Entry 2 – The start of letting go of living in New York City

Greenwich Village to the UWS 1986 – 1988

Getting ready to ski the slopes, in the 1980s.

Welcome to the second blog entry of My life and letting go. In my first entry I wrote a short overview of my idea for this blog—using things I’ve let go as a jumping off point to talk about parts of my life. I got the idea when I started to feel sorry for whoever will have to go through all my belongings after I pass on. I thought, “I better get cracking and start getting rid of all my excess stuff.” I’ve helped my wife Sara empty out her parents’ home of 60 years and it was no small task. Then when I decided to write this blog, I thought I’d expand my letting go to include other aspects, including habits, notions, situations, pets, and people. To protect the privacy of some of the people I mention, I am not using their actual names.

In my first entry, I mentioned I started my work as a small magazine publisher in Hawaii in 1992 publishing Ohohia, a publication focusing on holistic health. Then from Hawaii I moved to New York City in 1998 and started Gay Parent Magazine. As I said in my first blog entry, I was actually moving back to New York.

The start of letting go of living in NYC

Here’s the story. In 1988 I was in my late 20s, single and renting an apartment with a roommate on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The apartment was in a 12 story building built in 1920 and located on the corner of 99^th Street and West End Avenue. From my bedroom window, I could see a sliver of Riverside Park’s trees down 99^th Street. My room was large and had big windows that brought in lots of light. I had answered a want ad my roommate Jeffrey had placed through a gay roommate listing that I found probably through one of these outlets: the Village Voice, the Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center, or through one of several gay and lesbian bookstores that existed at that time including Oscar Wilde Bookshop or A Different Light Bookstore. In the 1980s the acronyms LGBTQ were not being used yet.

Prior to moving into my Upper West Side apartment, my girlfriend of two years had dumped me and kicked me out of her apartment. I will call my ex Debby. Debby lived on 5^th Avenue a block or two from Washington Square Park. Debby and I could easily walk to the nearby lesbian bar, the Duchess, located near Sheridan Square. Although her apartment had a great address, she lived in a tiny studio; and when you live in a huge city like New York, you hear a lot of outside noise inside your apartment. Even though her apartment was ten floors up, I remember on the night of the Halloween Parade which was parading a block away, crowds of people below on the street were partying and I heard someone loudly retching.

Another night Debby and I woke up hearing commotion in the hallway. When we opened the door, the hallway was smoky and firemen were running up and down and telling us to stay inside. We placed wet towels in the gap under the door. From the window I looked down at the street and saw several fire trucks parked next to the building. This sight terrified me. The next day we saw the building staircase was burnt and blackened.

Not only did we hear outside noises but the couples living on either side of Debby’s apartment made their share of ongoing noises. On one side we could hear through the wall a couple engaged in loud arguing. Coming through the opposite wall, were the sounds of a couple doing the opposite of fighting. Shared is a photo I took from her window; the twin towers of the World Trade Center are in the background on the left.

View from Debby’s window. Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the background on the left.

Debby was an athlete with muscled legs like a horse. We met at a gay running group and throughout our relationship we played tennis at the public parks, rode our bicycles around Manhattan (once on Staten Island), and skied. One holiday season we took a bus trip to Stowe Mountain Resort, a ski area in Vermont; I remember the trails being very icy and difficult to ski. I learned how to ski when I was with Debby. She was such an excellent skier that she worked on the ski patrol at a ski area. I’d wait for her to end her shift as she had to help check all the ski trails at the end of the night. I was not a great skier but learned by making mistakes. While Debby was doing her ski patrol, I had to learn to navigate the trails on my own. Once I took a lift up not knowing I had to get off closer to the bottom of the mountain on a trail marked green for not as difficult. The lift was a small gondola that could hold about six people. When I missed getting off at the trail marked green, I cursed out loud and other people that were in the lift laughed at me (they were staying on the lift to take the more difficult trails). As the lift went higher up the mountain, I had no choice but to go down the black diamond trail, the hardest trail to ski down. These trails are steep, narrow and require a lot of turning. I’d feel embarrassed if my ski patrol girlfriend had to rescue me. So I skied very slowly and carefully making sure to keep my skis pointed in the front like a pizza slice to slow me down while trying to hug the mountain. Shared are a few photos from one of our ski trips.

Through trial and error I learned how to ski when I was with Debby; she was an excellent skier. Here I am trying not to fall.

