When I was younger I thought of New York as the coldest place in the world. Cold in the sense that I felt alone. I thought that girls with fluffy bangs and shiny and loud polish on fake nails wearing short skirts filled the streets of New York. I thought of it as stale - like everything smelled like burnt coffee and appeared a tinge more orange than the rest of the world. I imagined New York to be a place I would want to see maybe once or twice, and then I thought I'd never really want to see it again.
Coming here was invigorating. Walking outside of my apartment building there are people of every race filling 34th Street - some business men, some hipsters, some poor, some rich, some working, some unemployed, some tourists, some who know nothing besides the city, some fat, some skinny.
There's no way I would ever want to give up the chance I have here, but when I walked back to the Empire State building today from the train, I realized that New York is as cold as I had originally thought.
If I were to live here I would have to have a true safety net of friends. I would still only talk to eight or nine people on a regular basis, and I would have to look at my phone, iPod, or newspaper on the subway (today I read The Thorn on the train). I smiled at a business woman today, and she didn't even notice.
New Yorkers aren't mean, but they are terse. They get where they need to go and make no time for laggers. I want to savor life a little more.
If I don't savor moments, life becomes an orange blur filled with exhausted days running on possibly burnt coffee.
that's Manhattan, and mid-town to boot... will you get a chance to visit other boroughs? they're worth it, and not quite so terse.
ReplyDeletewell captured and told, Adrienne :)