Comparing my home state with New York

To contact The Ionian’s Dana Ruby, email her at druby1@ gaels.iona.edu.

Dana Ruby Editor-in-Chief

Two questions I still get asked—even though I’m a senior—are “You’re from Colorado?” immediately followed by, “How did you find Iona?” I wish that I had a more interesting response, but I am always happy to answer: I wanted a small school, to live near a big city and this school had my major. After moving to New York I quickly found that I loved living in both states, and over the years I have discovered how wonderfully different they are. Here are a few differences I have picked up on…

1. The landscape!

In Colorado, I grew up seeing the Rocky Mountains to the West and wide, open plains everywhere else. Plus, there is no forest in Colorado unless you are in the mountains, and where I live, you can see buildings and neighborhoods from miles away. Thus, when I moved to New York and discovered that there was a thing actually called “the woods” in places other than the mountains, and that more often than not there are neighborhoods and suburbs located in the woods, my mind was blown. Needless to say, because there are trees everywhere here, I have fallen in love with how beautiful a Northeast autumn is with all the changing leaves. Plus, being away from Colorado for months at a time makes me appreciate the mountains a lot more when I go home.

2. Heritage as part of your identity.

A question I was asked freshman year was “What generation are you?” At the time, I honestly didn’t know what that meant. Then I realized that a lot of people who live in the Northeast really connect to their heritage, and the culture that comes with that heritage played a huge part of how they grew up. While some of my friends are second-generation Italian, or 100 percent Irish, I’ve now figured out my ancestry consists of German, Scottish and Russian, and that’s only my mom’s mom’s dad’s side! I don’t know the heritage of my friends from home, and a lot of people who live in Colorado originally came from another part of the United States anyway. That said, because I wasn’t used to people making heritage a huge part of their identities, it’s been amazing learning more about the heritage of people here and how they identify with it so well.

3. The weather.

Another assumption I get a lot during the winter at Iona is “You’re from Colorado! You should be so used to this!” No, I am not. In Colorado, a coat actually makes a difference, because there is rarely any wind chill. Plus, the snow actually melts! Because Colorado is at such a high elevation, I remember parking my car in my high school parking lot covered with snow at the beginning of the day, only to come back out after my last class to see that all the snow was completely gone. While I definitely love the Northeast in the fall, I could do without the evil winter temperatures.

Living in New York has given me such a valuable perspective on how even though two places can be a part of the same country, they can be so different at the same time! It is through all of these differences—and more—that I have fallen even further in love with both New York and Colorado over the years.