Josie Cox

If Donald Trump wants to make Canada the 51st state, I suspect it’s for the wrong reasons. I just got back from a family holiday. We started in Vancouver, then drove to Whistler, before flying to Calgary and taking the Trans-Canada Highway – past places with names like Bearspaw and Dead Man’s Flats – into the Canadian Rockies and Banff National Park. I was telling a friend about the trip a few days ago and actually welled up when I was describing the deep azure hue of Lake Louise; the vastness of the forests and the astonishing beauty of the wildlife – from chipmunks to grizzlies – that seems to co-exist peacefully with the comparatively tiny human population. It was nature on a scale that made human beings feel refreshingly incidental.

It’s a big week in my household. My London-born, New York City-raised eight-year-old is taking an initial tentative step into the glorious, promise-filled world of American capitalism: she’s setting up her first lemonade stand. If you’re not American, or you haven’t spent much time here, you may be wondering why I’m announcing this with the fanfare of an Ivy League acceptance letter. And sure, perhaps it’s evidence that I’m slowly morphing into the Type A Manhattan parent I so like to mock. But also: the lemonade stand occupies a somewhat mythical space in American culture. As well as a way for children to earn a few dollars during the summer holidays, it’s a rite of passage.

Earlier this year, a poll conducted by the University of Massachusetts and the market research firm YouGov found that 70 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of Dolly Parton, with just 5 percent expressing an unfavorable opinion. That makes the blonde phenom America’s most broadly liked public figure. In other words: old or young, Democrat or Republican, woman or man, black or white – chances are, if you’re American, you like Dolly Parton. Until recently, I was convinced the Knicks were to New York what the 11-time Grammy winner is to the whole country: the last remaining bastion of common ground. Everyone, I thought, had at least a soft spot for the Knicks. But now, though, I’m reconsidering.

Here in the US, Memorial Day – which falls on the last Monday in May – is, officially, an occasion for mourning and honoring military personnel who have given their lives in service to this great country. Unofficially, it is an occasion for charred hot dogs, 24-packs of Bud Light and nationalistic merchandising usually confined to airport gift shops. In our household, however, Memorial Day marks something different entirely. It’s the day we make our annual pilgrimage into the heart of consumer capitalism: a Walmart in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. By now you might know that I live in Manhattan. You might, therefore, be wondering why exactly we’ve adopted this strange ritual, necessarily involving a rental car and gridlocked traffic on the George Washington Bridge.

On one of the first warm Saturdays of this year, hundreds of New Yorkers flocked to the popular High Line, the railway-turned-public park that extends over 22 blocks of Manhattan, to bid farewell to a T-Rex-sized pigeon. The pigeon, cast out of aluminum and named “Dinosaur,” had been a resident of its elevated perch since 2024. As so many New Yorkers will tell you, though, part of what’s magical about living in this city is that the experience is often transient. In the words of Baz Luhrmann, you should “leave before it makes you hard.” There’s nothing worse than a hard pigeon and so it was that on that glorious day last month, I joined throngs of people eager to get one last look at the monstrous, departing bird.

Before moving to New York City, I had a particular vision of what my life as a writer in this fabled land of opportunity would look like. I’d wear sleek, black turtlenecks and skinny jeans. I’d go to diners and eat bagels. I’d defy the caloric calculus and stay svelte. I’d write at my window like Carrie Bradshaw, getting paid at least $2.50 per word. I’d go to book parties and stroll through the West Village, occasionally bumping into a semi-famous friend. We’d spontaneously drink wine. Perhaps most importantly, I’d have an excellent therapist – someone who had many leather-bound books, a calm and reassuring presence that could effortlessly calibrate my mental state. He’d look a bit like Wallace Shawn or maybe Barbra Streisand.

I probably sound naive, but February always struck me as a month that should be full of hope – brimming with the type of optimism that comes from new beginnings. At least here in New York, though, it was grim. Everything feels more expensive. Everyone’s temper seems as short as the blink-and-you’ll-miss-them daylight hours. And then there’s the weather. The streets are flanked like an Arctic military checkpoint by car-sized mounds of calcified brown snow. The kind of snow that has visible layers, like a geological cross-section of urban neglect. The kind that has already gobbled up who knows how many small dogs. The wind is so ferocious, it makes that chemical skin peel you’ve been targeted for on Instagram look pleasant. New York does sleep. And thank goodness it does.

Over the past few years, I’ve written regularly for this magazine about my devotion to New York City. I love the cultish exercise classes that test your psychological mettle and the cryptic linguistic idiosyncrasies of the people you meet here. I love the know-it-all doormen – the actual kings of Gotham – and that any day, a celebrity might move in next door. I love that this is home to the world’s most audacious rats and, yes, I love Staten Island – proof that my affection extends beyond accepted social norms. Only here would someone say ‘I named a roach after you’ and consider it a heartfelt gesture of affection When a recent email landed in my inbox, though, it ignited a whole new appreciation for this brazen metropolis.

A few weeks before the end of the year, I was invited to a house party at which I had the misfortune of becoming embroiled in a conversation with a man I’ll call Joe, because his name was Joe and I don’t feel inclined to offer him the dignity of a pseudonym. There’s a theory I’ve corroborated since moving to New York in 2020. Every conversation at a party in this city eventually gravitates toward one of five subjects: traffic, the weather, real estate, sex or the mayor. The ultra-rich are among the subway’s most devoted riders Joe told me he works in finance (which he pronounced “fin-ants”) and it seemed he wasn’t bothered about the weather. He wasn’t a tax-optimizing Connecticut commuter, so had no unsolicited opinions to share about traffic.

In some ways, it feels like I stepped off the plane at JFK from London mere days ago – wide-eyed, naive and still convinced that “winter” would be charming and cozy rather than a six-month endurance test in avoiding frostbite. Yet here I am, somehow entering my sixth year of participating in the annual pageant that is the New York holiday season: that weeks-long spectacle beginning with the first delicate whiff of PSL-something and ending in the far-too-slowly receding hangover on an insultingly arctic New Year’s Day. The first year, Covid-tinted and therefore emotionally reminiscent of a half-deflated Macy’s parade balloon, was not what one might call festive. But things have really picked up since.