You Can’t Go Home Again

Family tragedy brings a newly minted Texan back to New York, where he finds a city moving on without him, even as it stays the same.

Illustrations by Sally Madden

I moved to Austin, Texas, about nine months ago. I’d lived in the Tri-State area my entire life, worked in Manhattan the last six of those years, and decided I was ready for something new. I never knew it before I moved, but Texas turns out to be a great social litmus test. You can gauge a person’s overall lean—on anything from income tax to land conservation—based on their reaction to the fact that yes, I moved from New York City to Texas. The conversation usually goes one of two ways:

Scenario 1:

Person: What are you up to now?

Me: I moved to Austin, Texas.

Person: Oh, Texas? That must be a big adjustment, huh?

Scenario 2:

Person: What are you up to now?

Me: I moved to Austin, Texas.

Person: Oh, Texas! I’ve been to Dallas on business, I loved it.

(Note, in both cases there’s a good chance the weather will come up, but it almost never has anything to do with the overall sentiment.)

The difference is subtle, but the two variations have wildly different implications.…