I didn’t grow up in New Jersey. My mom’s sister was the first to make the trek, from a high rise in the Bronx to a duplex in Garfield, New Jersey. The name of that town would fill me with delight. A few years later, she moved to her own house, which had two separate levels and stairs. In my own city kid life, where I lived in a cramped apartment and all my friends lived in cramped apartments, houses with stairs were a novelty. What luxury to have a yard, a giant kitchen, your very own room!
My mom was never interested in pursuing the American dream of owning a house and if we hadn’t left when we did, I strongly suspect we’d still be in Brooklyn. But, a strange set of circumstances forced my parents to seek alternate living arrangements in 1999. My dad was sick of city living and started casually looking for a house. First, in the City, where it was too expensive to buy, and then naturally, as so many others before, in Jersey. A cute little two floor house was for sale around the corner from my aunt in Bergenfield, a block away from the NJ Transit NYC buses, and that’s where they’ve been since the summer of 1999. A month after we moved in I went off to college in Ohio.
Since that time, my mom’s other sister has also moved a few blocks away, along with her daughter and an army of kids. With our remaining close family a mere 20 minute drive across the George Washington Bridge in Washington Heights, Bergenfield has become the home base of the Diaz clan. My parents have completely become the kind of people who spend every weekend at Home Depot; gardening & home improvement are at the top of the list on how to spend the weekends (garage sales & costco are a distant third and fourth).
My own relationship with the state is an awkward relationship of convenience but I feel somewhat protective of it. I’m here now, I will be for a while and while I may try to claim NYC back as my own, I still have to cross the bridge to get home every night. So, I guess this blog is a way of dealing with that. I promise the rest will be more fun.
