Daira Jackson loved growing up in New York City. Her family lived in Queens, and she has a trove of memories from her earliest years, attending P.S. 148 and going on field trips to marquee destinations like the Bronx Zoo and Chinatown.
But when she was 8, her parents divorced and she moved to Miami with her mother and two younger sisters.
“It was so different,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Where are the skyscrapers? We need a car all the time — what?’ Everything was just different. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to get back to New York.”
It turns out you can go home again but sometimes it takes a very long time. In Ms. Jackson’s case, it was nearly 40 years before she returned.