It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends. I can remember now, with a clarity that makes the nerves in the back of my neck constrict, when New York began for me, but I cannot lay my finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was. [1]

Joan Didion’s classic Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a collection of essays on her time in California. Poignantly the collection ends with a reflection on her eight-year residency in New York. The New York essay, Goodbye to All That, is remembered for its ability to capture the magic of New York City and to underscore the struggle and toll it can take on its inhabitants. Although I am nearly sixty years removed from Didion’s personal reflection, I find much in this essay with which to resonate. New York is no joke. It is a hard place to live and to work. New York pulsates with pressure and resounds with commotion. You don’t earn the nickname “the city that never sleeps” for being pastoral and peaceful. This place is not for the faint of heart. Didion captures so much of what can wear a person down about New York.

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