Whenever I think of yesterday, I close my eyes and see, That place just over The Brooklyn Bridge That will always be home to me.
M Hamlisch, Marilyn and Allan Bergman
Our family has a love affair going with New York City
You put any one of us back in to The City for more than a few hours
and we lose all the r's from our diction and start asking for "a slice" instead of a piece of pizza.
We can- and have- walked the length of Manhattan and back in a day
and we remember when Chelsea and SoHo were places you did not go-
let alone pay millions for a flat
This is all in our DNA
Our family settled there over a hundred years ago
It was only recently though that I started to wonder if they loved it as much as we do....
Take my grandmother
she grew up running along the sunny shores of an Island in the Bay of Naples
and then she came here
and the streets were crowded and noisy
she would have to walk quite a ways through the streets of New York
to see the Ocean again
I wonder if she ever did
I never asked her
I wonder if she missed the scent of lemon trees in the air
or the lapping of the waves against the sea walls of her island
Home is a very hard thing to find
And it is an even harder thing to leave
You can leave cities, and houses, and even people
But home is something that sticks with you
until you find it again.
Have you found your home?
Good for you!
Hang on to it with all your heart!
and let's remember those who left their home
so you could find yours
And that's poetiquejustis
