How I Moved To New York With a Plan and Found Magic Instead

If you squint real hard you can see my best-laid plans going to shit but finding better things instead. 

It’s a Tuesday night at 9 PM and I’m transcending.

I’m holding a beer standing in the back room of a bar I’ve never heard of. Big winter jacket and heavy backpack still on and weighing me down.

But right now I am light as a feather.

Because a stranger is standing on a tiny stage before me surrounded by twinkly lights playing what I can only comprehend as pure magic. He’s playing wine glasses filled with water and singing a song he wrote at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis.

It occurs to me that there are only about 15 other people in this tiny room experiencing this right now with me. I wonder if they too understand. I wonder if they know just how privileged we are to be in this room surrounded by this sound. 

My heart is so full I think I might burst into a pile of confetti on the floor.

It was a Thursday night and I saw my first improv show since moving to New York. The lights came up on the stage and I remembered the first time I fell in love with comedy; sitting on the floor in front of the TV with my sister well past our bedtimes watching reruns of Whose Line Is It Anyway? until we both fell asleep.

It’s a Monday night and I’m coming home from my day job as a nanny. I saunter through the downtown streets of DUMBO, Brooklyn and have to stop myself because the light is hitting the city across the river in such a breathtaking way that I take the long way to the subway.

The really long way.

In fact, I forgo several stops and almost walk myself all the way home.

It was another Thursday night when I followed a crowd of improvisers I didn’t know to a bar I’d never heard of and had the most important conversation of my life.

A conversation not unlike any other introductory walkthrough about who I was and why I was there in New York City.

“I’m a writer,” I announced a little unsure. “I mean my book isn’t published yet or anything, but I’m working on it.”

I guess I hadn’t realized that the words “my” and “book” might generate some interest to a complete stranger.

And some follow-up questions.

As fate, or coincidence, or even magic would have it, this particular stranger (Hey Aaron! You’re THE MAN) knew a publisher who just months later would take a chance on me and my little book, changing life as I knew it forever.

I used to be afraid of magical moments such as these.

I would watch moments of pure joy and wonder come into my life and brush them off as mere happenstance; anomalies in my overall “predictable” life.

Like that time I sat on a rooftop drinking wine in Toledo, Spain with my best friend staring up at a billion stars and a 3,000-year old cathedral thinkin' "dayum, life is good."

Oh, you know, just sitting on a roof with the most amazing view fine how are you.

Or when my best friend and I single-handedly curated two amazing art shows in Denver with 13 artists in a gallery that we couldn't really afford with an audience of 300 people and we felt all fancy and shit. 

Here I am using fake confidence to tell an artist that I've kind of screwed something up in his exhibit. He's taking the news really well.

Or that time I went to New York City for the first time a few years ago to take an improv class just weeks before starting my short-lived career as a high school teacher.

It was there that I’d get my first real taste of the magic.

“This isn’t real life,” I’d spit back to the universe as I performed on one of the most notable improv stages in the world at the end of the week-long intensive.

“I can’t actually do comedy in New York. That’s not a life I get to live. That’s just ridiculous.”

For whatever reason -fear, doubt, perceived adult responsibility- I didn’t believe in magic back then.

The idea that I could find and even create wonder in my day-to-day life terrified me. Magical moments were spontaneous, and my meticulous and planning-obsessed brain didn’t like spontaneous.

In fact, my brain fucking hated spontaneous.

It was hard enough trying to conquer the grocery store without sucker-punching someone back then, much less try to organize my life in a way that allowed for disorderly magical shit.

I returned from my week-long improv adventure in New York a bit shook up, traumatized even. For I’d seen a taste of something I didn’t think was possible or realistic for me.

“I had a lot of fun,” I told my mother (true). “But I don’t think I could ever live there.” (False).

To this day my mother recounts this very conversation as evidence enough for me to come home right this very minute you hear me. And at that time I truly didn’t think I could live in a place as magical as New York.

