new eyes

"It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky."
-- (Here Is New York) E.B. White

I read this quote while browsing in Shakespeare & Co., at this point I had sore legs from walking, feeling overstimulated and visually drunk (too much to see).

I always return from an adventure feeling permanently changed. There are the obvious shifts in perception one gets from wandering in a different place, but I'm talking about something different. As if the journey has taught us something new and we will not ever be the same person because of it. Can this occur in six days? I think so.

So many things to write about.

New York is humbling, grand, grandiose, stimulating, draining, inspiring, beautiful, ugly, overpopulated, full of life, exciting, fearless, fear-ridden, magnificent, mesmerizing, magical and hopeful. How does one ever stand out in the constant sea of people? It is a city where one must fight to survive, fight to exist, fight to get a seat in a cafe, fight to find a bathroom to relieve oneself. (I know now why americans refer to them as "restrooms", it is the only place to have some time to yourself.) How much time one spends waiting for anything, standing in line makes up for a large chunk of the day. But this is all a part of the experience of it, this fight to exist. (If you are not 'destroyed' by it all, as E.B. White suggests.)

Being in New York leaves one feeling awed by human nature. All of our qualities and traits are represented there in full color, (at all times of the day). I would argue that time does not exist there, (relating to the cliche 'the city that never sleeps'). I marveled at this fact watching a tiny six year old girl sleeping on the subway next to her mother at 1 in the morning, head tilting unconciously onto a strangers shoulder, eyelids drooping. My conservative Canadian brain screamed, "What is this child doing up at this time of day? Get her to bed, somebody please!!!" Her mother was actively reading what appeared to be a textbook, and I invented my own story of her life, that she was working two jobs and going to school and had to pick her daughter up late at night from the babysitter to ride the subway home to the Bronx, meals were consumed in transit and rarely warm. Survival. How different it is from my own experience, in my world young children go to bed at 7pm after hot meal and a bath, maybe a bedtime story.

The city with a million stories.

(more to come, time for a walk in the woods.)

Posted by kerismith at March 03, 2005 09:32 AM