is specific to a fourth dimension and place in one ’s lifetime . There could be a Manhattan era in my life – one in which I publish books and research every column inch of this gorgeous urban center and memorize the metro stops and truly become a New Yorker – and do n’t really garden that much . If I require flowers , I ’ll buy an orchid . If I want trees , I ’ll go to the park .
None of this , of course , is actually give-up the ghost to happen , which makes the question of what one would trade gardening for a hollow rational exercise . I am sadly lacking in wealthy patrons who could fund such a phantasy . But in this gilded pied - a - terre , with its marble bathroom and Manhattan - sized kitchen with a fridge large enough for nothing more than a few bottles of Champagne and a jar of olives , it seems all too alluring . There are things I would give up for this . Oh , yes there are .
– Amy
