different cities, different lives

And there I was, me, playing tour guide in a city I barely know. How can someone know a city so large in only eight months? How can someone ever really know a city at all? It’s always changing and with that comes the inability to really get comfortable. Because as soon as you do it’s another favorite bar that goes out of business or restaurant that relocates, leaving you lost and alone, making your way out again into the fray to forge ahead in an attempt to recreate your life.

And there I was, me, playing tour guide in a city I’m learning to love, to my friends. They’ve been left behind in different cities, in different lives, and when they came to visit I wondered how it is that I’ve been managing all this time on my own.

And there I was, me, playing tour guide in a city that has become my home, realizing that the street corners grow on you and change (as does a city) from daylight to dusk, from walking past at 2AM drunk to 2PM sober. They incorporate themselves into your life like the mundane chores of breathing and eating and this is how you come to know them. This is how 72nd street becomes your life and how you find the man who works at the 24 store on the corner (Kevin) giving you life advice at 3AM.

It changes, life (and the city) like the array of smells that hits you from one block to the next. And then suddenly it’s 48 hours later and your friends have to leave, back to their different cities and different lives and you take comfort in the fact that you’re building something here, in the ever-changing city that surrounds you.