In addition to our ski trips, we traveled outside of NYC. One of the places we traveled to was New Mexico to visit with one of her relatives. This was the first time I visited the southwest (but not the last); the rich red hue, earth tones, and formations of the desert rocks are truly breathtaking. A memorable event was watching the burning of Zozobra, a 50 foot high animated sculpture constructed of wood, wire, and cotton; its arms waved around, head moved side to side, and mouth opened and closed. A speaker blared sounds of a low voice groaning. Zozobra is part ghost and part monster and represents anguish, anxiety, and gloom. When the effigy is burned, this act represents a release from negativity and renewal for the future. From New Mexico we took a bumpy plane ride to Southern California. We drove up Big Sur, driving through Santa Barbara and past the Hearst Castle to San Francisco, our final destination.

On October 11, 1987, we took a chartered bus to Washington DC to participate in the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights (the first took place in 1979). The historic event was a rally and march primarily focused on destigmatizing, humanizing, and getting help for people living with HIV/AIDS, a raging pandemic at the time. Hundreds of thousands of people from around the country gathered and marched in support of lesbian and gay rights. My wife, who I hadn’t met yet, said she was there as well. I don’t remember a lot of details from the event but I do remember being moved by the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt that was on display; sadly I saw a panel for a sweet guy I used to work with named Victor.

Debby was cute, white, had short blond hair, a little older and a lot taller than me and she had a great sense of humor. She worked as a copy writer for a big ad agency; she told me she worked on the commercial for Angel Soft Toilet Paper that depicted babies with wings floating in the sky. I believe this is the commercial,

Both of Debby’s parents were prominent published authors. One of her parents appeared in People magazine and had their obituary written up in the New York Times. Once I asked Debby’s mom to read a personal essay I wrote and she gave me a helpful critique.

Debby’s mother was publishing a book about food and asked me to contribute illustrations for it. When I first met Debby, I was in my last year at the School of Visual Arts; I graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree. I was flattered Debby’s mother had invited me to contribute art to her book. Debby was also a talented artist and was not happy when her mother asked me, and not Debby, to illustrate her mom’s book. So we both ended up creating little graphic illustrations of food to enhance the text (shared are a few of the illustrations). I have a signed copy of the book and Debby wrote in it, “Thanks for sharing the masthead.” Debby’s mom wrote, “This is only the beginning Ang.”

Illustrations I did for Debby’s mother’s book.

I really liked Debby’s mother; she was beautiful, sophisticated, a creative cook, and fun. I could see how Debby got her sense of humor from both of her parents. But Debby told me her mother still wished Debby was in a relationship with a man. At that time hearing this comment did not feel good. But I’ll always have admiration for Debby’s mom.

Letting go of Debby

With Debby I really ignored the warning signs. She broke up with me once before for a short time. Another time I asked her if she could see us getting older. She replied, “No.” Little did I know she had already moved on. When I went to get my stuff out of her apartment, across the street through a restaurant window, I saw Debby with her new girlfriend. Being already heartbroken this sight rubbed salt in my open wound. But I didn’t sulk away quietly; seeing my ex with her arms around her new girlfriend also made me angry. So I tapped on the window at them before walking away; of course Debby was shocked to see me.

Thus, I moved from Greenwich Village to the Upper West Side after Jeffrey accepted me as his new roommate. Jeffrey was tall, Black and said he was an opera singer. His cat shat on my bed during the first week I was there (this was the second time a roommate’s cat did this to me). While living there, I enjoyed riding my bike around the reservoir in Central Park. Almost every morning I’d wake up to some man outside on the street shouting, “Good morning, New York!”

In retrospect, I don’t regret that Debby ended our relationship. I think that all of my previous experiences, including the painful ones, have brought me to the good place of where I am today.

However, back in 1988, after the break up, I wasn’t in that positive mind space. Even though I did have single friends to hang out with, I was very lonely and miserable and starting to not like living in New York City anymore. I was getting tired of the crowds and the aggressiveness New Yorkers can display. I started to question why I was living in a huge city that was filthy and smelled bad. It was at this point that I started to think about moving out of state. I considered California but didn’t know anyone there and thought it would be too difficult. So I thought of moving back home to Hawaii, where I was born and raised. Back to the land of aloha where people are nicer, the air smells fresh, the sky is deep blue, and the ‘āina is incredibly lush, green, and beautiful.

At that point I was 29 and had lived in NYC for five years. It would take me a few more years before I moved back to Hawaii…but I would not move there alone.

A note to subscribers

I hope you enjoyed this second installment and will continue reading my blog. Certain entries will be available only to paid subscribers such as the next entry, although it will be about a different topic. The story started in this entry will continue thereafter.

Whether you are a free or paid subscriber, your interest and support is greatly appreciated. Also I want to thank my friend Larry Raiken for his writing tip. Until next time thank you for reading My life and letting go.

Happy I survived a black diamond ski trail.