March 19, 2008

The Hat

I was standing there just waiting for the crosstown bus in the rain. Today was a cold and rainy morning during the rush to get to work, and I understand, I do, how people here only ever, (and usually only can) think of themselves. I have to get to the office. I have to catch that train. I have to get into that restaurant on Friday night. I have to get those shoes. I have to get tickets to see that play. I have to I have to I have to.

That’s one of the things that drives me crazy about New York - so many people with so many different wants and needs all on one little island all intersecting all the time, that it makes it difficult sometimes to feel like you belong, always leaving you to wonder: where do I fit in?

I was standing there just waiting for the crosstown bus in the rain under one of the construction overhangs (that are everywhere in the city) making for a nice break from having to use an umbrella (all of mine are maimed anyway, broken and open with crooked metal veins). Yet there on the Upper East Side was a woman who was determined in her early morning I have to, to push past me with her umbrella wide open regardless, unaware of anyone but seemingly herself. She clipped the edge of her Burberry umbrella against my head as she blew by, the pointy edge catching my knit winter white hat (my favorite white one with the flower on the side that I usually never let myself wear because it’s too nice) taking it with her, right off my head as she passed.

I watched, startled, as she began to walk away with it swinging, almost suspended in the air by her shoulder. I opened my mouth to speak, to yell (I was furious), but nothing came out. Did that really just happen? Truth is I had a feeling it was going to happen. I could sense her walking towards me the way you can sense a winter snowstorm just before it’s about to break. But I didn’t move. I made the conscious decision to stand my ground because surely, right there on that large sidewalk, she had more than enough room to pass leaving me unscathed. Surely in all the city I can still at least stand in one place, I can still have one small piece of sidewalk, one mere bit of pavement to myself, even if just for a few minutes, that’s unobstructedly my own.

The anger of realizing that no space in New York is ever really just your own, made my finally say, "Excuse me!" in a voice much stronger than I was expecting. At the sound the woman then stopped and noticed the unfamiliar small white object that had now dropped to her shoulder and rested there peacefully. The other people all waiting for the bus watched as this whole little tableau began to unfold, and I wondered what they were thinking as she stopped, confused, and turned to me, "But this isn’t mine!" she shouted in disgust. And with one quick sweeping motion she flung the hat from her shoulder with an abrupt flick of her wrist. I watched unmoving as my little white hat with the flower on the side that I never usually let myself wear, flew in slow motion through the air until it fell into a puddle on the side of the road.

My eyes drifted from the hat on the ground to the woman (she still didn’t understand, her cheeks red with confusion now, her eyes still shouting I have to I havetoIhaveto) and for a moment I couldn’t move. The look on my face must have been what made her stop and not simply keep on walking, must have been what made her stand there (along with everyone else), watching and waiting while I suppressed the overwhelming feeling that was pushing its way up around my heart -the feeling that somehow everything, no matter how much you try to protect it, always ends up getting tainted, ruined, taken away from you against your will. "I know," I said, pained as I walked over to the hat, now soaking and dirty, and slowly bent down and picked it up before looking her in the eyes. "It’s mine."

March 18, 2008

Set Theory.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s a bad thing when you recognize as you’re standing at the corner of a certain place in your life, that at one point in the past you’ve stood there before in a way you never can again.

I was at the corner of 68th and Lexington on the way to work, pushing through the morning crowd all hunkered down in a silent hurried rush, and for a brief moment my eye caught sight of the grey pavement of the sidewalk littered with old gum, the newsstands of The Village Voice (on Wednesdays) The Onion (that I never read) and AM New York, and I saw myself and how I’d stood at that corner near the street sign at past moments in my life that I can never get back again.

The paths of our lives keep stretching out in front of us at different dimensions in so many different places and cities -that at one point, at some point, they have to eventually intersect and catch up with us (even on a Tuesday morning during rush-hour).

