I never had a house until six years ago when Ed and I moved to Florida. It just never occurred to me that I would ever own a house, expecting always that I would live in an apartment. At the most, perhaps, I thought I might, if I came into money, own a condo in a New York City building, preferably on the upper West Side. The Upper East Side is where the old money is, and that is fine if you can stand the people who have it. Through my business associations I met many of them. Mostly they are not fun.

Not having a house was all right with me. I love the city. When I say “the city”, I always mean New York. New Yorkers always mean New York. No matter where we are, “the city” is Manhattan.

Sophie, my beloved teacher and friend, who died in November at 99, lived on her own until just about 3 years ago, when home health aides moved in to take care of her. And how she hated that. She was on West End Avenue near Lincoln Center, with a view of the Hudson from her 22nd floor apartment.

Sophie couldn’t understand why I would move to Florida. The city was her lifeline even as she aged. She volunteered at a soup kitchen, she traveled on busses or walked everywhere, even in her early 90s. Nothing daunted her.

The television program, New York One, did a feature on her as New Yorker of the Week about 5 years ago. They focused on her volunteering and her age and practically ignored her credentials as one of the most gifted musicians and teachers of the era of golden age musicians. I thought their focus did not do them credit

If Ed and I had an apartment near Lincoln Center instead of out in Queens, you couldn’t have pried us away from New York with a crowbar. Living in Forest Hills was nice enough, but doing stuff that counted meant going to Manhattan. The subway was a drain, changing trains, navigating stairs, enduring the noise and crowds and dirt and heat – the cars were air conditioned, not the platforms. If you are carrying stuff, which I always did, then it is a feat of endurance and strength. And you don’t always get a seat.

In any case, I was thinking of house vs. apartment. It doesn’t really matter. I love our house, but I would easily trade spectacular views and big water for the intellectual life and city energy I left behind. But the physical effort was getting to be too much.

One afternoon a couple of years ago, I found myself in conversation with our neighbor and his fiancé going on 10 years (people don’t seem to get married these days.) Tammy is in her early 50s, looks younger and is tall and blonde. A princess, if I may say so. She drives a yellow convertible sports car. I may kill her. She and another woman were talking about how old they were when each got “my first house”. They spoke of it as if it were some kind of milestone, and absolutely an entitlement. Truly, I thought, I am living on an alien planet.

However, and the acquisitive me rears its little head, if it were a house such as those I saw in Naples last weekend, I might reconsider. We are talking 10,000-15,000 sq. feet on the beach, cute little steps going down to the sand, view of the Gulf from a zillion windows, average price $22 million. Oh, well. Nancy, our tour guide (wife of Ed’s cousin) said she wouldn’t want to clean all those rooms. Nancy, kukla, I said if you could afford that house, you would have maids. Am I right or what?

xx, Teal