on places

I’ve been thinking a lot about how where we are impacts us. It makes sense considering I am in the midst of moving, but I have also always held a belief that everyone is comprised in little parts and pieces of all the places they have ever been and all of the people they have ever met. My heart map has a huge space for New York City at the moment.

New York is ubiquitously idealized. This is ingrained in our culture-specifically through film and TV. That bug bit me too. I dreamed of a life where I could have Breakfast at Tiffany’s and be glamorously dressed just because I am going out of the house. And has my life been that technicolor the past year? No, but it has still been so incredibly wonderful. It has actually been really hard; living in New York is hard but also extremely gratifying. You must get intimate with the city: which corner is your laundromat, where do you stop for an SOS cup of coffee when running late to work, what is the best alternative route to get downtown if the train isn’t running? You must get familiar with your neighborhood and with the ecosystem of the city itself or you will get lost in it (or end up rotting away in your apartment).

I think this closeness that must exist with your surroundings is what makes New York feel like a little piece of it is owned by so many people. It is a city of transplants, the pinnacle of the American Dream, “if you can make it here you can make it anywhere.” So much so that there’s a 10 year rule of living to establish yourself a “true New Yorker.” I think about my hometown and how generations of families live there and continually come back to pass on the tradition. Although, there are born and bred New Yorkers with this same story, the expansiveness of the 5 boroughs and the constant influx and outflow of people make this structure feel like less of the norm. Hell, I feel like New York is a little bit mine and I only lived there a year. That is what makes the magic of this place, the fleeting idea that you have left a minuscule imprint on a city where so many people dream to be.