Because I’ve stood on 68th and Lexington waiting to cross the street feeling that naive newly-arrived-Manhattan feeling that I can never get back after so many days of dealing with the harshness of its reality. I’ve stood there being heartbroken over a love that’s long since faded. I’ve stood there with people who at one time were a strong presence in my life but no longer are, along with those I still can’t fully accept that I’ll never see again. And yet, the corner remains.

It is perhaps at the fastest moving moments of our lives that we can’t help but reach out to try to make sense of things, to try to find the right angles at which to see the world. Most intersections of life don’t make much sense as it’s in a state of constant flux. Like the woman who was interviewed on NY1 on Saturday having left her apartment on 51st and 2nd just moments before the crane fell and crushed the building, killing many nearby. I was just there, she uttered in shocked disbelief to the reporter, to the camera, to the city. I’ve lived there all my life. I’ve lost everything I have.

There are (aren’t there?) so many corners in life that hold so much of what was, that it’s hard sometimes to make sense when you walk passed them (either just in time, or a moment too late) of what will become of them in the future.

March 11, 2008

Let's stay together.

At the end of the day there’s nothing New Yorkers want more than to get home. We work late nights, long hours, and suddenly our days are gone before we even had a chance to notice. So when we’re on the subway half asleep we’re not really focusing on the article we’re reading in the latest issue of The New Yorker (is Michael Chabon right? Are superhero’s costumes overrated?) -we’re dreaming of the feeling that will come when we finally put our heads down on our pillows.

I was on the uptown 6 train on my way home tonight, staring at my reflection in the window because I was too tired to pretend to read as we sped from 42nd to 59th. When you’re not pretending to read on the subway you’ve really got nothing else to do but look at other people. And the more you try not to look at other people the more you think about how you have nowhere else to look. I spent one too many times trying not to look at the pinstripe suit who was standing with his back against the door holding a faded leather briefcase, that I think I ended up looking at him more than I should have. What can I say, he was cute.

Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing else we can really do in New York but force moments with strangers in the hope that perhaps that one of them will reach out and ask for our numbers in that great New-York-romantic-moment you only see in the movies. Sure you realize after a while it’s ridiculous, but what else are you supposed to do when you’re bored on the subway? And let’s admit it, sometimes even the most independently single can become inwardly desperate.

But the whole point is that when the doors opened at 59th street a man got on the train with his guitar hoping for some late dinner money and announced he was going to play a song. When the first lines of Al Green’s "Let’s Stay Together" started to come out of his mouth I burst out laughing. It was automatic because it was so ridiculous, because such an intimate sounding song with all of us half asleep workaholics forcing moments with each other or staring at the floor - who could help but laugh when he, in his fedora and out of tune guitar cooed the opening sultry words "I’m. I’m so in love with you. Whatever you want to do. Is alright with me."

Fortunately I was the next stop and fled because, as always seems to happen at the most inopportune moments, once I started laughing I had a hard time stopping. I smiled on my way out (just missing the last verse) to the suit, who smiled back in a very you’re-ridiculous sort of way and not in the let’s-grab-dinner-on-Friday-night way I’d been secretly hoping for.

Another New York moment gone in a flash, sure, but it’s always nice to know that even when times are good or bad, happy or sad -you can’t help but want to stay together with the only city in the world that refuses to give you anything but an ordinary Tuesday night.

March 7, 2008

Get Home Safe. (and remember to look both ways).

I realize that you can stay in one place long enough that you start to forget that your life is actually happening to you. Tonight I was standing on the street corner in the rain, the one that I cross every day to get home, and as the rain poured down I could barely see through the flood that passed in front of beaming cab headlights and bounced off the pavement. As my coat officially became soaked through (and I cursed myself for not having an umbrella), I actually had to remind myself that I was standing there.

I got lost in the city (it’s easy to), waiting for lights to change and cars to stop passing and for the white walk sign to flash telling me it was okay to proceed. I got lost in the sea of black umbrellas (they’re all black in New York) and the white fog the escaped everyone’s mouths from the cold and seeped up through the sewer drains and took hold of our feet.

