As we rode the shuttle together, he spoke of his time in Vietnam, and what he had learned there and how hard it had been to adjust to America on his return. And then we hit Grand Central and parted, disappearing once again into our respective worlds. But it was a sweet moment of a shared experience, one more pleasant part of being a writer in New York. Those moments occur all the time, despite the city's reputation for rudeness far and beyond the call of duty. The disadvantages for a writer living in New York are obvious.
Life here is always noisy, always expensive and occasionally quite jarring.
There is no immunity from the city's lesser self for writers, any more than there is for anyone else. Yet I must admit I like living here. I stay on of my own choice, not merely because of inertia or because I am already here. It is my city, among other reasons, because it is a good city to be a writer in. It is home to other writers, which makes it an infinitely pleasant base camp for me.