When the flashy, gritty New York I loved nearly killed me, my small hometown saved me

A few years after college, I left the Wisconsin farming town where I grew up for the bright lights of New York City. And when my adopted hometown almost killed me, my small hometown saved me.

It was love at first sight for New York and me. I loved his boldness, his glamor and his hustle. Broadway fascinated me. Celebrities seemed to be everywhere. Mikhail Baryshnikov sat in a box next to me at Carnegie Hall.

Arriving late to meet a friend at the Metropolitan Opera, I grabbed a hot dog from Sabrett’s, wiped the ketchup from my mouth, and collapsed into my seat just as the Viennese crystal chandeliers disappeared into the ceiling . I was attacked. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn that jacket from Future Farmers of America! It was a headline in my hometown newspaper.

My inner circle included actors, writers, musicians, a banker here and a lawyer there. We all came from somewhere else. We were New Yorkers of your choice and desiredrawn into the city by its siren song.

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I met a man. Love, marriage, children, mortgages. On September 11th, when I was six months pregnant, I trudged down Tenth Avenue, a drop in the river of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, all heading north, away from the black clouds rising into the sky behind us .

“Maybe you should go home to Wisconsin,” my husband said.

“No, I said. “We’re all staying in New York.”

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I lost my job. Tension built. The marriage began to falter. I wrote about a “Can this marriage be saved?” weekend and The New York Times published it in the Metropolitan Diary. Everyone who read it laughed. Except my husband.

I kept my hometown in my back pocket and took my kids to Wisconsin during the summer and at Christmas. My reason? “You need to know what America looks like west of the George Washington Bridge,” I would say. But honestly, it was because my hometown felt friendlier than New York and the man I lived with.

The marriage fell apart in a firestorm. I swapped divorce lawyers and financial advisors with friends with whom I once swapped outfits. A meteor called COVID crashed into New York.

“Cuomo wants to close New York. He’s going to close the bridges and tunnels,” I heard from an insider at the NYPD. “Out now.”

In less than 24 hours, my youngest, her dog and I drove west. I saw the GW Bridge disappear in my rearview mirror as we drove into my hometown. This spring and early summer in Wisconsin, we hosted COVID cocktail parties on my mother’s lawn and ate old-fashioned takeout fish fries and brandy with cousins ​​and neighbors on Friday nights.

And then we returned to a New York that looked, to me, braver than it had since 9/11. I had to put the triplex my ex and I still owned on the market. I got an offer in a few weeks. And then the cooperative board changed the requirements for buyers. Repeated. I was angry. Really, New York?

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Finally, the divorce was over, the home was sold, and the COVID-19 illness was subsiding, and I was ready to begin my next chapter. Suddenly bumps appeared on my neck. The endocrinologist who had been biopsiing suspicious nodules on my thyroid for years couldn’t see me. Thank you, New York, I thought bitterly. I found new doctors. I had an operation.

“You have cancer,” the surgeon said. And she gave me an expression. “Stage 4,” I read. “Average survival rate of 6 months.”

There was a sentence of hope. “There are long-term survivors.” I have chosen to be one of them. And I’ve told everyone I trust about a password-protected blog. I shared it with family and friends, many in my hometown.

And one of my first blog posts? “Sayonara New York,” I wrote. “It’s over, baby. We’re done.”

And I left New York and went straight to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. My friends responded with heart emojis, love, encouragement and kindness.

I had a second operation. I wrote about my surgeon wearing the biggest, fanciest pair of cowboy boots. I had ever seen it. I was writing about my radiation team and the way Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” was playing when I got shocked. And the whole time, friends and family were cheering me on. “You are a warrior!” “This cancer has no chance.” And: “I love you because.”

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After five weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, my children rang the bells with me. And then we all flew home for Thanksgiving. Home meant Wisconsin. Not New York.

I started immunotherapy and then Car-T cell treatment. Two years after this diagnosis, I published my memoirs. I’ve written about everything: New York, love, marriage, heartbreak. And this diagnosis.

A member of my hometown library board, a second cousin twice removed who had been a year ahead of me in high school, asked, “Would you read your book in the library?”

“Are you kidding?” I said. I learned to read in this library. I had finished my memoirs in this library. The fines I paid for overdue books helped fund an expansion of this library!

The evening of the reading approached. Temperatures have been below zero for a week. A foot of snow covered the ground. Who the hell would get up on a night like this? I thought. “Drinks at Cork and Barrel after the reading!” I posted on Facebook. Maybe the thought of an old fashioned brandy will get a few people to come out.

On the evening of the reading I drove to the library. Snowdrifts piled up. A strong wind was blowing. I ran from my rental car to the library, tears in my eyes from the cold. As I ran, I noticed something. The street is lined with cars.

The librarians had filled a room with chairs. They were full. The librarians brought out more chairs to fill an adjacent room. They filled up. And some people still had to stand. My friends from kindergarten, some of my teachers, friends from the street I grew up on, from my mother’s church, cousins ​​and an old friend. On that bitter winter night, someone from almost every walk of my life showed up in my hometown. For me.

I looked at all the faces I knew so well and had known for so long. And in that moment I realized that my hometown is my being, it has shaped me. And when New York almost killed me, my hometown saved me. It always will be.

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Kate Rice is a lifestyle writer, author of Your Tango and author of Cured: Defeating Stage 4 Cancer and the Culture That Caused It. She lives in Park City, Utah, where she is a ski instructor and rock ‘n’ roll radio DJ.