That’s the thing: living here becomes automatic, just like breathing, and sometimes we can forget that we’re doing it. On the uptown E train coming home from work (give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...) I stood holding the handle under the yellow-fading lights and I saw the distant faces and recognized myself in them. Here we are, every day all breathing the same air, looking into the same nothingness, waiting, waiting, waiting for something (I still don’t know), and forgetting why we’re doing it.

Because even static things can spin fast beside you, spitting you out as it did me on the corner of 72nd street wondering for a moment how I got there. The familiar can become foreign sometimes, creatures of habit who crave repetition and routine for a sense of comfort in an overwhelmingly off-kilter world, we are sometimes jolted by something (the sound of an early March downpour?) that forces us to open our eyes.

March 5, 2008

New York is bleeding me dry.

I know that we pay a high fee to live here (both monetary and emotionally) but this is getting ridiculous. Is there any other city in the world where people have better jobs and are still struggling just to get by? Every week it’s another twenty some odd dollars disappearing for groceries that aren’t eaten, late bills, superfluous drinks, late-night cabs, bad movies, small dinners and impossible-to-see-it-all-anyway-museums.

After two years of living here I don’t know where all those twenty some odd dollars have disappeared to, all in their small way contributing to my life here, all paying for things to keep reminding me why I stay. Because money buys us memories, (doesn’t it?) it’s just tough when you recognize that you might not be able to afford (especially after rent) to go out and make too many more.

March 3, 2008

live from new york...

There’s perhaps nothing that epitomizes New York more than the Saturday Night Live institution. People all over the country can tune in and watch through the opening cast montage scenes from a fast-paced and blurry-lit city that is true to reality. And while everyone watches SNL on television, few people actually go, especially New Yorkers. We understand that there is a huge discrepancy between the New York that is portrayed on the screen and the New York that we see outside of our windows on a daily basis.

But just this once, as the opportunity presented itself, I went to Rockefeller Center and took the elevator up to the SNL studios and walked the halls lined with framed still photographs from episodes gone by. Like most things you only ever seen on television – actually being there was a bit surreal, and the same disclaimer always applies: everything is smaller in real life.


It was interesting to be there of course, seated a few seats from New York newsman Brian Williams (is he always in a navy blazer?), watching New York politicians Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani take their turns at making fun of themselves. I laughed when things were funny, applauded when the bright flashing signs told me to, and complied eagerly when invited to the after-party.

The funny thing about New York is that we’re all here trying to make something of ourselves, while at the same time being surrounded by people who already have. So when I saw one John Krasinski of The Office fame standing in the corner in a back hat eating copious amount of sliders from one of the tables without barely taking a chance to swallow, I went up to say hello. Because it’s always good, almost necessary even, to reach out to people you admire (and who you may or may not have an entirely huge crush on) in order to experience a change in perspective. So I told him I was a fan and when he shook my hand and asked me my name, I told him. His response of "my name is John" made me laugh. Yeah, I know, I wanted to say. Your picture is on my fridge.

I talked to him and Colin Hanks (would it have been rude to tell him that I think his father the Jimmy Stewart of this generation?) who told me how much he loved New York but said he didn’t like it when it gets to be so cold out. And SNL cast member Bill Hader told me how much he loves New York too, and agreed that the studio itself is really small in real life, and how its television-to-reality-ratio still surprises him. It’s a strange thing talking to people you feel like you know when they don’t know you at all - the city itself is our only common bond.

But that’s the thing about New York, we are all trying to make something of ourselves, trying to find our place, and perhaps that’s why we admire the people we see on our television screens to begin with - because they’ve all already accomplished what they want to do while we're all still struggling. So it’s good to be able to see it up close and personal in order to remember that anything really can happen in a city where everything is possible - even if at the end of the night you do take a cab back home to your real life, with the inevitability that next Saturday, you’ll be watching from home.