A B R O A D
The city that finally slept BY B E N N J E F F R I E S
T
here is a black bear outside my tent. The sound of its heavy footfall and loud sniffing wakes me up on my half-deflated air mattress. I lie as still as I can, listening to it come closer. When only the tent fly separates us, the bear smells me and stops dead still. We stay like that for a moment and I can almost hear it thinking, wondering what I am. It makes up its mind and runs off between the oak trees and huckleberry shrubs. I feel my body relax and wait for my heart to slow. In the morning, I look for its paw prints in the earth as I drink a cup of earl grey. This trip into the Catskill Mountains and this cup of tea are little things that remind me of home and pull me from the throng of New York City. Getting out of town feels vital to me. Every few weeks I take the weekend to fly fish the Delaware or even the sand flats of Jamaica Bay. These trips let me hold on to a part of me that New York City would otherwise strip away. People often ask why I moved to the city when I did. They promise me it will bounce back, as if its vitality is a reflection on their own, but I am glad I have seen a quiet, sombre New York. In some strange way, this version of the city helped me feel more at home amongst the concrete. I almost threw up when I found out I had been accepted into a Masters programme in New York. I had been hiking in the Tararuas and it was the first email I read when I got back to cell phone reception. That was back in May 2020, just after the Covid-19 lockdown had ended in New Zealand. Back then, the six o’clock news was laden with images of New York in turmoil and speculations as to how the virus worked. I was flattered to be accepted by the university but figured I wouldn’t be going.
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