He'd forgotten, during his years on the road.

He'd gotten used to living day-to-day. Interview, concert, club, hotel, travel, repeat. One thing after another, one thing at a time, in steady succession.

He'd forgotten that it wasn't really like that, that things come at you in a jumble, all at once, and you have to pick the threads apart to make them untangle.

New York never lets him forget.

When he was in Florida, or on tour, or wherever, it all seemed so simple. Slow and steady and he was ready for it all. But it wasn't enough, somehow. He wanted more.

He wanted a car honking in the early morning, for no reason, pulling him out of sleep. He wanted lights that stayed on all night, flashing red neon through his bathroom window. He wanted subway cars crammed with people, not one of whom knew his name -- or admitted to it, anyway. He wanted a Sunday paper so full they gave him half on Saturday, just so he could read it all. He wanted a dirty river on either side, and clean mountains up above, and somehow he'd forgotten just how much the City really held him.

It was in his blood, his mother said, and he knows, now, what she meant.

Because when the planes hit, and it all came crashing down, his first thought was not "Thank God I'm safe, thank God my loved ones are alright," but rather, "How could I not have been there?"

He's there now, months later. He takes his daughter to Central Park, to the Bronx zoo and Yankee Stadium, to the plaque where Ebbet's Field used to be, and the Met and the MoMA and the Natural History Museum. To the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty, and ground zero. He drives down to Jersey, just so he can show her the skyline, and where the buildings are missing.

She won't remember, of course, not consciously. But he's feeding it to her, just like milk and cookies, filling her with the city that never lets him go.

He knows, because it's his blood in her veins, and New York's blood in his.

She'll grow up in Orlando, just like he did, go to school there, maybe live there all her life.

But New York will always be home.