Life is full of ironies. Back in my twenties, I would have liked nothing better than to have lived in Greenwich Village. Even people who’ve never been to New York know that it’s the neighborhood with the most fun bars and the most things to do. That’s why visitors to New York from as close by as New Jersey and as far away as New Zealand gravitate here – especially on weekends. It’s where all the action is.
It’s also expensive. That’s why I couldn’t afford an apartment here when I was younger. Then, in the early 90s, I met a woman who lived here already, and eventually got married to her. Against all expectation, I ended up in the Village after all.
Unfortunately, my arrival here also coincided – more or less – with sobriety. So that just as I found myself living at the Center of it All, the Most Fun Place in the World, the fun I’d discovered so readily in the past seemed to have mysteriously vanished.
Especially in my early days of sobriety, this could get on my nerves. Heading out on a Friday or a Saturday evening to give our dog (one of a long list of responsibilities I’d not had back in the old days) his final walk, I’d mark the difference between me and most of the other people on the street with a certain irritation. Couples and groups would sail past me like boats at a giant regatta while I, tethered to my dog and stone sober, felt like I was dead in the water. How on earth had I ended up in such a ridiculous position?
Not that all nights – not even all Friday and Saturday nights – were like that. As I felt my way into the strange new terrain of sobriety and found that forms of enjoyment were to be found there as well, my irritation at the crowds that seemed to swarm from all over the world directly to my block in order to get drunk grew less intense.
As did my envy of them. It didn’t take me too long living soberly in Greenwich Village to notice that not everyone who came here to do their drinking had all that good a time. In the early morning hours – especially on weekends – I’d wake up and hear things going on down in the street. Arguments. Fights. Tears. Out in the world of the drinkers, 11:00 PM had given way to 4:00 AM, and for those still out looking for fun, all was not going well.
That last bit sounds a little superior, but I don’t really mean it to. Because the fact is, I sympathize with the people who come here to my neighborhood to drink. After all, I know what they’re looking for. They’re looking for fun, for excitement… But more importantly, they’re looking for the place where things are really happening – the place that feels like the real center.
In many ways, I still think the same way now. Though I no longer drink to find it, I have my days when I feel like I’m closer to the center of things, and other days when it feels like I’m out in the suburbs. More and more, I’m coming to think that life itself is really a kind of journey from the suburbs to the center – but not in a physical sense. When I’m distanced from my real self, I’m out in the suburbs. And when I’m in contact with my deeper and better self, and with the God that that deeper and better self is itself never far from, I feel like I’ve made it to the real center – the true Place of Significant Action.
The place where the real action is.