The night before I packed my two suitcases and took a one-way to the Holy Land, I had an epic meltdown in my parent’s kitchen while finishing a bowl of mac and cheese. 

“I’m so fucking scared,” I said, discarding my cheesy carbs and looking up from my detailed and color-coded check-list titled “New York Attack Plan.” Items included hilarious things like “Week 1- Get a job” and “Week 2- Sign a lease.”

“What are you scared of?” My dad said from the sink as he scrubbed a pot.

“Dad,” I gulped. “I’m scared I’m going to fail-” The word “fail” was promptly interrupted by a cascading waterfall of ugly tears.

“Oh, sweetie,” he said softly and rushed to my side. “You are not going to fail.” My tears were globbing down my pink face now and making a mess of my lovely (and supremely unrealistic) to-do list.

“First of all, you’re too stubborn to fail. You get that from me,” he chuckled. “And second, as bad as I want you to stay, I know in my heart that you’re going to get out there and do something amazing.”

My scared tears quickly turned into “why is my dad so adorable” tears and it took a bag of chocolate chips and half a box of tissues to get me down off the ugly crying ledge.

There would be a lot more ugly crying once I arrived in New York City.

There would be job rejection after job rejection. My dad would get some cancer* and I’d have over $1,000 stolen from me by a student loan scam. I’d have a heartbreak and I’d spend a lot of time on subways contemplating the meaning of life but also just staring out into no-mans-land and missing my stops.

The fear of an unknown place with a billion people zooming around my head sometimes made me question if I was going to figure my shit out without completely draining my savings account or if I was going to have to stick my thumb out and bum my way back to Colorado like a total failure.

But hey, guess what.

That didn’t happen. Because I’m still here.

Dad was right.

I’m sitting in a kid’s play studio watching the boys I nanny parkour off of gym equipment and kick soccer balls with ridiculous accuracy at my head. I’m submitting 400-word pieces to clients like banks and plumbing companies and podcasts for $15 a piece. I’m managing a 20-person co-living space that I tell everyone is a commune. I fill my days with performing plays about talking Brocolli to 4-year-olds and fill my nights with telling jokes to drunk strangers about performing plays about talking Brocolli to 4-year-olds.

And maybe this is all a little magical too.

I propelled myself into a magical life by letting magic exist in the first place. It hasn’t been easy or anything like my carefully-crafted “Attack Plan” would have predicted.

But I’m staring out of the boy’s bedroom now, tucking them in** and telling them they can’t have another popsicle. And out of the window, I can see it. The most magical of all New York structures.

The Empire Fucking State Building.

Up close and personal with Mr. Empire in 2015 probably about to get hit by a taxi while taking this. 

If that’s not magic I don’t know what is.

*I am happy to report that Dad is now cancer-free and as awesome as ever.

**This has been the most arduous, horrendous, and emotionally traumatizing of bedtimes for these lil ’ monsters including the 2-year old chucking a baseball directly at my eyeball during storytime, lots of tears (from them and possibly me), and a kitchen tantrum/Mexican standoff involving a popsicle stick and a ham and cheese bagel. I’m just lucky to be alive right now let me tell you.

P.S. If you want to make this fun for me, comment below with your #magicmoments! 

50 Things You Learn Your First Weeks in New York City

Me: "HEY, I'M WALKIN' H-" Taxicab: *proceeds to move toward me*

I’ve done it, you guys.

I’ve survived. I saw a rat and it didn’t eat me and I can get on the subway without the doors closing on my backpack now! Isn’t this all so exciting?

As hopefully you noticed by now, I moved to New York two weeks ago.

Geaz. I hope you noticed I was gone. That would be really shitty of you to not have noticed that kind of thing.

Anyway.

As the excitement of the first weeks winds down and I find my routine, I’ve been reflecting a lot on what I’ve learned in this short amount of time. It has been the most humbling, exciting, and terrifying 14 days of my life. Here are the biggest lessons I’ve learned so far:

1. Don’t go to Target for produce. Okay, or for anything really. I know this is hard since you’ve been handing 60% of your income to Target for about 15 years now. But really, just avoid Targets, okay?

