kashema

Dear NYC,

It began with a wake-up call about tickets to see the must-see Alicia Keys musical “Hells Kitchen” at 2pm. It wasn’t the way I wanted to spend my day, but as Nas once said, “Live your life, girl.”

I get to the theatre not fully familiar with the award-winning musical Hell’s Kitchen in Times Square surprisingly without incident because forty-deuce during holiday is not the biz. We get to our seats, and I will be first to admit, I don’t like musicals. It ironically weirds me out that people burst out into song and dance like that…but isn’t that a regular day in NYC? Isn’t this what I do every so often?

It starts with a 17-year-old girl, name Ali (pronounced Ally), who lives in the Hell’s Kitchen and figuring out life and love in the late 1990s wearing baggy clothes and Timbs and saying, “son” more than a little bit. Remember me at 17? In that moment, I am simultaneously watching this story unfold and transported back to a time and age I hold so dear to my heart:

“Let’s go back in time when seeing your ID on mine
Made me crazy
Oh, baby I’m saying
Let’s go back there (go back there)
Let’s take it there (take it there)” (“Wreckless Love”)

Take it there, they did. Watching how Ali sonically marked her building and people in her hood reminded me of my hood and its distinctive sights, sounds and souls, like the salsa in the supermarket or Goose and his fake Jamaican accent yelling about foolishness. By age 17 we were all over your streets. We went to 42^nd Street to go to the movies, listen to music or go to Barcode to play laser tag. (It was fun to go there as opposed now in adulthood.) We shopped in Soho on Fifth Avenue and Downtown Brooklyn. S&Ds always had the newest music. I went to buy something, and they were playing DMX’s debut album. I put down what I was looking at, went a few blocks down to Beat Street (RIP), where Jay-Z used to promote his music, bought a copy of Its Dark and Hell Is Hot and then went back to S&Ds…till this day I don’t remember what I so clearly X’s album was more important. When the cast of Hell’s Kitchen performed “You Don’t Know My Name” I think of the look my bestie and give each other when it plays and I swear it baby: A long-distance relationship for New Yorkers is when one person lives in the Bronx and the other lives in Brooklyn…and if feels like oooouuuu…until it doesn’t. Womp, womp. Then it hits me, my first teenage love affair wasn’t with a boy, but with you… New York City…

“City of gods, city of dreams
City where nothin’ is ever what it seems
They’ll never take ya away from me
‘Cause I see nothin’ but infinity” (“City of Gods”)

Non-New Yorkers, transplants and even some New Yorkers that have been here for decades ask, “Why do you love NYC?” or “Why do you stay here?” And the words escape articulation, but the memories and feelings of a time when it was so simple fill my mind like the pages of a diary. And I fall again…

“I keep on fallin’ in
And outta love with you
Sometimes I love ya, sometimes you make me blue
Sometimes I feel good, at times I feel used
Lovin’ you, darlin’, makes me so confused…

Oh, oh, I never felt this way
How do you give me so much pleasure
And cause me so much pain? (Yeah, yeah)
Just when I think I’ve taken more than would a fool
I start fallin’ back in love with you” (“Fallin”)

High-key my New York ego wants to reply, “Well if you don’t like it, you can leave. Deadass.” However, it’s common knowledge that New York City eats its young and don’t give f—k …unless…you have the keys to unlock its heart and that’s why they say, “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.” The shitty officials, corrupt law enforcement, the dog-eat-dog mentality and so much more. You can and will swallow people whole. The mouth of the dragon. We weren’t meant to survive. Audre Lorde taught me well. In the Lorde, we trust, Amen. So, no I won’t ask you to go easy on me tonight or this heart of mine because your venom is already in my blood stream and just before it consumed me, I got the antidote. It took a New York minute, though. The thing about poison leaving the body is that it doesn’t leave all at once, it leaves in phases. The remnants make me resistant. I got this! Moreover, I am not even mad at you—it’s who you are. I’ve always known this. But as a die-hard Brooklyn girl, I’m a bit melancholy like a key in A minor because I have been thinking the un-thinkable…

“There [would ever] come a day
You [would]… ever hear me say
That I want, or need to be without you” (“Never Felt This Way”)

Moment of honesty… I’m sitting here tonight and telling you all that comes to me…you ready? Wanting to defend you and knowing the truths and many experiences that have forged and fortified who I am. My resilience, my love, my determination and my strength have a lot to do with you. That’s why this girl is on fire. And no matter what and no one, no one, no one, can get in the way of my love for you…But NYC, one day I may need to leave and I don’t know if I will return. I just wanted to give gratitude and love for your role in my journey and recognizing this woman’s worth.

Your girl,

Kashema

Dedicated to the Nicoles, Venells, and Mikes of an unforgettable New York City.