The Big Leap

George: Tell me I've done the right thing. Tell me we're going to be happier in New York.

Gwen: Yes, George. We're going to be happy in New York.

George: -ier! Happier in New York.


- The Out of Towners, Neil Simon, 1970


Happiness is a relative thing. It's a Friday afternoon drive home from the office at 5, leaving it all behind you. It's a moist vanilla birthday cake topped with buttercream frosting flowers on your 7th birthday. It's being comfortable, safe and secure. It's the sweet space between laziness and boredom where you are just busy enough to be occupied but have enough time to enjoy the atmosphere. But sometimes happiness can be just the opposite - the thrill of the unknown, having the whole world laid before you on a map, closing your eyes and heading toward that first place where your finger lands.

For us, the finger (it may have been the middle one - not sure just yet) landed in New York City and we're packing up our lives to make the move to our new apartment in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. We're leaving behing the miniature world of Rhode Island for the macrocosm of the big city and we're sure to either end up happy (ier?) or will have destroyed each other in the process.