2. It is easy to convince yourself on your first grocery shopping excursion that you can just take one backpack and fill it up with food and be fine. Please note that by the time you leave the three different grocery stores needed to get adequate food, you will have accumulated one large, human-sized bag in addition to your over-stuffed backpack that you must carry on the subway by yourself hoping to God you don’t recreate that scene from Home Alone where the bag of groceries rips in the street and reveals that he’s not a real grown up after all.

What's that? Do I need it double bagged? Why would I need it double-ohhhhh...now I see. Be gentle. I'm new here. 

3. Sometimes it’s just too damn peopley outside.

4. Other times you will enjoy seeing hundreds of thousands of people and feeling like they are all tiny mysteries with their own stories to tell.

5. But if there’s ever a deadly outbreak of a disease you’re going to absolutely die first because you come into contact with 7 billion people every single day.

6.     Leaving the house without a cellphone charger is pretty much a death sentence.

7.     It’s not impossible to have kids in New York. I’ve seen a single mother of five well-behaved and beautiful children on a subway train at 10 p.m. and it may have been past all of our bedtimes, but they handled it like total champs.

8.     Buzzfeed will not let you upstairs to “see Dan” if you don’t have a legitimate interview.

9.     Most places will not let you upstairs to see “Dan,” “Tim,” or even “Katherine who you emailed that one time” without a legitimate interview.

10.  It’s extremely annoying when people ask you: “So how many interviews have you been on?” and you have to explain to them items 8 and 9.

11.  It’s less emotionally defeating to just email or call to follow up on a job even if your whole life you thought “showing your face” was the quickest way to receive employment and prove your worth in society.

12.  It is entirely possible to sweat through denim jeans. Or denim shirts. Or denim anything. Jesus, why are you wearing denim anything you sociopath, it’s TOO HEAVY A FABRIC.

13.  There are those who can stand up on subway cars without holding onto anything…and then there’s me.

14.  Automated hand dryers are very useful in the event of arriving to a fancy digital media business and learning in the bathroom that you’ve sweat so hard that it looks as though someone has dumped a bucket of water on your back.

15.  If a receptionist has no recollection of your repetitive email correspondence she will ask you if you “want a sticker” to try to get you to leave her desk. If that doesn’t work, a dog will come in and everyone will surround that dog and you will be forced to leave with your stupid sticker because at this point your odds of getting anyone’s attention are negative one billion.

16.  Some subways are air conditioned. Most are not.

17.  New sweat glands that never existed before open up when you move to New York.

18.  Shoes that you could wear comfortably for an entire day now feel like constricting metal death vices filled with shards of glass. Or like an oven mitt that’s been set on fire and then filled with Legos. I’m trying to find a fancy way to describe this and it’s kind of going south but you get the idea: SHOES HURT.

19.  Due to #17, blisters are a thing.

20.  Nexcare Foot Tape will save your life and you will never leave the house without it again.

21.  Sometimes people in Brooklyn double park onto the sidewalk.

22.  It’s not creepy to make silly faces at a baby on the subway as long as you do it for five stops or less.

23.  The Statue of Liberty is not nearly as big as she looks on TV. Plus she’s got some man hands.

24.  Don’t fall for the “Subway Sob Story” which usually begins with a strangely dressed man and the words, “Attention Good People of the L Train –”

25.  While you kind of feel bad for the person in item #24, you find it hard to believe Steve’s girlfriend would have dumped him and kicked him to the curb after learning his 4-year-old daughter was diagnosed with hemorrhoids and is in need of immediate butt surgery.

26.  Headphones are the easiest way to avoid awkward people on the subway.

27.  Even though you easily catalog 50,000 steps a day, you will retain your muffin top. Because cheese and sugary wines are still your best friends and most mortal of enemies.

