Never Lose Your New Yorkerness
11 years ago this July, Steven said words to me that still vibrate in my soul.
We both just taught Pilates at a gym in downtown Seattle. I taught a group mat class while Steven worked with private client upstairs on the Pilates machines. We left the gym at the same time and decided to walk together since we lived in the same neighborhood.
As we huffed and puffed up the 300 plus feet of elevation to the Capitol Hill neighborhood n a warm summer evening, we got to know each other a bit.
I was the newbie teacher on the block and new to Seattle with only six weeks under my belt. Steven lived in Seattle for about a year already. A Broadway actor who moved to Seattle while his partner attended a graduate program at University of Washington.
We started with superficial conversation. Sniffing each other out. “Where did you do your pilates training?” I asked. “Power Pilates,” he proudly stated. “Me too!” I replied.
“Oh he is legit,” I thought to myself.
“Where are you from in New York?” I asked. I was curious if he is a true ‘New Yorker’ from the City. None of this I am from Long Island or upstate BS.
To be honest, I can’t remember his response, but he passed the test with flying colors. A true New Yorker who even went to high school in the City. I felt myself want to get closer to him. He felt like “home.” A particular bread of human that is hard to come by. Someone who tells the truth. Who connects authentically.
I asked, “How have you liked living in Seattle thus far?” He exuberantly replied, “I hate it. I try to fly back to New York as often as I can. I am trying to move us back East.”
“Interesting,” I thought to myself.
“I notice I don’t get any feedback from students if they are enjoying themselves in class or not. Does that ever happen to you?” I asked with curiosity and a tad of shame thinking something must be wrong with me.
I noticed teaching felt really difficult for me in Seattle and I wondered why. I would teach a class and the energy in the room felt flat. I couldn’t tell if people were happy, enjoying the class, hated it or were board. There was a reserved expression on everyone’s face. It left me feel perplexed. “Why aren’t people expressive here?” I thought to myself.
“YES. You are not alone,” he replied. “People here tend to live in a very passive aggressive culture. They aren’t like us. They don’t say what’s on our minds.”
As we got closer to the top of the hill and at a fork in the road where I would go left and he would walk right, Steven leaned into me and said, “Never lose your New Yorkerness. They are going to try and take it from you, but hold on tight.”
We hugged and parted ways.
I felt like a mentor just bestowed sacred words to me. I repeated them in my head as I continued to walk home.
“I will never lose my New Yorkerness. That’s crazy.” I replied to myself. It’s in my blood. It is in the pace I walk the streets with. It’s in my eyes and how I see and interact with the world. It’s in my high standards.
Yet, here I am 11 years later and I feel my New Yorkerness has slipped through my fingers the last few years. The passive aggressive mindset has slipped into the consciousness of my being. Hiding my true thoughts and feeling to be expressed. Avoidance taking the lead instead of assertiveness.
In this season of my life, I am reevaluating everything. Doing deep work looking at my beliefs, emotions and actions with curiosity. Not wanting blind patterns to put me in autopilot. Finding inner alignment where my souls values meet my external actions.
I notice I search inwards for something familiar. Searching for my New York roots to help bring me back home. Maybe if I eat enough bagels it will come back to me.
Noticings…
Feel free to leave comments below or send me a DM
What aspects of your upbringing (pleasant or unpleasant) have you let go of unintentionally or intentionally?
What supports you feeling a sense of “home”?
What aspects of yourself have you lost touch with and want to reconnect to?