Why, yes. Yes, our waiter did have a man-bun. How positively cosmopolitan of us.

28.  Listening in to conversations will become your newest and most favorite hobby. *Thick New York accent* “Listen, Jerry. I got this cheeseburger, kay? Are you listening? Kay, I got this cheeseburger. Took a bite. Jerry, I took a bite. Sour.”

29.  Seeing trash on every street becomes normal and doesn’t smell so bad if you just walk faster.

30.  You must resist the urge to scream, “HEY, I’M WALKIN’ HERE” every moment of every day because a taxicab will try to run you down at any opportunity and will not find your witty antics funny nor will they stop their vehicle.

31.  Calling your mother daily is absolutely necessary and actually comforting.

32.  If you don’t drink enough water you might as well go buy a shovel and start digging yourself an early grave.

First day expectation vs. reality. This is the shirt I sweat through from item 14. Why, yes, that is a white shirt. 

33.  Guys on Tinder in New York will offer you to come to their apartment after exchanging approximately five words with you. Or less.

34.  Bars have a $20 minimum on credit cards.

35.  When you see a rat, it is customary to leap off of a park bench and into an oncoming crowd of people.

36.  Sometimes when you go to check out a hip new “start up” in the city, you may come to find that the people at the address listed have never heard of this place and when you try to email the HR department that you’ve been in contact with for several months, that email might bounce back at you and also tell you that this place doesn’t exist.

37.  If you find an apartment under $700 dollars, the neighborhood will have a cop car on every corner and the people scheduled to show you around will conveniently have forgotten that you scheduled to see the place. Take this as a sign and proceed to the nearest subway station and never look back.

38.  Going to an improv class is the quickest way to make new friends who will gladly walk you to your subway station and ride along with you to make sure you reach home safely.

39.  People in New York are not as mean as the reputations that precede them. Each and every one of them went through the same ordeal of finding legitimate employment and housing. They know things that you don’t know. And 99% of them are willing to help you in any way they can.

40.  Your parents and loved ones will question your choice to come here most days, but deep down are supportive and loving and excited that you’re doing this.

41.  You will also question your choice to come here most days. But deep down you want to piss yourself in excitement every time you see a cool building or walk through Central Park.

42.  Google Maps is not great at navigating through Central Park so it’s often necessary to rely on your own (skewed) sense of direction. Or your friend with a flip phone that keeps questioning why Google would take us that way. Or that way. Hey, aren’t we just going in circles?

43.  Ellis Island is absolutely amazing but you must beat the Boy Scouts to get on the Ferry. If you time it just right, you can see the entire museum before noon and leave just as 12,000,000 people are coming off of more and more boats making you wonder if you’ve accidentally entered a time machine and are actually in the year 1901 and in line to get your eyelids pulled on by a scary metal tool to check for trachoma.

44.  You can get into The Museum of Modern Art for free by being really nice to the receptionist and getting her to feel bad for you that you came all the way into the city to give your resumé to Human Resources and they “don’t work on the weekends.” Proceed to wander around MoMa for the next three hours enjoying the air conditioning and getting to see Picasso’s, Pollock’s, and Warhol’s.

45.  It’s completely acceptable to sit at Tompkin’s Square Park listening to Mumford & Son’s song “Tompkin’s Square Park” and cry while you eat your lunch in broad day light because of that one person you miss back at home.

46.  Getting anywhere in under an hour feels too good to be true. And probably is.

47.  It’s easier than ever before to feel inspired in this place. All of a sudden, you are surrounded by creatives, entrepreneur’s, and hustler’s that make you want to be the best version of yourself.

48.  Sometimes you worry if you’ll ever get to that best version of yourself.

49.  Sometimes you fear your own fragility and failure and that the city will eat you alive and sweat you back out.

50.  But deep down to your very core, you know this place will change you, challenge you, and transform you in more ways than you ever thought was possible.